Harvey Milk Film Techniques

Driven by the story of the first openly gay public official in the history of the United States, Milk is a film centered on Harvey Milk of San Francisco and the issue of gay rights around the country. The film follows Milk, played by Sean Penn, throughout his entire political career, making sure to portray his life as accurately as possible. There is an overarching narrative throughout the whole film, a frequently revisited scene where Penn is seen reading a prepared assassination note aloud into a tape recorder as a way of guiding the audience through the film. Milk uses archival footage and the retelling of events true to the story of Harvey Milk, an imitation of the techniques used mainly in documentary productions, in order to convince

The refuge of the Castro is very quickly illuminated by the tape, described as one of the only places that openly homosexual individuals were even slightly accepted. Another transition is at 13:00, when the narrative smoothly covers a gap in time. The recording bridges the scene where Milk and Scott are celebrating Scott’s birthday in their apartment and the scene in the store where Milk promotes a store for being pro-gay. The transition is so smooth because the archival footage shown during the recording describes a new, more vibrant LGBT community thriving in San Francisco, and the rise and fall of certain businesses that do and don’t support the incoming boom of homosexuals. Similar smooth transitions can be seen, for example, at 26:01, 1:15:33, While recreating a vital primary source to convince the audience of the film’s willingness to stay true to Milk’s story, the recording also works well with the visual artifacts to enhance the audience’s immersion and trust in the film’s