Times of Harvey Milk, The (1984)

I had never heard of Harvey Milk before seeing the documentary made by Robert Epstein. Milk took up a cause similar to other socio-political leaders who dared to challenge so-called moral convention by introducing to a wide audience a different way of life. People like Martin Luther King. Both Milk and King have had effects on the course of American history and indeed have inspired millions of people around the world. Why then did I not hear of the name Harvey Milk until I was 22?

Milk was America’s first openly gay elected official. San Francisco mayor George Moscone had divided up the city into districts allowing for neighbors at large to vote for more personal representatives, people the people could feel would do more for them. Milk was elected as City Councilman for District 5, the Castro area where an ever growing gay population was finally winning recognition and civil rights. But with the election of a gay man to public office taking the issue of homosexuality out of hushed whispers and screaming it loud inside newspapers, conservatives began proposing legislation to deny and in some cases strip Americans of their rights. While there was reason to celebrate Milk’s victory and the victory of gay people across the nation, communities in America were passing laws against gay people. The Briggs Initiative was proposed as Prop 6, a law that would fire all gay teachers from public schools in California. The reasoning behind this was that gays who want to live openly could more easily prey upon children.

The Times of Harvey Milk, created out of masterfully used archival footage and straight-forward, honest talking heads, shows a segment of a debate between Milk and Senator Briggs, cultivator of the initiative. Milk correctly points out that most pedophiles are straight males, and Briggs, apparently unfamiliar with this info gathered by several sources including the FBI, offers his reasoning for removing gays, in his estimation 5% of the population: if gay teachers were fired, than there is a 5% less chance that children would be sexually assaulted. This reasoning gets a laugh out of Harvey. Why not go ahead and remove the 95% of heterosexual teachers to totally protect the children? The thinking is ludicrous, and Prop 6 lost by a wide margin.

I think the documentary genre is suffering now more than ever. Most would disagree, and statistics would show me up: documentaries show in major art-house theaters, and in rare but evident cases they play in multiplexes across the nation. They make money, and the genre is quite popular with young film buffs... to an extent. I think it’s still a specialized genre or form of filmmaking, but when I say that documentaries are suffering I’m talking about the art of the medium. This is why The Times of Harvey Milk works so well. Most modern documentaries feel, look and sound like reality shows. They have a central character, often the filmmaker, taking up a task and accomplishing it with a camera in tow. They usually provide narration explaining what’s happening on screen. Often the interview segments are cut together so that the subjects form complete but superficial thoughts through the splicing together of many sound bites, and wall-to-wall music is laid in to I guess keep the audience awake, and this music is poorly chosen and repetitive.

The Times of Harvey Milk is relatively quiet, eloquently photographed, and it features subjects with insights and personalities, and the filmmaker brings them out fully formed characters. And director / editor Epstein lets these people speak. Some of them break down when talking of Harvey’s death and San Francisco’s reaction. Epstein isn’t a cheat; he doesn’t go for extreme close-ups of their eyes or their hands fiddling with a handkerchief, or even worse out of focus shots of completely uninvolving objects around the room. He lets us watch their faces, see the rage and pain of Harvey’s death, the joys that accompanied his many accomplishments, and their fondness for the man. And again they all speak so brilliantly. A labor union leader who admits to before having known Harvey having somewhat anti-gay tendencies goes through a complete story arc. He reveals that because of his association with Harvey through their like-minded political views he is in favor of gay rights.

I hate to be personal beyond my opinion, but with documentaries like The Times of Harvey Milk it seems impossible to disassociate myself from the story I have seen. I came out around the time I first saw the documentary in a college class... maybe a year earlier. It’s been so long I can’t remember now. When I was watching the film I couldn’t believe that this man, Harvey Milk, who accomplished a lot in a short career, has, since his death, been ignored by the mainstream media. He is certainly not forgotten; not in San Francisco where he was assassinated by a colleague: a statue has been erected of him. And indeed Milk’s name is not buried under the rubble of history. The problem is people have to search for him, unlike other leaders or influential persons who’ve charged their constituencies and extended themselves beyond them—history and the American population have exalted these men as exemplary, have named days after them, and their life’s work is taught in history books. But not Harvey Milk’s. Why?

