November
4Sean Penn’s Highlight Reels
Wherever you go at this time of year, the self-anointed “Oscar Savants” are whispering at you. I’m never quite sure who they are, or what they do for a living, but they know every-thing that’s happening on the Oscar front. They’ve also magically seen every movie.“‘Button’ works big… I’ve just seen it,” one will confide. “‘Revolutionary Road’s’ heavy going,” another will murmur. I don’t believe either of them, but the intelligence is out there and the Savants know it all.
I lay no claim to being an Oscar Savant, but I actually did see “Milk” last night and here’s my “inside” assessment: Sean Penn just soared to the top of the kudo list.
“Milk” is a formidable achievement. It’s moving, has something important to say and boasts superb performances. Gus Van Sant should take a bow.
And Penn brilliantly transforms himself into a complex, tortured gay man who found his cause and paid the price.
Sean Penn can be hard to love. He’s grumpy, opinionated, smokes too much and, on screen, can slip into the sort of angry, shrill character on display in the unfortunate re-make of “All the King’s Men.”So forget all that. In “Milk,” he’s ingratiating, vulnerable and empathetic. That means kudo time.
One can nitpick the movie. Its mood veers from drama to documentary. Its principal narrative crutch seems extraneous (Harvey Milk dictating his memoirs.) Some filmgoers will be put off by the abundance of gay encounters (lots of guys fondling lots of other guys).
Sean Penn owns the show. Even the Oscar Savants will have to acknowledge that.
By the way, it wasn’t that long ago that actors were fearful of accepting roles as “gays.” Rock Hudson, with whom I worked with on two films, certainly acknowledged all this in his later years.
This myth was fortified by the experience of the two actors who starred in “Making Love,” a 1982 movie directed by Arthur Hiller. Neither Harry Hamlin not Michael Ontkean managed to turn their roles in career-builders, agents pointed out at the time. On the other hand, perhaps neither was star material.
Clearly “Brokeback Mountain” didn’t hurt Jake Gyllenhaal or the late Heath Ledger. And clearly neither Sean Penn nor James Franco were fearful about “Milk.”
On the other hand, there are more scenes of male intimacy in “Milk” than in any other general audience film of its genre – more kissing and fondling and suggestions of further sex play. Again, all this defies the conventional wisdom that straight filmgoers – male and female – are uncomfortable viewing male-on-male intimacy.
Will this barrier also prove to be mythology?
A major component of “Milk” hinges on the Anita Bryant movement to ban gay teachers from California schools. So here we are on Election Day and we see hundreds of millions of dollars being spent around the country, not on candidates, but on sex. I’m talking about initiatives to ban abortion, as in South Dakota, or to ban gay marriages, as in California, Arizona and other states.
So we haven’t advanced over the past generation. The zealots in our population are still obsessed about who sleeps with whom, not about who governs.
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