The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)

(On Cable TV, May 2021) Film has the power to make filmgoers decades apart feel the same emotions, but there’s always something manipulative in fiction creating strong emotional responses. While documentaries are also manipulative (let’s not fool ourselves), they do present facts that can be checked as part of history, and the righteous anger they can cause even generations later can be sharpened or tempered by looking up the rest of the real story that the documentary could not capture at the time. Academy Award-winning The Times of Harvey Milk focuses on the eponymous historical figure — a San Francisco community organizer who became the first openly gay elected official in California’s history. What made Milk a historical figure, however, was his assassination—along with San Francisco’s mayor—by another city councillor (the sole opposing vote to a piece of legislation proposed by Milk) not even a year after his election. Nearly forty years later, The Times of Harvey Milk still has the power to infuriate, even if you’ve seen the Sean Penn-starring 2008 biopic or are otherwise familiar with Milk’s life and death. The film clearly comes from a place of mournful fury, featuring historical footage and interviews. Milk, featured in a generous amount of footage by director Rob Epstein, comes across as a charming man, dedicated to improving matters for his community and a politician motivated by progress rather than more cynical matters. His assassination may be a foregone conclusion, but it still comes as a shock and creates authentic anger. What today’s viewers know that is missing from the documentary, however, is the rest of the story: Convicted killer Dan White, after successfully using the infamous “Twinkie Defense,” served five of a seven-year sentence and was released in 1984. After serving a year’s parole in Los Angeles and being publicly asked to stay away from San Francisco, he still returned, was unable to rebuild his life and killed himself in late 1985 — something that The Times of Harvey Milk could not anticipate. Few viewers of the film will mourn White, whether they saw the film in the late 1980s or now.