The documentary is asking this question but in a larger context: if Milk were straight, would his murderer have served only 5 ½ years in prison? Would or should he have not instead been serving life?

Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were killed by Dan White, elected to office at the same time as Milk, and he is made the antagonist of the film. White is an interesting character: an idealist whose spirit is crushed by an ever-changing and degrading society, at least this was the defense’s position. White sunk into the City Hall with a loaded gun and extra bullets after resigning his position and then later wanting to recant his resignation. It is against the law for White to regain his job, and when Moscone supposedly told White he would not be reinstated White shot him, and then shot him again. He did the same to Harvey Milk: shot him to the ground, shot him three more times in the head, and then delivering one final execution shot at point blank range. It is clear who the murderer was, but the jury, supposedly a jury of straight white conservatives, a true group of Dan White’s peers, found him guilty of manslaughter, a crime that sentenced him to 8 years in prison. He was paroled after 5 ½.

The aftermath of Harvey’s death is quite spectacular: thousands took to the streets for a candlelight vigil beginning on Castro Street, where Harvey Milk lived, and it spread several blocks to City Hall. The aftermath of the jury verdict was quite different. A mob stormed City Hall, fought with police and set cars. One image I found striking was a protestor holding a sign, “Avenge Harvey Milk”. I was angry that Milk’s death meant nothing to those jurors and the millions they represent then and now in the United States, but despite it all I was depressed that this was the reaction. This violence was not what Harvey Milk campaigned for. A close friend of his says this in the documentary. And it depressed me because ultimately, at least in the short term, Harvey Milk had lost. His death inspired violence, and I was further discouraged to learn that Dan White committed suicide in 1985, a year after the documentary was released. When I first saw this film in class, many of the students felt that justice was finally served. Not I; the final chapter in this story was simply another death. What a waste.

I began this essay by referring to Harvey Milk in a more formal way by calling him “Milk”. When revising it, I noticed that half-way through I began calling him Harvey. I promise that this was unintentional. The film, I think, breaks down barriers between you or me and its subject. We get to know who Harvey Milk was, his kindnesses and tenacity, both terrific qualities in friends and public officials. We grow to love this guy through archival footage, and more importantly by how he had shaped the lives of everyone the filmmakers chose to speak with.

Why then is Harvey Milk still a relatively unknown figure? Why don’t we have a national Harvey Milk Day? Are there no politicians, gay or straight, with the balls to support such an honor? Would committing political suicide not be worth honoring the life of one man who died for making the world better for others?

Times of Harvey Milk, The (1984)

Director: Rob Epstein

Writers: Judith Coburn, Rob Epstein & Carter Wilson

Stars: Harvey Fierstein (Narrator)

USA

In English

Runtime: 90 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088275/

Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky (2008)

A film about the great Andrei Tarkovsky faces many challenges.  The man’s work was so unique, so specific to the individual receiving it, that any interpretation of the man would be accused of discriminating against, say, my interpretation.  I don’t want to have to say this but in the context of the documentary Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky I feel that I must: I am not religious.  I was raised Catholic but religion, superstition, science-fiction, and magic hold equal value for me.  All are man-made concepts.  With this perspective I have still loved Tarkovsky’s films.

