Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!sdyer From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: net.movies,net.motss Subject: Re: The Times of Harvey Milk Message-ID: <1097@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Sun, 4-Nov-84 22:50:08 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.1097 Posted: Sun Nov 4 22:50:08 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 6-Nov-84 05:03:55 EST References: <1771@sun.uucp> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 31 I'd like to add my own recommendation for this documentary. Even with all its positive advance publicity, I entered the theater with a lot of scepticism--I knew little about Harvey Milk other than what I had gleaned from idle reading of the Advocate, and I was expecting to see the solemn, earnest canonization of a third-rate politico whose only claim to fame was that he was the first openly gay S.F. supervisor, and that he was tragically, killed along with Mayor George Moscone in the now-famous Dan White murder case. It was nice to have my preconceptions swept away by the power and eloquence of this movie. The documentary is a montage of archival photographs, TV footage, and repeated "talking head" interviews, arranged chronologically and narrated by Harvey Fierstein. Here, Harvey Milk emerges as a top-notch, street-smart politician: someone who not only cared about the needs of his constituents, gay, straight, elderly, and Asian, but who knew the value of working within the City Hall infrastructure and manipulating the city's media to ensure that his issues were addressed. Note the title: this is not "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk", for the central issue is not Milk himself, but the galvanizing effect his candidacy and election had upon the San Francisco community, and the tragic events of his assasination and the subsequent trial of Dan White. What happened in San Francisco in the late 70's was, for most of us, only a 3 minute segment on the evening news, or a column of newsprint. But the audience here is asked to experience the elation of Milk's election and the anger and tragedy of the subsequent events, as if for the first time. It is a cathartic experience. -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbncca.ARPA