The Times of Harvey Milk

The Times of Harvey Milk is a documentary which utilizes the voice of God type narration to an extent. However, the voice of God narration is combined with several interviews, recordings, and some news reports as well. I believe that this film represents the poetic mode of documentary film making. It is set up in a specific manner so that the audience feels a certain way about the subject matter. It is a highly subjective documentary in which a tremendous amount of artistic expression is used.


Harvey Milk was San Francisco's first openly gay supervisor. It is interesting that the director chooses to use an openly gay actor, Harvey Fierstein, to narrate this film which is about an openly gay politician. By choosing to do this, there is a connection between the main character in the documentary and the narrator. The narrator is able to relate to Harvey Milk which brings about an emotional aspect. The narrator feels sympathy towards Harvey Milk which results in the audience feeling the same way.

To start off the film, there is a news clip of Dianne Feinstein, the President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, announcing the shocking news of Harvey Milk being shot and killed by Dan White. This clip sets up what will happen later in the film; so it is a type of foreshadowing. After this clip, the documentary flashes back to when Harvey Milk was younger and it goes through his life journey. There are several interviews of people who knew Harvey Milk. These people were from all different walks of life, but they all had something good to say about Harvey Milk. By showing these interviews, a sympathetic portrayal of Harvey Milk is created. The audience believes that he is a good man. As Harvey's life story progresses and it comes to the point where he is killed, the clip of Dianne Feinstein announcing his death is played again. It is very effective to show this clip twice. The first time intrigues the audience and makes them wonder why this poor man was shoot. The second time is played in line with the progress of his life story.

On the other hand though, the portrayal of Dan White, Harvey Milk's assassin, is bad. The director wants the audience to have a negative opinion of Dan White so when they find out he only received two years in prison for killing two men, they become angry about him getting off so easily.