I think it fair to claim that director Dmitry Trakovsky finds great spirituality in Tarkovsky’s work.  Many others have too, but in claiming that Tarkovsky was a spiritual filmmaker and by reason a deeply religious man does not compute with how I have viewed Tarkovsky’s films.  He was an artist in search of acceptance in an increasingly dispassionate world that persecutes its free thinkers.  Though his movies require one’s full attention and indeed surrender, his art is very simple.  I used to think he was a complex artist, but the longer I’ve been familiar with his work the more I’ve understood that Tarkovsky asked questions and required no answers.  Answers are subjective and lead not to interpretation.  Religion is subjective; it is specific to a point of view and is not available for scrutiny.  If my assumption of Trakovsky is correct, then fine—let him make his film as he wants, but he is doing a great disservice to Tarkovsky’s reputation in context to how many view religion today here in the United States.  It’s become an ugly thing.  People get away with inflicting a great deal of pain, often violence, against others by hiding behind religion.  These people exist on the fringes, we are told, and yet are never contradicted by religious leaders.  Tarkovsky created out of humanity.  His characters, some religious, others maybe unaware of the concept, are seeking beauty and truth in art and humanity.  Often they are blinded with anger or rage or self-pity, but truth exists in an abstract form.  Truth in Tarkovsky, seldom if ever specified, is always metaphysical, not tangible.  It is never in the form of a cross.  Now, I may be confusing religion with spirituality but for me they are the same.  I felt that this documentary was made for those who love Tarkovsky and who are religious.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

This was my overwhelming reaction to the documentary, and I think it’s a valid argument.  I, someone for whom religion is non-existent, have been moved to stillness by Tarkovsky.  Andrei Rublev is spellbinding, an epic about the role of the artist figure during inhuman times.  Stalker gave me something that I think is fair to compare to a religious experience since film is my religion.  I was entranced, and if Stalker had continued for the rest of my life I would have lived a great and full existence.  Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky never allows for an agnostic or atheistic rendering of the director, and though the film doesn’t assault with religion, an all-around more broadened view would give a greater sense of the importance of this great 20^th Century artist.

The concept of the documentary is intriguing.  Director Dmitry Trakovsky tries to make sense of a quote from an artist with whom he is a kindred spirit: “Death does not exist.”  Trakovsky’s narration is a bit too academic.  It always feels as if the director is keeping his true reactions and emotions hidden, buried beneath creative metaphors.  It is college essay writing, but he hits on something very interesting in his introduction.  Trakovsky shows a couple of pictures of himself and his family from when they left Russia and came to the US.  Trakovsky was a cute kid, by the way, and this idea of searching for an artist with so much meaning in the researcher’s life is very relatable.  I myself am fascinated by the cinema of Pasolini, who actually comes up in this documentary.  His lifestyle and his way of cinema, a cinema akin to poetry, albeit a gritty, often ugly poetry, and his politics—as an Italian-American never having been to the birthplace of my parents, the notion of Pasolini is for me very romantic and palpable.  The concept of the film would seem to say less about Tarkovsky and more about Trakovsky, or at least Russia in the wake of Tarkovsky’s death.  And that would be a great documentary.  Instead, interview after interview is presented, some priceless, few others bewildering, and some of these accounts really stop the film.

I can appreciate actress Domiziana Giordano, the Botticellian beauty from Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia, even if her comments are vacuous and aimless.  She does recount something very interesting: he was a bit chauvinistic but being away from his family in Italy he adopted her as a daughter.  Better still is the interview with Andrei Andreevich Tarkovsky, the director’s son.  I was amazed that Trakovsky could locate the heir to this great director.  I sometimes forget that Tarkovsky existed in our time.  His work is so powerful it feels as if it came from an age before cinema.  Anyhow, Andrei, the son, was not allowed to leave the USSR when his parents decided to remain abroad.  The son reveals here that he was used by his government as a kind of bait to get the fugitive Tarkovsky back home.  The son defiantly says he will not return to Russia, and he now lives in Italy and France.  Though these accounts are great, 2/3 through the movie, Trakovsky himself comes to the realization that he has only been collecting inanimate testimonies.

