Jenni Olson | 575 Castro St. / 2009, released 2009

in remembrance

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jenni Olson (screenwriter and director) 575 Castro St. / 2008,  released 2009 [8 minutes]

 

Olson’s 2009 short film, 575 Castro St.is so ingenious that as Letterboxd commentator Sally Jane Black has argued, it “is a perfect work of art.”

     Production designer Bill Groom, art director Charley Beal, and set decorator Barbara Munch had just finished recreating, in preparation for Gus Van Sant’s film Milk, the small camera shop at 575 Castro Street in which the San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk had processed and developed so many of the Super 8 gay and experimental short films of the 1970s. Gaining permission to shoot on the set, Olson also received permission to play Harvey Milk’s own cassette tape, titled “In-Case,” in which the newly elected supervisor had taped his wishes just in case he was to be assassinated by one of his many known and troubled homophobes.

       The combination of the cool aqua-colored outer counter and the warmer and inviting inner room where one can imagine so many early meetings of gay activists taking place, set against his own words is almost both inspiring and almost unbearable to watch and listen to. And in some respects, for those who already knew the man’s history, it perhaps is a more loving and reverent tribute to the man than Van Sant’s formidable movie.

      The tape was made to be read by the mayor, George Moscone, in case of Milk’s assassination; but, ironically, Moscone himself was also killed in Dan White’s murderous spree.

       Olson edited some of the original tape, cutting the several names it mentions, but maintaining the tapes central contents, which, with others, I have winnowed down:

 

“This is Harvey Milk speaking on Friday November 18, 1978. This tape is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination. …I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for—an activist, a gay activist—becomes the target or potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid or very disturbed…Knowing that I could be assassinated at any moment, at any time, I feel it’s important that some people know my thoughts, and why I did what I did. Almost everything that was done was done with an eye on the gay movement. [At this point he begs the Mayor to appoint someone who might have an understanding of what the movement stood for instead of those who opposed it, some of whom he named, Dan White’s name not being among them.] …I cannot prevent some people from feeling angry and frustrated and mad in response to my death, but I hope they will take the frustration and madness and instead of demonstrating or anything of that type, I would hope that they would take the power and I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let the world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody could imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights. … All I ask is for the movement to continue, and if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door…”

         Olson’s camera basically is held still either at the front desk or in the back room for the entire 8-minutes of the film, with only shadows and the glimpse of a human being or autos passing by through the front window, not permitting her vision to distract from what is being said so presciently as we now perceive it through the passage of time. The shop itself becomes almost hallowed ground, being the location and source of so many of the ideas and emotions behind the gay movement as it occurred in San Francisco, ultimately influencing the entire US, just as a few years earlier had events surrounding the Stonewall bar in New York.

        What is so sad, looking back from today’s viewpoint, is that despite all the wonderful changes that have occurred in the now much large LGBTQ+ community, prejudice still exists, hate is still being bred throughout the US, and rights are slowly corroding. If a 94-year-old Harvey Millk were still living today, he would surely smile at all the amazing changes that have occurred, in part, because of his arguments and actions; but perhaps tears would also well-up in his eyes for the continued hate and ire the community still generates.

 

Los Angeles, September 16, 2024 / Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).