Milk

"I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves." Harvey Milk

Milk is a daring film of the political and the personal issues of gay rights and partly a documentary of the San Francisco gay movement of the 1970's. It focuses on the actions of America’s first open gay activist Harvey Milk who was murdered in 1978.

The film is very pro gay and is a definite protest piece for gay rights which are still relevant today despite gays being more accepted then the past there is still a lot of angst toward them. The government still does not recognise gays with the fact of gay marriage still being illegal in Australia.

Cinematographer Harris Savides, has used real footage from the error such as news reports and also recreated some of the real footage to create a very realist work. Therefore some of the footage inhabits that grainy look form the time. The fact that it is documentary style is also a realist direction. Perhaps the director wanted to tell Milk's story exactly how it was without discussing any detail, to get the issues of gay rights out to the audience. Use of on location shooting, San Francisco, also adds to the realist style as many of the events actually happened there. Audiences get a sense of place while watching the film


Crew
Director:Gus Van Sant
Writer: Jstin Lance Black
cinematographer: Harris Savides

Cast
Sean Penn - Harvey Milk
Emile Hirsch - Cleve Jones
Josh Brolin - Dan White
Diego Luna - Jack Lira
James Franco - Scott Smith
Alison Pill - Anne Kronenberg
Victor Garber - Mayor George Moscone
Denis O'Hare - State Senator John Briggs
Joseph Cross - Dick Pabich
Stephen Spinella - Rick Stokes
Lucas Grabeel - Danny Nicoletta
Brandon Boyce - Jim Rivaldo
Howard Rosenman - David Goodstein
Kelvin Yu - Michael Wong
Jeff Koons - Art Agnos