19 December 2008

MILK


I'm just home and recovered from the latest Sean Penn biopic, MILK, based on the political life of Harvey Milk, slain gay San Francisco politician. JEEZ! From the opening shots of the movie, my eyes filled and that sensation I was about to cry-me-a-river came to my jaws. My eyes never dried in the 2+ hours that followed.

Gus Van Sant has created a masterpiece in LGBT cinema. Indeed, US cinema. Sean Penn ... from Scott Piccoli in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH to this portrayal is amazing: this actor must rank in the top handful of artists/actors. I did not know Milk, moved to San Francisco 10 years after his assassination, but I know a bit about the City he himself came to from New York, to change his life. San Franciscans mark the assassinations of Milk and Mayor George Moscone every year with the same candlelight march you will see at the end of the movie, and I remember my first march. Quiet. Hushed. 10 years on people still shocked by the act where Our ranks were Thinned.

I feared Penn would parody Milk, mechanize a renowned, humorous, intelligent gay activist. But Penn showed no fear - NO FEAR - in portraying Milk, even to my view taking on such a range of emotions of sexual minorities - mockery, passion, heart-break, Penn hit every note, naturally. Real Professional. He did it so naturally that his first deep kiss with another male actor went almost unnoticed. He had become Harvey Milk, gay man. Angry Gay Man. "I have done the state some service and it knows it."

Van Sant spliced much archival footage of San Francisco in general and the Castro neighborhood in particular. I know that place like the back of my hand, where Harvey's camera shop used to sit, that CASTRO theatre where I took my sister to see GONE WITH THE WIND. The Underground Station where Milk mounts a crate to demand his new community respond to the official brutality of Old San Francisco. Milk's friend, Tom Ammiano appears to heckle John Briggs, who sought to fire all LGBT teachers and their supporters[!] Ammiano was not only a friend of Milk's, but also at the time was a grade-school teacher. Ammiano went on to be on the Board of Supervisors, ran for mayor, and is now in the California State Legislature. Milk's encounter with Cleve Jones, with those trademark eyeglasses, made me sob. Jones is responsible for The Quilt, which if you've never seen it you cannot know LGBT anger - that memorial of the dead.

How times and one's better efforts change!

I was mindful of how Milk followed his mission, even after age 40 it wasn't too late. Some stories DO take time to tell. Bernard Shaw was 41 when he got his first play written. Christopher Isherwood 51 when he met the love-of-his-Life. Mindful how he had to make sacrifices to follow that Life Force that drove him, even at the cost of a relationship, to fulfill his Task. It's the end of the year, time to clean our lives of people who aren't there to help and fill our cups with people who will. That is my Coming out 2009. Eleggua is already pointing me ...

I left the theatre more angry at that slim voter majority in California that passed Prop 8 and at this president-elect for taking a landslide election and making it look like a similar slim victory, especially in his horrific naming of "pastor" Rick Warren, Minister Homophobe, to speak at his inauguration. What would Harvey say? Obama's team says it's a nod to the Diversity of the Country: No, it is further evidence "Christianity" has no moral authority in the West, and, LGBT's must come out of the bars and bathhouses and smash some windows. That we are viewed still as a fringe, powerless sect, like CHILDREN. Will Obama appoint an anti-Semite to spread his filth? A Klansman's Grand Wizard? A Southern Baptist who demands wives submit to their husbands? Hell, No!! Those prejudices are beyond the pale because of the activism of those communities.

Please see this movie. And if it gets you like it did me look for THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK, a 1980's documentary about Milk. As far as Obama and his pal, Warren: I don't know what to say. Whether Obama dis-invites the Wretch or Warren backs out is immaterial. Day after Day, Obama tosses another rock at the body politic, the commonweal.