I went to see Milk with a friend who is just discovering my movie viewing habits. She was interested to hear that I will often watch films I like more than once, and films that I love over and over. I explained that the first time I watch a film it's as a movie goer, letting myself become engrossed with the story and the acting. Subsequent times I watch as a filmmaker, trying to figure out the mechanics of how the film worked as well as it did, how it did what it did to move me. When we left Milk, and after discussing why we both liked it, she asked, "So, is this a film you'll watch again? Or again and again? Or never again?"
I paused for a second. "I'd watch it again, but only because of how the director used the archival footage. That is remarkable."
It is. Usually when a fiction film uses archival footage it takes me out of the film; I become distracted and too aware that I'm watching footage that the director is trying to pass off, which has a low-rent quality, or blow my mind a la Zelig or Forrest Gump, which has a smarty-pants quality. Either way, I'm aware that I'm watching footage that "shouldn't be there, but is." But Van Sant manages to weave the footage he chose seamlessly into the whole. And not because he tried to match the looks of the archival and the produced footage, or digitally insert Sean Penn's Harvey Milk into footage shot thirty years ago.
I discussed this further with none other than my good friends Brendan Hay and Jenn Chen, and Brendan had a sparkling insight.
"That evil woman, what the hell was her name?"
"Anita Bryant?"
"Right. He didn't have an actress playing Anita Bryant, like Ron Howard does in Frost/Nixon. He used that footage of her and she's a REAL character in the film!"
Brendan is spot on, proving that he is not just a guy who likes zombie films. This explains why the footage of Bryant works so well in Milk. But what about those shots of the Castro from the early to mid-Seventies? Why didn't that footage make me cringe? I've been pondering that question for a few days now and I haven't come up with a satisfactory answer. Maybe when I've watched it a second time I'll be able to figure it out.
But until then, any one out there have any ideas? Or is it just me? Did the use of archival footage make you cringe?
