Date Seen: 5/20/17
Score: 4.5/5
DIRECTOR: Victor Fleming
PRODUCER: David O. Selznik
STUDIO: Selznik International Pictures in conjunction with MGM
SCREENPLAY: Sidney Howard
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ernest Haller
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| Vivien Leigh and Thomas Mitchell |
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| Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard |
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| Vivien Leigh |
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| Vivien Leigh |
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| Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland |
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| Oliva de Havilland |
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| Clark Gable and Ona Munson |
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| It's not hard to see how Selznik went over-budget with this film... |
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| Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh |
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| Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh |
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| Vivien Leigh |
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| "As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again!" |
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| Vivien Leigh shakes her fist at Reconstruction |
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| Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel |
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| Vivien Leigh's powerful gaze |
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| Olivia de Havilland and Hattie McDaniel stand in front of a portrait of Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara |
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| Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh |
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| Vivien Leigh |
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| Clark Gable and Olivia de Havilland |
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| Vivien Leigh |
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| "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" |
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| "After all, tomorrow is another day!" |
Well, I did it. I watched all four hours of Gone With The Wind, the fourth greatest film of all time according to the AFI 100 list. It was about time I sat myself down and finally watched David O. Selznik's masterpiece, but it's not very often I have an entire day free so that I can watch a film. I am glad, however, that I found the time to dedicate myself to this film, because, as you can see from the stills above, it's a cinematographic masterpiece. The dazzling visuals were enough to satisfy me for both discs of the film (yes, it comes on two discs that you have to switch halfway), but I found myself thoroughly entertained for more reasons than just its cinematography.
Gone With The Wind has not, politically speaking, held up to time very well. I'm not entirely sure that it was ever really appropriate to make it in the first place, 1939 or not. It is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic films ever made, and it's still had the most successful box office run in film history, even 78 years after its release. Ask any young person and, despite never having seen it, they will be able to recognize the phrase "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" and they will know the names Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, even if they have no idea why. In this way- its glorification as a cinematic masterpiece- the film is a timeless classic.
However, there are some pretty notable- pretty cringeworthy- aspects of this film. I want to just say that while every single part of this movie is problematic in some way- from the depiction of the Confederacy to the personal relationships between the characters- it's probably worth recognizing that Gone With The Wind follows in the tradition of The Birth of a Nation (1915) as a beloved cinematic masterpiece that glorifies slavery, sympathizes with the white southerners who perpetuated it, and revises the real history of horrific violence against people of color following the Civil War. The fact that two of the most famous and celebrated films of all time are so rife with revisionist history that glorifies a shameful period of American History and erases the very real history of racial violence should tell us all something about the power of privilege when it comes to filmmaking and consumption.
We could talk all about how, despite becoming the first African American to win an Academy Award, Hattie McDaniel did so by playing an overracialized stereotype of a Black maid that would persist for generations, and that at the Oscars Award Ceremony she was forced to sit in a segregated section of the audience, and that she was not even able to attend the Atlanta premier of the film due to Jim Crow segregation laws. We could talk about how the film glorifies slavery and the relationship between slaves and their masters, or more pertinently how the film sympathizes with the Confederate south and demonizes the Union. If we even wanted to, we could talk about the film's depiction of marital rape and domestic abuse. These are all problematic aspects of the film that have made the movie so infamous, yet never seemed to be important enough in the minds of viewers to squelch their appetite for the film. Again, perhaps because of the privilege allowed to movie makers and viewers. I suppose that most movie-goers who ate up Gone With The Wind in 1939 had their own archaic views about race, sex, and storytelling, but I think it's safe to assume that any audience that could direct more emotion towards Scarlett O'Hara and her petty, trite relationships with men who have no real reason to love her than towards the fact that the film depicts Confederates as sympathetic heroes and Blacks as subservient dimwits was probably full of white people.
For me, I was able to enjoy the film for its over-the-top visuals and production quality, and the fine performances of its actors, but it was so hard for me to stomach the open hostility towards the Union and sympathetic treatment of slaveholders. Listen: I think it's worth depicting Confederate southerners as real people who had real relationships and were worthy of life and happiness, but it's setting a dangerous precedent to make them the heroes of a story in which they are, very accurately, the villains. While I don't believe any film should set about trying to demonize an entire group of people, I'm generally pretty tolerant of movies doing just that to the following groups: Nazis, war criminals, dictators, and Confederate slaveholders. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that, sure, there must have been some pretty nice racists back then. Look at Olivia de Havilland's Melanie! She was practically the most angelic racist there ever was! But when we make every southerner a sympathetic character in a movie that does so many other things to glorify the good old days when Blacks were in bondage and women were confined to corsets and hoop skirts and men got to rule the plantations/world, we're sending a message that this is the way society should be. And that sets back progress toward a more inclusive world for anyone who's not a white man, movie or no movie.
Or we could do what I often do when movies are too problematic at face-value to properly stomach: just assume that everything is ironic.
Vivien Leigh is, of course, absolutely gorgeous, so it's not hard to see why she'd attract so much attention, but to imagine so many men actually falling in love with her is ridiculous, because she is a rude, selfish bitch. Let's assume that this fact is understood- that she's not meant to be a character we sympathize with- that her sex appeal is designed to establish men as idiots guided by their private parts and not their brains. Let's assume that she really is a perfect match for Rhett Butler, who is just as selfish as she is and openly admits that his idea of love is being able to purely control a woman. Let's assume that she is so frequently cast beside the borderline-eye-rollingly pious and good Melanie because Fleming wants to emphasize her awful qualities by utilizing a foil. Let's assume that all of the problematic aspects of the film are meant to immortalize the way the south remembers Reconstruction, rather than display an accurate truth. Just as our memories are colored by our own biases, let's imagine that Gone With The Wind is a daydream of a southern woman like Scarlett, and not a racist glorification made by a bitter woman living in the mid-twentieth century.
We should not watch Gone With The Wind with our backs turned to its problematic qualities; however, we should also not condemn it as a film that should never be watched. There is a reason why this film is so important and influential, just like The Birth of a Nation. Do I wish that these iconic and groundbreaking cinematic feats were progressive, feminist, and featured casts of people of color who weren't relegated to playing archetypes? Yes, that's basically my dream come true. But clearly it is impossible, especially since many groundbreaking films were made at a time in which artists were encouraged to express such disturbing political sentiments through their work by a close-minded society, and that these films were made and consumed by many people who held so much privilege that any problematic or traumatizing aspects of the film's inaccuracies had no personal effect. Let Gone With The Wind be a lesson to contemporary viewers and film scholars about the privilege of filmmaking and consuming, and the political power and motivations that go along with those acts.
Sources:
"Gone With The Wind," from The Dame In The Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code by Leonard J. Leff and Jerold L. Simmons
"'Gone With The Wind' But Not Forgotten" from Everything Was Better In America: Print Culture in the Great Depression by David Welky
"David Selznick's 'Gone With The Wind': 'The Negro Problem'" by Leonard J. Leff, published in the Georgia Review, Vol. 83 No.1 (1984)
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