Harvey Milk

Saturday night, Allison and I watched Milk, Gus Van Sant's amazing film about gay-rights activist Harvey Milk. I now think, even more than I did while watching the Oscars, that Slumdog Millionaire did not deserve best picture. It just did not stand up, in my mind, to the ambition and compassion of "Milk." The script, which won Best Original Screenplay, blurred what was real and what was imagined in such an intelligent way that the movie almost read like a documentary reconstruction rather than a scripted, acted work (and isn't that what we're going for when we write? Making the audience forget that this thing that they're reading or watching is a construct?), and the directing really added to that feeling by mixing footage from that time period with the actors portraying these individuals.

The best part had to be when, before the credits, they showed a short clip of Harvey Milk speaking. Sean Penn really deserved his Oscar, because based on that few seconds, it looks like he got the mannerisms, down to the really subtle facial expressions, exactly right.

I highly recommend seeing this movie if you haven't already. I was reading an interview with some editors, featured in this months "Poets and Writers," where they were talking about the question of whether a work is essential. I feel like this movie has come along at a time, with Prop 8 existing and intolerance still being so alive and well, when it is most essential.