Great documentaries document less and build impressions; it’s all the cinema can do.  Films give us a sense of life and cannot recreate it as the act of viewing a movie is a step removed from living.  Cinema is impressions; truth is aloof.  Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky fails in giving a real sense of who Tarkovsky was or what his contributions were to cinema or, in a greater context, to 20^th Century art and of his place in the great lineage of Russia’s artistic history and how the director has and will shape it.  Trakovsky interviewed too many subjects and presents too much of them.  This is why the film feels more like Trakovsky documenting.  Father Michael McCormick, an Orthodox monk living in California, is one subject too many.  His segment shuts down the film.  He mumbles about how Tarkovsky shaped his life in the church, but he comes off more as a film buff than a spiritual man.  I can understand the interest in a documentary about Tarkovsky to interview a monk but McCormick simply does not relate anything meaningful and, for that matter, cannot form a cohesive thought.

The film does open up in its final segments.  After traveling to Sweden to interview the great actor Erland Josephson, Trakovsky returns to his homeland, something Tarkovsky was never able to do.  Trakovsky speaks first with a Russian filmmaker who claims that filmmaking conditions haven’t changed much.  Many of those who worked with Tarkovsky are still active in the profession, another reminder that Tarkovsky lived not too long ago.  These scenes in Russia give a sense of what the director was after in his opening narration.  It brings full circle his idea but it’s a little too late.  The film feels like a work in progress.  I commend the director for focusing on a unique subject.  An American kid who closely identifies with Tarkovsky is a rarity given our popular culture, but the first hour really needs to be reworked.  It may have helped to see more of Tarkovsky’s images.  I am not familiar with documentary filmmaking but I am aware that claiming fair use isn’t as easy as it sounds, so maybe clips weren’t at the ready to really give a sense of the man’s cinema.  To be sure there are many excerpts, but in even these we don’t get a sense of Tarkovsky’s cinema.

The bottom line is this: will Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky entice unfamiliar viewers to Tarkovsky’s films?  I don’t think so.  It may be that the film is aiming for those who are already familiar, but because Tarkovsky is so powerful and oddly enough so accessible (I really do believe this—his movies aren’t as daunting as many have described) I think more could be done to showcase the director.  Dmitry Trakovsky has a worthy subject and some great material shot all over Europe and with a more intuitive, artful approach he may yet find a terrific film.  “Death does not exist” might refer to the fact that artists truly never die because their work exists for as long as it is appreciated.  Revolutions pass and time vanishes, but the art produced throughout the centuries is still with us.  Andrei Rublev is, in part, about this very topic, and if Trakovsky’s goal of the documentary was to also prove this point then he had succeeded, but the concept and execution seem too simple.  It’s obvious, and it might be why the film doesn’t linger in my mind they way Tarkovsky’s films do.  Still, Trakovsky should again be commended for what he set out to achieve.

Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky (2008)

Director: Dmitry Trakovsky

Writer: Dmitry Trakovsky

Stars: Donatella Baglivo, Erland Josephson and Fabrizio Borin

USA

In English, Italian and Russian

Runtime: 89 minutes

Visit the film's official website to find theatrical showings all over the globe, as well as learn more about director Dmitry Trakovsky and his work, and purchase a copy of the DVD:

http://trakovskyfilm.com/

The film is also available on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Andrei-Tarkovsky-Dmitry-Trakovsky/dp/B004FVLWQQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1303156572&sr=1-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1461246/

Night and Fog (1955, Nuit et brouillard)

No matter how many times you hear the expression this movie will change your life, it is a rare moment when it does.  Night and Fog did for me, not in a truly life-altering way, but it made me recognize the documentary genre as a powerful form of film.  I would watch documentaries (which I have always enjoyed doing) but never bothered with a film’s technique, impact or aesthetic value.  As far as I thought, in order for a movie to move me, the situations, the emotions, all had to be larger than life.  Then I saw Night and Fog.

