I postponed watching “Gone with the Wind” for a
long time because I had not remembered in fondly as a teenager and I was
skeptical of whether it is a war movie.
But recently I decided to review it because I have seen it listed as a
war movie by several “experts” that I trust.
Clearly, it is more of a drama than a war movie, but I have reviewed war
movies that are less firmly in the genre.
I won’t spend a lot of time summarizing the plot because it is possibly
the most famous American movie. It may
have been seen more than any other movie and it is estimated to have the
biggest box office of all time if you adjust for inflation. It is based on a famous novel by Margaret
Mitchell and brought to the screen by famous producer David O. Selznick. It came out in the year considered to be the
best in Hollywood history, and yet it dominated at the box office and at the
Academy Awards. It won eleven Oscars
including: Picture, Production, Director
(Victor Fleming), Actress (Vivien Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel),
Screenplay (Sidney Howard), Art Direction, Cinematography – Color, and
Editing, Clark Gable was nominated for
Best Actor (losing to Robert Donat of “Goodbye, Mr. Chips”) and Olivia de
Havilland for Best Supporting Actress.
The film starts in the Antebellum South. Scarlet O’Hara (Leigh) is the pampered
daughter of a plantation owner. She is
in love with Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), but he’s not interested in marrying
a bitch. Instead, he chooses the saintly
Melanie (de Havilland). Partly because
she doesn’t want to be an old maid, Scarlet eventually succumbs to the courting
of the suave Rhett Butler (Gable). The
movie does a good job depicting the naïve enthusiasm of Southern boys for the
upcoming war. They all believe one
Southerner can whip twenty Yankees.
Ashley enlists and becomes a war hero.
Rhett is a dashing blockade runner.
The part of the movie set in the war is most remembered for the famous
burning of Atlanta scene. In spite of
its overlength, we are left wondering what Rhett and Scarlett are doing for
much of the war. The second half covers
the Reconstruction period. Scarlet
struggles to preserve her plantation – Tara.
Her marriage to Rhett is dysfunctional, partly because she still pines
for Ashley. Times are rough for the
former upper class as the evil carpetbaggers control the South. Thank goodness Scarlett’s former slaves
remain loyal.
The first question that needs to be answered
is: does it hold up in the 21st
Century? Not as well as “The Wizard of
Oz”, but better than most of the other Best Picture nominees from that
year. I’m referring to entertainment value,
not historical value. It is something of
a curio of Hollywood’s view of the South in the 1930’s. Although not as offensive as “Birth of a
Nation”, it pushes a similar stereotyped portrayal of the Old South. The stereotyping is especially egregious in
the slave characters which include the shiftless, the irresponsible, the Uncle
Tomish, and the mammy. (Those are the
house slaves, since the movie does not deal with the field slaves.) To be fair,
there is a white prostitute with a heart of gold. Almost as offensive is the attempt by the
plot to make us feel sorry for the upper class slaveowners. Even the Southern belle from hell Scarlet elicits
sympathy as she perseveres against the tides of war and reunification. And the unrequited love that turns her into a
scheming mantrap.
Scarlet is a great character, as is Rhett. However, the charismatic Rhett (and thus
Gable) disappears from large stretches of the film. These two flawed humans are balanced by the
flawless Ashley and Melanie. Melanie
should have been called St. Melanie. The
cast is good and the nominations were deserved.
McDaniel broke racial barriers, although she was criticized for
reinforcing the ever-loyal mammy stereotype.
Her response was she’d rather make a lot of money playing a maid than
being one.
GWTW was an expensive movie and it shows. It is a gorgeous movie and well-deserved the
art direction Oscar. Keep in mind that
none of the interiors were slave cabin interiors. And you have the costumes, highlighted by the
requisite ball and the iconic dress made from a curtain (so brilliantly
satirized by Carol Burnett). The score
is what you would expect from the overrated Max Steiner. The dialogue as not as sappy as you might
expect and it does have some memorable lines.
The dialogue is not what creates the offensiveness. Unless you are offended by the repeated use
of the curse “fiddle-dee-dee.” The
n-word is not used, although darkie and negro are. Kudos to the screenwriters for somewhat
whittling down the book. And respect for
not putting the movie Rhett and Ashley in the KKK. That alone shows you how far movies had come
since “Birth of a Nation”.
So, is it a good war movie? If “Casablanca” is, so is GWTW. Speaking of which, “Casablanca” is a much
better movie. Still, every one should
see it once. Well, maybe not war movie
fans. I’ve seen it twice, with fifty
years in between. And another fifty
before the third viewing. But I didn’t
have to be drinking heavily like I had to when I reviewed “Braveheart”, after having refused to break my rule of not
walking out on a movie. (I only broke it
once – Jim Carrey’s “Me, Myself, and Irene”.)
GRADE = B-
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