Milk & the “Great American Gay Movie”
Back when I was struggling with my first (never completed) novel, I first heard about the concept of the Great American Novel, something that “represents the spirit of life in the United States at the time of its writing.” The more I thought about the notion, the more I realized how elusive it was.
To be sure, some have claimed (and with good cause) that Melville’s Moby Dick and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn were each a great novel in the nineteenth century, Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath or perhaps East of Eden in the previous century.
Has there been one since? And has there been a great American movie?
I wonder.
Perhaps, in our more visual culture, with movies one of the primary media, a film would represent the spirit of a gay individual at a given age. We do seem to long for such a flick. It’s why, I believe, some gay activists got so upset (accusing the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences of “homophobia” when Brokeback Mountain) did not receive the accolades they believed it was due.
Seeing such a well-made movie draw significant attention and substantial audiences outside our community seemed a sign that we had such a film. Similarly, I think this search for a movie defining the spirit of era through an individual is why Milk was as hyped as much as it was. And to be sure, Milk, in many ways, portrays an era in the life of gay America. Does it define that era?
But, good as the movie was, it doesn’t reach the elusive heights of an all-encompassing gay movie. From what I heard about the flick before going to see it, it does seem that some of my peers saw it as such. But, it seems they were reading their hopes into as much as anything. (To be sure, it may well have been that film for them. So, maybe, in one sense, it is such a movie to those individuals at least.)
Once again, if people didn’t expect such great things from certain works of art, we might better appreciate them for what they are. Milk was a good movie, with excellent editing, set design and, above all, acting.
I doubt, however, we’ll continually return to it in years to come as people in years past have returned to Moby Dick or The Grapes of Wrath.
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Harvey Milk means nothing to me–he is not part of my subculture. He does not represent anything with which I identify, and I resent that people use him as an icon when, tragic as his story was, he was simply a slippery, slimy politician who had sex with lots o’ men. He is not a hero. I am not required to admire him simply because we share a similar orientation–though I’m not even sure of that, because my orientation is drawn toward monogamy and honesty.
There are many movies which I think depict gay relationships accurately–Women in Love, The Edge, Troy, Alexander, Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, The Lion in Winter, Wilde, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid–but I think a better could be made. A movie about Walt Whitman, Henry James, Sergius and Bacchus, St. Aelred, etc. There are many, many homosexuals in history who show the depth and fidelity of same sex love more than Milk. There was a time when the goal of homosexuality was not multiple partners and exotic behavior, but about faithful, loyal masculine love.
Comment by Ashpenaz — January 24, 2009 @ 10:45 am - January 24, 2009
I thought Milk was forgettable, not emotionally involving at all – and I suspect very strongly that the overtly-manipulative musical score was added later when producers saw what a cold film they had. Van Sant is not known for his John Williams-esque scores, and yet this film had one to let the audience know who was good, who was bad, and when to feel stirred. Dead giveaway that the movie failed at the script level. It was not about a human being but about a symbol.
Comment by Chuck — January 24, 2009 @ 3:03 pm - January 24, 2009
I thought it was educational and interesting. I wasn’t tought about Harvey Milk at all in school. I don’t think I had ever even heard of him until I was maybe 20 years old and in college. And only then did I learn of him on my own volition.
But really, any movie with James Franco in it is good in my opinion. LOL
I do think it was deserving of it’s Best Picture nod, for sure.
Comment by Erik — January 25, 2009 @ 1:19 am - January 25, 2009
Harvey Milk was forgettable.
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Comment by Karl Smith — January 25, 2009 @ 8:52 am - January 25, 2009
If you want to see a movie about the struggles of gay people, rent/buy/steal VICTIM.
www~dot~imdb~dot~com/title/tt0055597/
From the IMDB: A prominent lawyer goes after a blackmailer who threatens gay men with exposure (homosexual acts still being illegal). But he’s gay himself …
P.S. Mr. Smith’s above “comment” is nothing more than an ad.
Comment by Julie the Jarhead — January 25, 2009 @ 10:21 am - January 25, 2009
What’s to teach?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — January 26, 2009 @ 5:17 am - January 26, 2009
It was Robert Patrick, I believe, who once said that the only definition of a “gay play” is a play that sleeps with plays of the same sex. Beyond that a play is a play is a play (and a movie is a movie is a movie).
Comment by Jeremayakovka — January 26, 2009 @ 11:42 am - January 26, 2009