Milk

How fortuitous a thing is timing. Released only a few weeks after the passage of Proposition 8 - a ballot measure that took away the rights of same-sex couples to marry in California - Gus Van Sant's Oscar-nominated film "Milk" turns back the clock to another, similar struggle in American civil rights history and to the iconic figure who helped to wage it.

Harvey Milk was, of course, the San Francisco supervisor and gay-rights pioneer who, along with Mayor George Moscone, was gunned down in city hall in November 1978. The perpetrator, Dan White, a disgruntled fellow board member who had recently resigned his seat, was found guilty of manslaughter (using the now infamous "Twinkie Defense" to get the lower charge), sent to prison for a mere five years, then released in 1984, only to take his own life two years later.

Dustin Lance Black's Oscar-winning screenplay traces Milk's meteoric rise from an obscure, still largely closeted Republican businessman in the early 1970s to the de facto leader of the gay-rights movement that began to take shape during that decade. He became the first openly gay man in the state to be elected to public office and, in 1978, he was instrumental in helping to defeat Proposition 6, which, if passed, would have made it illegal for homosexuals (and even straight supporters of homosexuals!) to teach in California public schools (was this really only thirty years ago?). Throughout all this, Milk managed to develop a large, highly charged grass roots organization, the purpose of which was not merely to combat bigotry wherever it reared its ugly head but to win over the hearts and minds of the people in their community and the nation as a whole.

There has been some criticism leveled against the movie that it is too reverential in its treatment of Milk, that it paints him too much as a saint and not enough as an ordinary human being with the requisite number of weaknesses and flaws to make him truly viable as a character. Even if one were to accept that charge (which I do not), it still doesn't take into account the very special quality that Sean Penn himself brings to the role. With obviously heightened mannerisms that he is careful never to allow to slide over into caricature or camp, Penn makes Milk both charismatically larger-than-life and recognizably human at one and the same time. Whether he's in front of a crowd rallying the troops with his megaphone or enjoying a tender moment with his longtime boyfriend, Scott Smith, Penn allows us see the many facets of this obviously complex man.

In a movie chock full of outstanding supporting performances, James Franco as Smith, Josh Brolin as Dan White, and Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, a rootless young man inspired by Milk to become a lifelong activist, are the obvious standouts.

As a director, Van Sant keeps things moving at an almost whirlwind pace, beautifully balancing the "big" scenes of rallies and marches with the more intimate moments depicting Milk's relationships with those around him. At times Van Sant brings an almost documentary-style immediacy to the film, seamlessly blending actual footage from that era (much of it of Anita Bryant and her anti-gay crusade) with convincingly staged re-enactments of events at that time. Obviously wanting to end on a positive note, the movie mentions but does not dramatize the "White Night Riots" which took place in the city following the assassinations, instead focusing on the enormous candlelight march that wended its way through the shocked and devastated city. Thus, the ending, like the movie itself, is a necessary and deeply moving reminder of how the courage of one individual to stand up for what he knows is right can inspire others to follow in his footsteps - and change the world in the process.

By opening with file footage of men being arrested at a gay bar then carted off in paddy wagons to be booked as "sex offenders," "Milk" makes the viewer realize how very far society has come in the time since the events depicted in this story - and, with the recent passage of Proposition 8, how very far it still has to go.

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy's characteristically dry, laconic, and sometimes hilarious dialogue brightens the scenes of this superb and chilling thriller the Coen brothers have ably transferred to the screen with excellent help from Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Tones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, and others, including a salty second layer of minor characters who look like they sprang straight out of the sandy soil of West Texas.

McCarthy, unmistakably one of America's greatest living writers of fiction, lives vividly in this, the Coens' first literary adaptation. Some of his best novels, notably Blood Meridian (called by Yale critic Harold Bloom one of the 20th century's greatest novels), are so apocalyptic, so embedded in their glorious poetic prose, as to be virtually unfilmable. All the Pretty Horses, from his Border Trilogy, has been filmed with some success (Matt Damon works in his role; Penelope Cruz doesn't). No Country for Old Men is late McCarthy. Post-apocalyptic, maybe. Jones's disenchanted, aging sheriff says, "When you don't hear sir and ma'am any more pretty much everything else goes." Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a fairly innocent but opportunistic man, is deer hunting (he's not a good shot; he can't catch one out of a whole herd of them) when he finds a sprawl of wrecked vehicles and corpses, including Mexicans and a dog. There's a truckload of heroin in plastic packages and a briefcase containing two million plus in $100 bills. Moss takes the money and hightails it in his truck.

Naturally there are people who want the money back. Not nice people.

The man they hire to go after it is called Anton Chigurh. Expertly played by Javier Bardem, he's a villain--but with a clear-cut morality all his own--who's invincible and probably unforgettable. Chigurh is like the Grim Reaper: he can decide your fate with the flip of a coin; he reflects the biblical side of Cormac McCarthy, but in a terrible modern corruption. The crooks also hire another hit man, Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson)--a mistake, because Chigurh resents the duplication. He is the last word, the anti-Christ. No man may come after him.

Out in these open spaces of West Texas--El Paso, the Mexican border--where Cormac McCarthy's innocent, pure-hearted cowboys used to roam in earlier decades, things have changed beyond recognition. This is 1977. It's a decade and a half since Vietnam. Lots of drugs and lots of money floating around; you don't hear sir and ma'am any more.

The story turns into a chase, Chgurh after Llewelyn Moss, the sheriff coming after them. And then Carson Wells, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and doomed, pops in to follow.

People have been talking about Bardem's pageboy haircut. Yes, it's creepy. Bardem makes Chigurh both threatening and inscrutable. It seems he'd as soon kill you as look at you. He has a long rifle with a silencer and a high-pressure cattle-killer device with a tank that looks like something a person with emphysema would carry around. It kills instantly with a pop in the head. He also uses it to shoot out door locks.

The film is more tense and suspenseful in the first half or so than in the grimly determined finale (all true to the book, if with a few details cut). By that time a lot of people have been killed and some wounded. This has some elements of the Coen's 'Fargo' and 'Blood Simple' (the latter introduced in an earlier NYFF) and thus with their most powerful work. But 'No Country' is an economical and faithful literary adaptation. Some Coen movies have been thin and frivolous lately. This is emphatically not, sure and riveting from the first few shots. Richard Deakins' photography, making much appropriate use of wide-angle lenses, is superb. Their distinguished source seems to have kept the Coens honest and serious (except for the dry humor built into McCarthy's talk). Unquestionably this will wind up being one of the best American films of the year. It's tight and vivid and suspenseful. It's great stuff. The images sing and stun. There's no distracting music, only the beauty and terror of real sounds.

Present for the NYFF press screening Q&A (moderator Lisa Schwartzbaum): Brolin, Jones, Macdonald, Bardem, and the brothers Coen, Ethan and Joel.