The Times Of Harvey Milk Gets National Film Registry Preservation

Every year, the US Library Of Congress selects 25 films for preservation. This year’s entrants to the National Film Registry have been announced and include the Oscar-winning documentary, The Times Of Harvey Milk, which becomes one of the first LGBT-themed movies to join the registry.

Rob Epstein’s 1984 film tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person voted into public office when he became a San Francisco City Supervisor in 1978. Tragically less than a year into his term in office, he was assassinated by fellow Supervisor Dan White, who also killed the mayor. Harvey’s life also formed the basis of Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-winning movie, Milk.

For several years there have been grumblings about the lack of gay-themed works inducted into the National Film Registry. The 1989 National Film Preservation Act specifically says that films aren’t chosen for their popularity or supposed ‘greatness’, but due to their being deemed ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically’ significant. Until now, LGBT movies have generally been ignored and gay people shut out of the US’s official permanent visual record. Some have seen this as an attempt to airbrush LGBT people out of the history of American culture.

Hopefully The Times Of Harvey Milk’s inclusion is a sign of shifting attitudes. Distributor Dennis Doros certainly seems to think so. He has advocated to get the documentary included for several years, and has previously commented on the lack of LGBT titles in the registry.  He now tells the Washington Post, “I suspect that the tide of the country has changed, and that the acceptance by the Vice President and the President of gay rights might have sent a message to the entire government, not just the Library of Congress.

“I’m happy that one of the great documentaries of all time has been accepted. It further legitimizes [the National Film Registry] as the most important list of films in the country for educators, librarians and the public.”

Other films inducted this year include Dirty Harry, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Matrix, Slacker, Born Yesterday and a League Of The Own. You can see the full list of newly chosen entrants to the National Film Registry below:

3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Augustas (1930s-1950s)
Born Yesterday (1950)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
A Christmas Story (1983)
The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight (1897)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Hours for Jerome: Parts 1 and 2 (1980-82)
The Kidnapper’s Foil (1930s-1950s)
Kodachrome Color Motion-Picture Tests (1922)
A League of Their Own (1992)
The Matrix (1999)
The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair (1939)
One Survivor Remembers (1995)
Parable (1964)
Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia (1990)
Slacker (1991)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)
They Call It Pro Football (1967)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1914)
The Wishing Ring; An Idyll of Old England (1914)