Monday, December 08, 2008


As far as bio pics go, Milk was moving. But bio pic it was. Gus Van Sant has been playing with form for his last few films, so it was entirely possible he might have evaded the traps. He did so in the minor notes, mostly in how Harvey Milk picked up the men around him--the harmony of the movie was flirtation and seduction. But its melody was as plodding as Walk the Line. He promises his partner he'll quit after the next election, but he runs again and leaves. A fellow politician tells him he's got to offer the people hope and, in his next public speech, he's talking hope all hopefully. It's like the writers made a list of defining moments, then sat down and thought, "How are we going to foreshadow that?" Everything becomes cause and effect, warning and punishment. So many of the movie's small moments are signals for the big ones that it comes as no surprise that, just as he's about to be killed, things go into slow motion as if there's no way to over-foreshadow his death.

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