I have recently returned from a quick and delightful trip to San Francisco, to visit my daughter. She lives on Haight Street, three blocks from the once epicenter of the hippie movement, the intersection of Haight and Asbury. In this “gig” economy, among other temp-jobs she has held, was driving an old VW camper, painted in the hippie-style, conducting tours of SF. In the process, she was able to learn the city’s geography and history well. I was thoroughly impressed with her knowledge, and her willingness to provide a most informative tour.First stop, not far from Haight: the Castro. Alas, I had never heard of it, nor knew of its significance, even though it is a “mecca” of sorts. For Gays. Today the “rainbow flag” of the Gays is festooned all along the street light poles, and the largest such flag in the world marks the entrance to the area (see the pictures). Embedded in the sidewalk are bronze plaques commemorating the lives of prominent gays, from Jane Addams to Yukio Mishima. My daughter pointed out the shop that was “Harvey’s,” still an activist center, and said “Milk” was an excellent movie. And she is quite correct.Sean Penn is a brilliant actor, of the caliber of Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman, who undertake character studies prior to acting a given role. Penn is heterosexual yet managed the portrayal of the homosexual role of Harvey Milk with true excellence. The movie commences much like Robert Altman’s Secret Honor about Nixon, with the main character talking to a tape recorder, knowing that death could be imminent, and there are a few things that need to be set down for the record. In the background are film clips of police action on gays in Miami, in 1978. Similar film clips from the ‘70’s are woven throughout the movie.Flashback to 1970, Milk is in NYC, playing the “corporate game,” in “the closet” in terms of his sexuality, and says that he has accomplished nothing in his first 40 years of life. The movie includes his prediction that he would not live to see 50. Milk decides to bail from the corporate life, and he and his lover move to SF. “The Castro” is not receptive to their arrival, but he is persistent, buoyed by the many gays who have suddenly decided this is a “mecca.” An earlier, and unlikely political victory occurred with the Gay’s alliance with the Teamsters, in boycotting a prominent beer company. The Teamsters would allow the hiring of openly gay truck drivers. Milk would run for a position on the SF city council, first starting in 1973. He would lose three times, but with incredible persistence, won the fourth time, in 1978. The first openly gay elected official in the United States. At one level, that very simple statement seems so unbelievable today.Milk would be murdered by fellow city councilman Dan White, who also murdered the mayor, which underscores that Milk was murdered not so much because he was gay, but because White felt humiliated in the political in-fighting of city government. He was murdered on November 27, 1978, a couple of weeks before I left for a decade-long “foreign adventure,” and thus I missed much of the infamous “Twinkie defense” (White was not responsible for his actions because he ate so much junk food!), his very light sentence for manslaughter, and his subsequent suicide.During the period Milk lived in SF, I lived in a very unrealistic “bubble” in Inman Park, in Atlanta, another “mecca” of sorts, for gays. I thought much of the social turmoil of the ‘60’s had led to positive and permanent social change, with only a bit of “mopping up” to do. Atlanta had elected its first Black mayor in ‘72. Women were now mainly “liberated,” and the ERA would soon be passed (remember that one?). Inman Park was half and half, hetreo/gay, and we lived in harmony. And of course, the Vietnam War’s demise ensured that America would never undertake another disastrous and elective foreign war. (Hum!) Wrong on so many accounts, underestimating by a couple magnitudes the countervailing forces.The movie “Milk” helped fill-in a large lacuna in my understanding of my own country’s history. 5-stars, plus.