Milk (post-Bush cinema)

It has become clear that a post-Bush American cinema has begun to emerge over the last year, it may seem early but Bush became a lame-duck president in 2006 and was largely forgotten in the lead up to last year’s election, people had already put him in the past and started to look towards the future, the last film of Bush cinema being The Dark Knight – a bleak and pessimistic outlook on America to reflect the times of the war on terror, but now optimism has retaken that nation’s cinema, a pure example being Milk, the director Gus Van Sant himself as ditched the bleak observations of Elephant and Paranoid Park for a more uplifting biopic, a narrative taken from the 70s of a leader, Harvey Milk, who could unite and transform people for the better, Van Sant and co. create a character in this biopic that responds to current political needs, yes we do learn of Milk’s unfortunate fate at the beginning but the film’s last word is with him as he declares “You’ve got to give them hope”, a line that sounds like something that would come from President Obama’s mouth, and indeed one wouldn’t be surprised to hear Harvey Milk chant “Yes we can”.