Harvey Milk’s San Francisco
Before our trip to San Francisco, we watched Milk, “a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.” Of course I was familiar with San Francisco as a centerpoint of the gay rights movement, and I’d even learned about Harvey Milk before, when reading about the Twinkie defense. But there’s nothing like a well-crafted biopic to entertain and educate.
Harvey Milk set up a camera shop on Castro Street in the early 70’s, and the filmmakers recreated the interior exactly. 575 Castro Street still exists, now as a men’s clothing shop known as “Citizen” — though the interior wall features a mural of Milk with one of his famous quotes.
The film was also valuable in that it provided excellent context for a lot of the assorted city buildings. For example, we frequently went past the opera house while riding the bus; were it not for the film, I wouldn’t have realized the building across from that was the City Hall, where Milk was assassinated.
The haps
Things have been pretty chill lately, hence no updates. I got a cold so last week was pretty moot.
Jey’s sister and her husband are traveling around California this week and next, so we’re going to head over to San Francisco on Friday for our own mini-vacation and to visit with them.
In preparation, we’ve been watching films set in SF and the Bay area, starting with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
The first time I ever saw Vertigo was on a theatre screen in San Antonio, as part of a weekly classic films screening that I used to attend with my friends Francisco and Denise. It was at a theatre where they allowed alcoholic beverages, and guy in the row behind us got drunk and cackled through the entire film. Especially at parts with dramatic zoom-ins and tortured expressions. So there was definitely a narm element happening.
Less so this time around, though — I was caught up just as much as ever in the classic Hitchcock tension, and was quite pleased to recognize some of the San Francisco landmarks in the film, such as the Palace of Fine Arts (the place where I met Jey for the first time).
Gorgeous.
I also found this excellent Google Map which has a marker for every location in the film. I’d been wondering if the redwood trees they visit were in Muir Forest, but it turns out they had actually traveled to Big Basin State Park, south of the city.