It’s not a big movie.  Most people have never heard of it, but I saw it at a store and picked it up.  After completing its short running time, I was stunned—numbed is probably more accurate.  My only cinematic journeys into the Holocaust were narrative dramas like Schindler’s List, a movie I’ve never enjoyed because of its sentimental and overtly emotional approach to the subject matter.  I don’t particularly dislike weepy films (if that is indeed the correct term) but the emotions films like Schindler’s List spark go against my feelings about the Holocaust, and the effects of war in general.  The Holocaust is the darkest memory of the 20^th Century, and I don’t look at it with soft, tangible feelings.  It’s depressing to think anyone or group could get away with what the Nazis did.  It doesn’t speak well of mankind.  When I saw Night and Fog, finally—finally—I had seen the Holocaust film that hit the right tone.  The film does not ask us to feel any which way about the Holocaust.  It is matter-of-fact, unsentimental and powerful.

As far as technique, I’d say director Alain Resnais didn’t have to do too much to stir his audience.  The images he shows would be enough to shock and sicken anyone.  Of particular note are the very first image of a dead man, his eyes wide and staring right into camera; the shot of a human foot being burnt with phosphorous; and the various images of dead bodies being bulldozed like broken concrete.  Resnais's approach to the film, his style, accents the atrocities in meaningful, though not intrusive, ways.  The film, you could say, is sort of a flashback.  We open with some color photography of an isolated industrial setting, beautiful in its way.  The camera glides and shots dissolve into other shots.  It is all peaceful and serene.  We are then told through a restrained Narrator that this was the site of a concentration camp.  While the scenery hasn’t changed, our own feelings of such a place turn the shots ugly; much like the nature of a person changes the image of them in our minds.  We then see the past, the Holocaust; black and white stills and archival footage mostly shot by the Nazis for unmade propaganda films.  It’s sort of like the inverse of The Wizard of Oz, except the “fantasy,” the Holocaust footage, is real.  The beauty of the present—the color photography with its dreamlike maneuvering through space, seems to be of another time and place.  What Resnais is saying, the way I interpret it, is that man is a cruel animal capable of committing these acts, and that we should always be conscious of the fact.

I don’t remember if I had this reaction while watching the film on DVD by myself, but when I watched Night and Fog on the big screen with an audience, I couldn’t help myself but I had to shield my eyes from the final shots of the Holocaust footage: a montage of truly horrible images—mountains made of human hair for example.  I could not take it.  I think the reason is this: I felt responsible—not “I” as an individual but as a human being.  Inaction leads to the inevitable.  No other film has affected me in the same way as Night and Fog.  With this film, I realized how effective documentaries can be and it toppled for me this bigoted notion that they pale in comparison to narrative films.  I concede that documentaries have the ability to move audiences in ways dramatic pictures never can, perhaps because fiction hasn’t really happened.  Night and Fog is our history.  It is not just a superb example of modern art, this shit (there is no more appropriate word) actually happened.

I can’t truly say I love this film or even enjoy it.  I can’t understand how someone can enjoy it the same way you can a Hitchcock thriller or even a Bergman chamber drama.  I appreciate the film as a powerful indictment of the Holocaust, an unforgettable and haunting event in world history, and as a work of art.  Whenever I watch it, I’m spellbound by the visuals and the ideas, the beauty and the horror.  Alain Resnais was never coupled into the French New Wave.  Like the great Agnes Varda, he began making films a decade before but he contributed some of the defining New Wave films.  Night and Fog, made in 1955, is a perfect example of what a New Wave picture would mean: a nonconformist, idiosyncratic, adult masterpiece that withstands the test of time in that, as Resnais suggests, its topic is timeless.

Night and Fog (1955)

(a.k.a. Nuit et brouillard)

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jean Cayrol, Chris Marker (Script Editor)

Stars: Michel Bouquet (Narrator)

France

In French

Runtime: 32 minutes

To purchase Night and Fog on DVD from The Criterion Collection, visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Fog-Collection-Michel-Bouquet/dp/B000093NQZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300565425&sr=8-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/