Milk was part of a “movement”

We can assess that the movie respected what Milk seemed to think about himself: he was part of a “movement” that was bigger than him and that would continue after his death. Indeed, as Sara Villa mentions it in one of her 2010  article ("Milk (2008) and The Times of Harvey Milk (1984): The Double Filmic Resurrection of the Mayor of Castro Street",  Other Modernities, 2009), Gus Van Sant chose not to represent Milk as a martyr or an exceptional tragic hero but as an ordinary man who managed to start changing society thanks to the help of the LGBT community. Although some scenes are moving and poignant, the movie does not verge on pathos. According to Sara Villa, the end of the movie conveys a positive message that underlines the ongoing activism that went on after Milk’s death, which made Milk part of a movement.

First, the last image of Milk is not that of his corpse but that of his talking to his recording tape. Thus, the film gives us a last image of Milk being alive. 

Second, the recording tape, which really exists, is a sort of will that still enables people to keep a connection with Milk, as if he were still alive.

Third, the movie ends with the other character’s images and becoming after Milk’s death. All of them have kept fighting for their rights and have constituted Milk’s legacy. 

For all these reasons, the movie shows how and why Milk was part of the civil rights movement.

An unconventional biopic on some aspects

            Therefore, one can say that Harvey Milk could be considered, on some aspects, as an unconventional biopic, since Milk is always depicted as an ordinary man who is part of a movement that is bigger than him.

According to Julia Erhart's article ("The Naked Community Organizer: Politics and Reflexivity in Gus Van Sant's Milk", a/b: Auto/Biography studies (2011)), it also defies the conventional biopic subject that has progressively changed. Like some of today’s biopics, Harvey Milk challenges the Hollywood studio-era preference for heroic white and heterosexual men, in this post-civil-rights and post-feminist era that nevertheless still mainly stars conventional and beloved mythical figures (2013 S. Spielberg’s Lincoln, 2000 Martin Scorsese’s Aviator, etc.…). In that sense, Harvey Milk challenges the old-fashioned idea of greatness that still sometimes prevails in today’s mind-sets. Indeed, the biopic stars a non-heroic homosexual, which sometimes disturbs in democratic countries even today: several American religious universities banned Harvey Milk from screens.