Jul 16, 2004  |  By: Matthew Forke  | COMMENTS     

IN ONE OF the funniest passages from the exhilarating documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk,” political consultant Tory Hartmann recalls when the gay (and Jewish) politician rendered evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton utterly speechless following her promise to “turn Milk heterosexual” should he convert to Christianity.

“I’m surprised you shook my hand,” Milk said when he met the sister of then-President Jimmy Carter. To her bemused response of “Why?” he cheerfully replied, “Because you never know where my hand has been.”

“Dumbstruck” grossly understates poor Stapleton’s aghast expression during her first (and only) encounter with the titular city supervisor.

Now available on DVD from New Yorker Video, the Oscar-winning “Times” explores the remarkable life of the first openly gay local elected official in San Francisco. Milk’s too-brief political career ended when an unstable former colleague, Dan White, fatally shot him and beloved San Francisco Mayor George Moscone at City Hall on November 27, 1978.

Through rare television reports, photographs and interviews with eight well-chosen friends and associates (including San Francisco Board Supervisor Tom Ammiano and the effervescent Hartmann), we witness an emotional and articulate account of a man whose role in history became far greater than his self-proclaimed title as the “Mayor of Castro Street.”

THE PUCKISH, IRREVERENT Milk was born in Woodmere, Long Island, on May 22, 1930. A New York City stock analyst and theater producer early in his career, Milk eventually emigrated to San Francisco and opened a camera shop on Castro Street. There, he became increasingly involved in neighborhood politics. He ran three times for a seat on the city’s Board of Supervisors and three times he lost.

Milk’s fourth campaign, however, proved victorious. In 1977, the advent of district elections (rather than citywide ones) created new political opportunities for all types of marginalized groups and voters also elected as supervisors the city’s first ERA feminist, the first black woman and the first Chinese American.

These sweeping changes in government appeared threatening to newly elected board Supervisor Dan White, a former fireman who believed his traditional values were under attack because the budding gay rights movement was gaining strength.

In haste, White resigned from the Board without notice, thus torpedoing his political career and providing a brief glimpse into his unbalanced psyche. Later in the same month, he shot Moscone and Milk.

The fateful series of events, including the “White Night Riots,” that followed the subsequent slap on the wrist White received for the murders (based on the so-called “Twinkie Defense”) should leave viewers saddened, outraged but also proud of the relatively recent gay history that helped make Americans more tolerant of differences today.

NEW YORKER VIDEO lavishes on DVD extras in the 20th anniversary collector’s edition of “The Times of Harvey Milk” that would make even Criterion Collection envious. They include filmmaker commentary, interview outtakes, footage from the Castro Theater and an entire series of 25th anniversary events.

Fans of really enormous hairdos and shoulder pads can catch Kathleen Turner presenting co-directors Rob Epstein (“The Celluloid Closet”) and Richard Schmiechen with the 1984 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Supplements aside, though, the movie itself is required viewing. From its dramatic opening newsreel footage of a shell-shocked Dianne Feinstein (a current U.S. senator) announcing the deaths of fellow supervisor Milk and Moscone amid the cries of stunned reporters, the intensely moving film grabs its audience and refuses to let go.