The Movie
Once in a rare while a documentary spins a tale with enough human drama, surprise and compelling characters, it could almost be a work of Hollywood fiction. The Times of Harvey Milk is such a riveting story. At times we might think it is contrived, but alas the conclusion is all too real.
The movie is pieced together from a veritable sea of archival footage, so no wonder that director Robert Epstein is also credited as editor. This is combined with new interviews by a host of supporters who knew Harvey Milk, and held together by the impassioned yet understated narration of Harvey Fierstein. We are primed on the political scene of the early 1970s, given a quick biography of San Francisco activist and businessman Milk, and an excellent summation of his campaign.
His election as a district supervisor made him the first openly gay city official in United States history, and while his initiatives on gay rights--particularly the freedom to reveal one's homosexuality without fear of termination--were bold, he also cared deeply about all minorities, and his city.
The political machine can be a bitch however, and the winds of change led to poor choices by one fellow supervisor, which ultimately had disastrous results for Harvey and the mayor. The events are shocking, but since the movie's initial release six years after the assassination of Harvey Milk, it has also become a cry to keep alive his dream of a better future for all.
The Picture
The accompanying booklet includes a detailed explanation of the restoration. Suffice it to say that great efforts were made a few years ago to make all of the 16mm/35mm film and the video elements look their best. The pillarboxed 1.37:1 image is grainy, as we should expect, somewhat soft but with respectable colors. There is some strobing in camera moves across difficult content like text, and occasional noise. When we consider the disparate sources of footage, none of them truly "studio" quality, we understand that this Blu-ray is fine, probably the best The Times of Harvey Milk has ever looked.
The Sound
The soundtrack too "had a lot of work done," including a couple of days at Skywalker Sound, yielding a fine mix that pulls together the original audio from the old clips, the new interviews and Fiersteins's voiceover. In DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, it displays decent fullness and clarity. Mark Isham's musical score is clean but in no way sonically exemplary. There's hiss on the track periodically, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
The Extras
The "Postscript" is comprised of unused interviews by the same participants, which were to provide a coda in an earlier cut. Accomplished filmmaker Jon Else takes an in-depth look at the film, while real folks from Harvey's life and the makers of the dramatized Milk comment on how the two different movies work together to help spread the message.
Harvey Milk's original recordings arrive in five parts, audio and video, beginning with his response to the vocally anti-gay Anita Bryant in June of 1977. The Director's Research Tapes are 80 minutes of rough black-and-white video culled from the vast tapings done in preparation for the film, narrowing down the list of interviewees. Excerpts from both the Castro Theater premiere of the movie and its Oscar win for Best Documentary Feature are neatly paired here.
A series of vintage news clips about killer Dan White plus a 2003 panel discussion with his attorneys provide a particularly fascinating illumination of the still-controversial figure. We also meet Harry Britt., Milk's successor to the office, first appointed then duly elected, giving a speech in 2003 at an event commemorating the 25th anniversary of the assassination. And the Candlelight Memorial, now an annual event, attracted some special guest speakers, also shown here from 2003.
All of this footage is presented in HD, although the actual quality varies. There is also an existing audio commentary by Robert Epstein, editor Deborah Hoffmann and photographer Daniel Nicoletta, newly re-edited to incorporate additional content.
Final Thoughts
Harvey Milk was a character, one who fought the good fight and opened a lot of minds along the way. As documented by Robert Epstein, his Times paint a factual portrait, a compelling narrative, one preserved for a whole new generation on an especially well-supplemented Blu-ray.
Product Details
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