Milk Marches for Equality, Arrives on DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD

By Nick Dawson On March 09, 2009

Tomorrow, Gus Van Sant's Milk - winner of Academy Awards for Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black) - premieres on DVD and Blu-Ray. In a first for a Focus Features title, it will also bow the same day on VOD. 

We've been lucky enough to have a copy of the Milk DVD in the FilmInFocus offices for the last few weeks, and I can tell you there's some very good stuff on the disc. In addition to a selection of Deleted Scenes, there's a handful of very nicely put together featurettes. Hollywood Comes to San Francisco looks at the Milk production in the Bay Area, and Remembering Harvey examines Harvey Milk's legacy, and features interviews with not only principals from the movie but also politicians and activists who worked alongside Milk in the 70s. For me, the featurette which had the most personal resonance was Marching for Equality, which focuses on the night-time marches organized by Milk in the Castro district to protest the passing of states' anti-gay bills, and the recreation of those marches in the movie by Gus Van Sant. 

The featurette ties in very nicely as a companion piece to Harvey Milk Lives, an article by Paul Vandecarr that we ran on FilmInFocus almost exactly a year ago, at the time that Milk was shooting in San Francisco. Vandecarr was at the re-staged protest marches (the same night as the featurette crew, I believe) and recalls his experiences being there:

"The real Cleve Jones, who is historical consultant to the production, is here tonight too to get the hundreds of extras into character. He tells the crowd the original marches happened in response to the repeal of gay rights ordinances in Florida and Kansas. It was bad enough that gay rights were being curtailed elsewhere, but the bigots were headed for San Francisco, the one place in the country gays and lesbians had carved out for themselves. An initiative by State Senator John Briggs was being put on the ballot to ban gays and lesbians from teaching in California's public schools. "So the mood on the street was pissed off," explains Jones. "And that's what you are tonight. You're pissed off!" "

Click through to the Milk site to get the movie on DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD.