SFBG. Milk.

"Would Milk, the movie, have helped defeat Prop 8?" asks San Francisco Bay Guardian editor Tim Redmond in a special issue devoted to the film and the political legacy of Harvey Milk. "Nobody knows. But the movie is inspirational, and with any luck will carry the message of Milk's life to the masses."

"Pair an effusive and extroverted, larger-than-life politico like Harvey Milk - complete with community-forging charisma, panoramic outlook, and labyrinthine City Hall machinations - with a reserved, perpetually-outside-looking-in independent, à la director Gus Van Sant?" Kimberly Chun meets the director.

Updated.

"The movie raises a lot of issues that are alive and part of San Francisco politics today," note Steven T Jones and Tim Redmond. Also, "while Milk hews pretty closely to reality, some of the people who lived through the story say a few key pieces are missing."

"And so Harvey Milk came into my office, at the start of his political career, looking like a well-meaning amateur." SFBG founder Bruce B Brugmann looks back on the five-year-long relationship between the weekly and the politician.

"People have pointed fingers until they're blue in the wrist at the various perceived missteps of the No on 8 campaign," writes Marke B. "But a campaign is only as good as its participants - if the queer community can organize a 300-city mass protest around a viral e-mail, as we did Nov 15, then why didn't Harvey's lessons on how to effect political change sink in earlier? Of course I have a theory."

"As a programming move, the Roxie Theater's decision to screen Rob Epstein's classic 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk is both a no-brainer and a bit of casual brilliance," writes Johnny Ray Huston. "It's a no-brainer because of Milk mania. It's a little stroke of genius because this great documentary's return, one week before the theatrical premiere of Gus Van Sant's feature at the Castro, provides plentiful compare-and-contrast opportunities for all those wise enough to know that they need to see both."

Updates: At the SFBG blog Pixel Vision, Marke B supplements his piece in the printed issue with an interview with artist Leo Herrara, who's been addressing Milk's iconic status in his work.

Online listening tip. Paul VanDeCarr at FilmInFocus: "'Out of the Bars and into the Streets' is an audio walking tour about Harvey Milk and the rise of gay power in 1970s San Francisco."

Posted by dwhudson at November 19, 2008 8:05 AM