a case against milk

on the promotional poster for the new film milk, there is a statement (from the director of good will hunting) that i find particularly instructive when viewing and subsequently reviewing the film. with this one statement, the producers seem to be implying that the last decade or so, one of the most creative periods of output by any film director ever by the way, never actually happened. and while i find it insulting to forget films like paranoid park, elephant, and gerry, i think overall this might be a useful tool in breaking down the reasonings behind my lukewarm reaction to gus van sant's latest work, as this is by far the most commercial (i.e. linear, straightforward narrative) product that van sant has put forth in a long time.

the film begins with harvey milk offering up his story into a microphone as if conducting a self interview. this vehichle will serve as a framing device throughout the narrative, bookending the film and occasionally popping up in the middle to over-emphasize parts that don't really need any additional emphasis. this rather traditional narrative structure, which would seem completely out of place in recent van sant work, fits right in with a film from the "director of good will hunting." i think of the journal in paranoid park, which serves as the narrator in that film, and how it mesmerised the audience with it's seeming inability to get to the point, to the crux of the matter. with it, the film became not necessarilly suspenseful, but more questioning, more probing, as if the viewer were being taken further and further down to the film's/event's emotional core. in this film there is no real searching for the heart of the matter, as its complete lack of subtlety takes hold frame one and doesn't really allow for any self discovery. we know from word one that milk is fighting for an issue of great imporatance, an issue that the film seems more than happy to make him a figurehead of.

in the role of harvey milk, sean penn physically resembles a grocery bag attempting to keep a nuclear bombs worth of kinetic energy bottled up. this is probably due to his uncontained excitement at the prospect of another oscar nomination, but for argument's sake we will contend that this energy comes from a man that can be bound up no longer. and that is all well and good, if the film made me think for at least one minute that harvey milk was the type of guy that could ever be bound up like that. unfortunately the film does not, as it seems to rest on this idea of harvey milk, not necessarily being a character, or a man, but as a representation of a much larger thing.(in this case the gay rights movement) ultimately, i left the theater with not so much of an understanding of milk the man, but with an understanding that milk was representative of an important cause.

i think that is because the film doesn't allow harvey milk to transcend his gayness and develop into an individual who has much more to offer than just that. i mean seriously, is it too much to ask that this man be given one character trait that doesn't involve his homosexuality. and no the interspersed title cards that told me what milk stood for(seniors, education) are not the types of character shading i was looking for as they merely seem to be trying to pile stuff on to a one dimensional character.

it is funny, but on the ride home from the film, i started daydreaming about van sant making a film about the one interesting character, supervisor dan white. i thought about how incredible a film structured like paranoid park with white as the film's center would be. how his journal reading as narration would create an enormously arresting picture of a man that van sant already tends to shade as a closet case. now that would be a worm hole worth going into, as i feel that white, played brilliantly by josh brolin, was the only character allowed any sort of greater emotional depth in milk. that, and as a confused, conflicted, possible homosexual, i feel he would have fit right in with other latter day van sant protagonists, about whom more interesting fare than milk centered around.

but unfortunately for me, milk isn't really a "gus van sant film," but rather a film by the "director of good will hunting." it's sad, but there is a difference. good will hunting's director is forced by his cast, by his studio's need for awards, by an issue too big into a straightforward, kind of bland narrative structure that leads to a big, important, utterly forgettable film. milk feels like a film thats issues are "too important" to be overshadowed by the type of "great film" that van sant normally makes. it makes me wonder if all the hoopla and applause that followed my viewing were directed at the film, or at the championaing of a cause that anybody with a sembelance of intelligence can get behind. my belief is that people are cheering for championing the cause, and looking past the fact that it is a mediocre film doing it.