Harvey Milk

Milk > Biography -Drama -History > 128 min >Gus Van Sant > USA > 2009 > IMDb : 7.8/10 (54,107 votes)

Milk (2008) is the story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California’s first openly gay elected official.

Director Gus Van Sant recreates San Francisco atmosphere of the 70′s years to tell us about the tragic fate of Harvey Milk, who sacrificed for his ideals.

This film is about Harvey Milk’s career from his 40th birthday to his death. After leaving in the closet in New York, he moves to San Francisco to the Castro District, opens a camera shop “that becomes the salon for San Francisco’s growing gay community, and organizes gays’ purchasing power to build political alliances”.

His lover Scott Smith will be his campaign manager. Victory finally comes on the same day Dan White wins in the city’s conservative district. ” The rest of the film sketches Milk’s relationship with White and the 1978 fight against a statewide initiative to bar gays and their supporters from public school jobs.”

“Anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager, wrote of him: “What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us.” Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.”

Harvey Bernard Milk was born on May 22, 1930, in Woodmere, New York. His grandfather, an immigrant from Lithuania, was the owner of a respected department store.

By his early teens, Milk was already aware of his homosexuality, but he chose to keep it to himself.

He developed a passion for opera and would frequently go alone to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

In 1947 Milk entered New York State College for Teachers in Albany, New York.

In spite of his lifestyle, Milk’s political and social values were conservative through the early 1960s.

As the decade progressed, however, his views gradually began to change. Milk’s new lover, Jack Galen McKinley, worked in theater, and through him Milk became involved as well. He was particularly interested in the experimental work of director Tom O’Horgan (1926).

In 1968 McKinley was hired as stage director for O’Horgan’s San Francisco production of the musical Hair. Milk decided to move with McKinley to California, where he got a job in finance.

With his ties to mainstream life now broken, Milk returned to New York and theater work. By this time he was sporting long hair and a beard, looking more or less like an aging hippie.

In 1972 he moved with his new partner, Scott Smith, back to San Francisco, where the pair opened a camera shop on Castro Street, in the heart of what was becoming the city’s gay neighborhood.

Milk entered the political arena for the first time in 1973 after being angered by the Watergate scandal. Hoping to produce change through politics, Milk decided to run for a spot on the Board of Supervisors, San Francisco’s city council. Using the gay community as his voting base, Milk sought to develop an alliance with other minorities in the city.

In 1977, on his third try, Milk was finally elected to the Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay elected official in the city’s history.

Several key themes characterized Milk’s successful campaign as well as his short career as a city official. One was his demand that government respond to the needs of individuals. Another was his ongoing emphasis on gay rights. A third theme was the fight to preserve the unique character of the city’s neighborhoods.

As city supervisor, Milk was the driving force behind the passage of a gay-rights law that prohibited discrimination, or unequal treatment, in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. At his urging, the city announced a drive to hire more gay and lesbian police officers. He also started programs that benefited minorities, workers, and the elderly. Milk then gained national attention for his role in defeating a state senate proposal that would have prohibited gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools in California.

On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor Moscone were shot to death in City Hall by Dan White (1946-1985), a former city supervisor who had quit the board to protest the passage of the city’s gay rights law. In his trial for the killings, White’s attorneys employed what came to be known as the Twinkie Defense. They claimed that the defendant had eaten so much junk food that his judgment had become impaired, or damaged, and that he had little control over his actions. White was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter, meaning he would receive the lightest sentence possible for a person who had admitted to intentionally killing someone. He served five years in prison before being paroled. On October 21, 1985, White committed suicide.

The outcome outraged homosexuals and their supporters across the United States. In San Francisco, riots erupted, resulting in hundreds of injuries, a dozen burned police cars, and about $250,000 in property damage. The following night, thousands of people flocked to Castro Street to celebrate what would have been Milk’s forty-ninth birthday.

Since his death, Milk has become a symbol for the gay community of both what has been achieved and what remains to be done. He has been immortalized in the names of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club (formerly the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club), Harvey Milk High School in New York, and San Francisco’s annual Harvey Milk Memorial Parade. In 1985 the film The Times of Harvey Milk won the Academy Award for best documentary. Ten years later, Harvey Milk, an opera co-commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, the New York City Opera, and the San Francisco Opera, opened in Houston.

Read more: Harvey Milk Biography – life, family, story, death, history, school, information, born, college, house, time, year, scandal http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-Mo/Milk-Harvey.html

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