Classic Film Series: MILK

Film screening: MILK
Friday, September 7, 2018
7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

(United States, 2008, 128 minutes, color)

Directed by Gus Van Sant. Starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch.

Harvey Milk, University at Albany alumnus (Class of 1951) and founding figure of the Gay Rights Movement, is portrayed by major American actor Sean Penn in this Oscar-winning biographical film. Shown in association with Sean Penn’s visit on Friday, September 21 (see separate listing).

MILK was nominated for eight Oscars and won two: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Sean Penn, Best Writing, Original Screenplay for Dustin Lance Black.

Reviews:
San Francisco Chronicle: "At the center of everything is Sean Penn, who disappears into the title role. Gone are his familiar facial expressions. Gone are the pursed lips and the covered, compressed quality. He has Harvey Milk's hair, and from some angles - particularly when Milk is in the public arena - the physical resemblance is uncanny. But what's more striking is the spiritual transformation. Penn gives us a man who was once closeted and now, as if in response, lives his life completely in the open. He's spontaneous as Penn has never been spontaneous. He's emotional, vulnerable and generous with his laughter. Penn plays him as an utterly liberated man, and this liberates Penn as an actor."

Roger Ebert: "Sean Penn amazes me. Not long before seeing "Milk," I viewed his work in "Dead Man Walking" again. Few characters could be more different, few characters could seem more real. He creates a character with infinite attention to detail, and from the heart out."

Variety: "After five years spent working on the more experimental fringe, Gus Van Sant fluently returns to the relative mainstream with MILK, an adroitly and tenderly observed account of the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man voted into significant U.S. public office.

More about MILK:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013753/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/milk/
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