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Revolutionary Road - The New York Review of Books

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Highlighted by homo_superior

on 2009-03-07 by homo_superior

The fundamental premise of this essay - that Milk is a redemption story - is almost right. Specifically, the redemption is not that of a person, but of a movement.

For a better sense of the painful secrecy Milk endured as a closeted gay man living in a pre-Stonewall world, and of the subsequent, purposeful freedom he felt during his belated coming-out, one can turn not only to Robert Epstein and Richard Schmiechen's exceptional 1984 film, The Times of Harvey Milk (which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1985), but to the bits of documentary footage Van Sant inserts into Milk's manufactured world.

Highlighted by jrstoltz

These prefatory images, set apart from the main narrative, remain the film's clearest statement of an essential fact: for most of his life, Milk lived in terror of arrest, interrogation, and punishment.

Highlighted by jrstoltz

"In essential ways, my homosexual needs have made me a nigger," Paul Goodman wrote in his 1969 essay "Being Queer."

Highlighted by jrstoltz

One of Milk's shortcomings is that the filmmakers leave out Milk's intense and complex relationship with a number of powerful, politically active women,

Highlighted by jrstoltz

As we watch Milk run for a seat on the Board of Supervisors (between 1973 and 1976, he ran and lost three times, twice for the Board of Supervisors and once for the California State Assembly), Penn becomes less of an ensemble player, and by all appearances begins to direct himself. It's as if, denied the opportunity to play with the images as much as he'd like, Van Sant has given up playing at all.

Highlighted by jrstoltz