The Times of Harvey Milk (Rob Epstein, 1984): USA

Reviewed by William Conlin. Viewed on DVD.

As Sean Penn polishes his new Oscar statuette and California awaits its Supreme Court’s final ruling on same-sex marriage, it seems like the perfect time to take a look at Rob Epstein’s provocative biography of a slain gay rights activist and the era he lived in.

In The Times of Harvey Milk viewers are given a portrait of San Francisco in the 1970’s, where an unassuming man with a camera shop transformed himself and his friends into the most outspoken group of activists since the civil rights movement. Harvey Milk devoted the last decade of his life to promoting gay rights, continuously running for any political office that he had even a small chance of winning. It was only toward the end of the 70’s that he began to change the world, when the actions of a sick man cut Harvey Milk’s life short and left his movement without a leader when it needed him most.

For anyone who saw the 2008 Oscar winning film Milk, this movie acted as a clear blueprint for it. Both films follow the same structure and if it weren’t for Dustin Lance Black’s flair for the dramatic, Milk would simply have been a reenactment of The Times of Harvey Milk. Most people portrayed in the film Milk were still alive in 1984, so they were given the chance to tell the story of Harvey’s life themselves. Their intimate stories about Milk give the viewer a connection that makes the film even more powerful than if it were just a Ken Burns style documentary about a long dead figure.

Despite its great narration by actor Harvey Firestein and flawless direction by Rob Epstein, this film would be nothing without its star: Harvey Milk. Through archival footage, photographs and the prophetic tape recordings made just days before his assassination, Milk comes alive on screen and anyone who missed the first 10 minutes of the film could easily think he was alive when the film was made.

Harvey Milk preached about many things, but the one idea that he never let go of was hope. He said “You cannot live of hope alone but without it, life is not worth living, so you and you and you, you gotta give ‘em hope.” I find that even though his story eventually leads to his death, the viewer never lets go of that hope that Milk promotes in his speeches and seemingly carried in his pocket. I also think that in a time where the word hope has taken on a new meaning, The Times of Harvey Milk rings even truer than when it was released nearly 25 years ago. Since the first time I saw it, this has been one of my favorite documentaries and I hope that viewers can watch it and keep an open mind. If they do, they may just be surprised at how tolerant this world could be with a little understanding and hope.