Episode 14.5 - Gone With the Wind Review 9/10

Gone With the Wind - 1939 - Victor Fleming (and friends)

Before I go anywhere with this, I have to mention that I got to watch the remastered version of this film on BluRay and I have to say, for anyone with a BluRay player that happens to be a fan of the classics, there is no other way to watch these films. The quality is unbelievable, especially considering this came out in 1939 before the days of advanced post-production.

Gone With the Wind refers to the winds of change that blew through America during the Civil War-era, spinning on its head the culture and practice that so many people grew accustomed to. A civilization of slavery and rebellion, where war was eagerly anticipated by men and dreams of finding a husband and raising a family consumed women to the point where even I believe I could have gotten a date back then. Marriages had about as much depth as the licenses they were printed on and love was thrown around with as much abandon as the pens used to sign them. Life had a certain routine to it and people's personalities blended together like the USA stood for the United Stepfords of America.

In the midst of this world is Scarlet O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), who wants so much to fall under this cliché with the “love of her life” Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) that she will work any angle she can to get one step closer to that goal of making him her husband. Unfortunately, Ashley already had plans to marry his sweetheart Melanie, despite his obvious affection for Scarlet. This doesn't sit well with her and she spends her days stopping at nothing to ensure her survival while her heart gets strung along, waiting for the moment where Ashley will run into her arms admitting the mistake he made in not choosing to be with her.

It's this unattainable love that drives Scarlet to become the incredibly strong woman she turns out to be, capable of surviving the end of the Civil War, the loss of her parents, running her own business, and unknowingly becoming a representation of 1960s feminism with the whole “I can do better on my own than with any man in my life...but I'm not afraid to marry one for his money.” The unfortunate outcome of this is, because of her strength as an independent woman, she loses sight of what true, meaningful companionship looks like, which leads to the infamous “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn” line where the TRUE love of her life, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), walks out on their marriage with the ol' “Bitch, you had your shot” turn of the head.

Wind was four hours long and really two movies crammed into one. If this were remade, the entire first half would have been mostly comprised of flashbacks, as its reason for existing was really to show the story of why Scarlet became the woman she was in the second act, casting off emotion and treating romance like a delusion of grandeur.

Needless to say, feeling for these characters was easy to do and I appreciated the depth, although I don't think I'd be able to do that for any modern day story. It was very easy to follow for being as long as it was, but I honestly believe a good hour of this could have been chopped out without losing anything incredibly valuable (I know, I know...”how dare you think about fucking with the classics, who do you think you are? George Lucas?”).

The beauty of classic cinema is that it does an amazing job of instilling emotion in the audience because filmmakers back then devoted so much energy to discovering how they could get those inspiring performances out of their actors instead of balancing on the tightrope of believability and using gimmicks to make their stories memorable. Where nowadays you go to the theatre to watch a story of this or a tale of that, in the golden age of motion pictures, you went to experience a movie; actors on a stage bringing you into their world, directors dazzling us with spectacular scenes, powerful performances and Technicolor (where available).

I can appreciate why this film receives the acclaim it does because it accomplishes all that with flying colors, but because of the world I grew up in and the way I have been told stories on the big screen, I can't help but wonder whether or not so much was thrown into this film because the filmmakers were hesitant to let us imagine things on our own. This wasn't a complicated epic with lots of moving parts that would require this much depth, this was a movie about a woman who loved a man she couldn't have and how it changed her in ways unheard of during that time.

So much about this was just beautiful and I won't let length completely determine my feelings of this film. It was a powerful story and because of the role that women now have in the world and the incredible marks they make on society for reasons other than “being the mother of our children,” although I can't find Scarlet's character as shocking as she might have come across in 1939, I can whole-heartedly respect her and admire her for the hurdles she overcame.

With its gripping performances, great story, beautiful scenery...and a mid-movie intermission, Gone With the Wind gets 9 dustbusters out of 10 from me. It could have been 10 easily if it just left a little bit for the imagination.