Gus Van Sant's 'Milk': Great film, even better story

(+ Q&A with director Gus Van Sant, writer Dustin Lance Black and actor James Franco at the BFI)

Whilst watching, I was sure that the film would leave me more impressed with the man it portrays than the film itself. Given that I was surrounded by slightly awestruck Gus Van Sant admirers excitedly awaiting his wisdom in the following Q&A, I felt slightly like a traitor. However a few hours on and I am steadily more impressed with the film and the sense of completeness it gave to a time, a place, and a man's life. A gay man rising up the political system in San Francisco - it feels like a familiar story until you realise that actually it isn't, and like most people the filmmakers have encountered, you don't know the story at all.


During the Q&A, I was at first frustrated by Gus Van Sant's short, narrowly focused answers. But I grew to like his generally amused tone and his responses. He was modest and refused to indulge us with the answers we wanted to hear - as always at these things you could almost hear the plea in the questions from the film student who wants to be inspired by an account of their hero's 'artistic vision'. (As much as I love Q&A sessions I usually hate the infuriatingly long, irrelevant or self-absorbed questions you have to put up with). But when asked how he communicated his 'vision' to his cinematographers, Gus Van Sant told us a story about filming in the heat of the desert and not being able to think. Just think of something, he told the cinematographer. Likewise, all attempts to create parallels between him and his 'downtrodden', 'outcast' characters received equally narrow and short responses. (Yes I was scared of the skater kids in Paranoid Park, so yes I am shy.)

His refusal to create stories about his artistic vision led to a surprisingly passive impression, as if his films happened the way they are by accident, or because of other people. With Good Will Hunting - one of his most acclaimed films, - he apparently did not try to impose his input onto the script that lead actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had created, he just used the script as it was. From his account you would wonder why he got any credit for that film at all.

I admire his modesty, but having not seen many of his films, (something I will now change), his lack of answers led me to wonder what is 'the thing' that makes him the admired director he is? One thing that struck me was the difficult stories he picks up - stories that others would stay well away from. Kurt Cobain's last days? High school murderers? A shot for shot remake of Psycho? A gay american politician? As the interviewer pointed out, his very varied films have attracted correspondingly varied criticism with massive peaks and troughs in the response from critics and the public from one film to another. But he consistently chooses surprising, daring stories it seems. So rather than saying that the film is underwhelming compared to the story it portrays, I should remember that that is exactly what makes the film great at what it is. Maybe I was expecting a bolder filmmaking statement, something more auteurish and striking. But it was the story and the person that was allowed to be striking. So yes, I now realise it is a fantastic biopic.

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Just a couple of other notes on the film - Sean Penn was fantastic and definitely deserves the Oscar rumours. Everynow and again I remembered it was Sean Penn and remembered to look for the actor, but almost all of the time it was a completely different man.

In the Q&A, the writer Dustin Lance Black was the effortlessly engaging and inspiring talker that Gus Van Sant surprisingly wasn't quite. Dustin had been attracted to Milk's story since being a teenager, and gave a very personal account of his relationship to the story and how it allowed him to grow and emerge from 'the closet'. I am sure that many will, and already have, noted the film's prescience right now with a new American politician rising from a minority group to inspire huge hope, as well as the parallels with ongoing gay civil rights disputes. But Dustin also spoke about the film's timing as being necessary to bring the inspirational figure of Harvey Milk to gay communities that have forgotten his example. An important and inspiring story reclaimed for people by a very well crafted film.

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As my last two posts already reveal, I am slightly addicted to these Film + Q&A sessions at the BFI. So I am also quite excited to discover that the Guardian post the ones they sponser on their website to give us all a chance to see the ones we don't have time, money or tickets for! Great that the internet opens up the opportunity to see these interviews, however of course they are no substitute for the enjoyment of being surrounded by the buzzy enthusiasm of the film types that the BFI attracts, and of course in the same place as a filmmaker you admire, which is perhaps part of why I always come out feeling so inspired.