The real life story of gay activist Harvey Milk, who in 1977 became the first openly homosexual American politician to be elected to public office. Van Sant's film based on a Dustin Lance Black script opens with Milk sitting down with a tape recorder, pondering a possible attack on his life, and ends with the nightmare realized. Milk was assassinated by fellow San Francisco city supervisor Dan White in 1978, giving us the famed ``Twinkie defence'' and galvanizing the gay community in its continuing struggle for equal rights before the law.
