I caught this on IFC a few weeks back. I've had the original Mark Isham score for years, and love that, but I never put any effort into finding and watching the film. It's wonderful. Even listening to Harvey Fierstein's voiceover doesn't get irritating because the subject matter is at once riveting and heartfelt, exuberant and crushing. The thing that makes this movie so effective, I think, is that it was clearly pieced together for a mixed audience. This is not a gay film, or a political film, or something only San Franciscans will understand. It brings you in and allows you to really see and hear how this man affected lives around him, including the life of the man who shot him. Fascinating. Haunting. Wonderful. Go see this film.

The life and aftermath in death of wonderfully wry and droll Harvey Milk, San Francisco's first openly gay city official who, along with Mayor George Moscone, was killed on a November day in 1978 by disgruntled ex-colleague Dan White (who ultimately received an unusually light sentence after his trial). From Milk's sneaky campaigning tricks to the infamous 'Twinkie Defense', this documentary is solid and involving. It has a creepy ambiance that is difficult to shake after it's over, yet there's a darkly amusing undercurrent throughout (which Milk himself might've appreciated!). The film says to take these events seriously, but to take them AS events. See the humor in the chaos. This was a deserved Oscar winner for Best Documentary, and it is quite moving, funny, despairing--never clinical or cold. *** from ****

In 1985, "The Times of Harvey Milk" won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It's an exceptionally moving film about the political life and assassination of Harvey Milk, America's first openly gay politician. The film consists of lots of archival footage and interviews with people who knew and worked with Milk. Overall, it's a very, very good film--quite moving whether you are gay or straight and I can understand why it won the Oscar. However, one part of the film bothered me. While I know the film was about Harvey Milk, he was NOT the only one murdered that day by the evil Dan White. Before Milk was killed, Mayor Moscone was butchered as well--yet he is barely mentioned in the film. Now I am NOT saying the movie should have focused equally on Moscone (since it's called "The Times of Harvey Milk") but to focus again and again on JUST the murder of Milk seemed insensitive--the killing of both men was tragic. Still, it's well worth seeing--and quite sad.

By the way, since this film came out in 1984, the story did not end with White only serving five years in jail and was then paroled!! This IS mentioned in the film. BUT, what isn't is that two years later, he killed himself (no great loss to the world).

A better film would have focused on BOTH men...as today, few even remember that Moscone, too, was killed that day.