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Out screenwriter brings 'Milk' biopic to the big screen

By Larry Nichols

Not only is "Milk" about the life of the first openly gay man elected to public office, but it represents a huge leap in Dustin Lance Black's profile as a screenwriter. Before the film's release yesterday, he spent a great deal of time researching Harvey Milk.
"There were three years of research traveling to San Francisco from Los Angeles, meeting the real-life people and doing those interviews before there was a script," he says. "The research didn't stop then. We started producing the film and as a producer on it, we had to get even more exacting on what things looked like and where things took place. We were researching all through post-production."
Born in 1979, Black grew up in a devout Mormon military household in San Antonio. After relocating to Salinas, Calif., he finished high school and became deeply immersed in theater, apprenticing with stage directors, working on lighting crews and acting.
In 2004, he was drafted for the television series "Big Love" as a writer and producer, working with the program for three seasons. He also wrote and directed "Pedro," profiling the late AIDS activist and reality TV star Pedro Zamora, which premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.
"I prefer to be involved in projects where I have a personal connection to whatever the story is and the characters are," Black said of his film work. "Because then I can write about my experience and get specific enough that I'm telling a story that people find original and compelling."
Black said that a lot of inspiration and the visual aesthetic for "Milk" was drawn from the 1984 documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk," which went on to win an Academy Award.
"It is one of the things that I saw out of many in my bibliography of research," Black says. "There were about 2,300 sources. It was probably the third thing I saw or heard about Harvey. The first being first-hand stories from some of the folks I was working with in the theater world up there."
The archival footage turned out to also have a profound effect on casting: In particular, a conservative figurehead should best be left to portray herself.
"That idea started with the inclusion of Anita Bryant in the movie. I was concerned as a writer that even if we quoted her directly into the film, the things she said and the way she said them were so outrageous to today's audience that I feared people would think we were caricaturing her and that there was no way someone could have said the things she said and meant."
Black's hope is that mainstream audiences will see the parallels between the political struggles for gay civil rights in 1970s-era California and the struggle for gay equality around the country today.
"It's amazing to see, especially in California, right now the gay community is fighting Proposition 8, which would write into the constitution what the gay community sees as bigotry," he says. "The state Supreme Court said that gay marriages must be allowed and recognized. Proposition 8 would rewrite the constitution saying that it's illegal.
"So a big portion of this movie is about California exactly 30 years ago this November and the gay community fighting Proposition 6, which would have make it illegal to be gay and teach or work in a public school. For Californians, it's almost literally reminiscent."
Black added that some might see another parallel between Bryant and another former beauty queen turned outspoken anti-gay right-wing mouthpiece.
"I had a few friends call me up and say, 'Wow, it's so amazing to see Palin running as vice president because she's beautiful, an ex-beauty queen, a mother, well-spoken and there something about her that is so reminiscent of Anita Bryant exactly 30 years ago,'" he says. "I think some people will pick up on that."
Black said that he expects gay audiences, especially the ones keeping a watchful eye on historical narrative, to be just as charmed with the movie that he helped craft.
"I think the people in the Castro will look at it with a critical eye," he says. "I hope they do. We worked very hard to be very, very accurate. I hope they are surprised at how well we did. I think the far right, who aren't supportive of the gay movement, they are going to look at it with a real critical eye. But I hope they find something universal in it."

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