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| Scarlett O'Hara and her father look over their home, Tara. |
Release Date: Dec. 15, 1939. Running Time: 233 minutes. Screenplay: Sidney Howard. Based on the novel by: Margaret Mitchell. Producer: David O. Selznick. Director: Victor Fleming; George Cukor (uncredited); Sam Wood (uncredited).
DISCLAIMER:
In recent years, Gone with the Wind has been subject to a (not entirely new) backlash for its problematic racial politics. Rather than either ignore this or try to squeeze a 1 - 2 paragraph section about it into an otherwise unrelated discussion of the movie's artistic merits, I will instead cover its controversies in a separate posting.
My overview of Gone with the Wind as a cultural artifact can be found here. The rest of this review will evaluate it strictly as a movie, one whose historical significance and artistic accomplishment is undeniable - but also one that has some dramatic flaws that I think have sometimes gone unacknowledged.
THE PLOT:
Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) has lived a life of privilege as a Southern belle on her family's plantation, Tara. She is mostly oblivious to chatter about war with the North, and is far more concerned that her longtime crush, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), has become engaged to sweet and lovely Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland).
At their engagement party, Scarlett meets Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a disreputable Virginian who scorns the war fervor. When war comes, the upheaval will see Scarlett's life transformed. As she struggles through poverty and deprivation, she makes a vow - one that she will keep no matter what she must do or who she must hurt:
"As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again!"
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| Not a gentleman: Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) leers at Scarlett from the bottom of a staircase. |
CLARK GABLE AS RHETT BUTLER:
Clark Gable was at the height of his stardom, and he receives a star's introduction: a shot that zooms in on him as he watches (well, leers at) Scarlett from the bottom of a staircase. The moment more or less establishes their relationship. His interest is obvious, but he is not about to join the boys buzzing aroud her like bees around their queen. Her interest is equally apparent, particularly when she learns of his scandalous reputation, but she feigns indifference. At the end of the movie, he blames her for never meeting him halfway, but he's just as guilty; he won't ascend toward her, she won't descend toward him, and all their conflict and arguments amount to attempts by each to establish dominance over the other.
If Rhett's first scene encapsulates his relationship with Scarlett, then his second reveals his clear-eyed, if slightly self-conscious, cynicism. The other men at the party are swept away by war fervor, and Rhett takes pleasure in making himself the object of scorn when he bluntly assesses the South's chances: "The Yankees are better equipped than we. They've got factories, shipyards, coal mines, and a fleet to bottle up our harbors and starve us to death. All we've got is cotton, and slaves, and arrogance." When he refuses to be baited into a duel by young Charles Hamilton (Rand Brooks), Hamilton implies that he's a coward - until Ashley Wilkes points out that Butler is "one of the best shots in the country," and that his refusal to fight is actually a kindness.
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| Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) plays the seductress. |
VIVIEN LEIGH AS SCARLETT O'HARA:
Gable is the star, and he is very much treated as such. But he's also offscreen for much of the movie - and when the last hour of the film makes him the central figure, it results in the movie's weakest extended passage.
That's because Gone with the Wind isn't Rhett's story, but Scarlett's. At the time her casting was announced, Vivien Leigh met with public resistance - How dare a Brit be cast in such an inherently American role? Then the film came out, and that resistance died. It's impossible to imagine the film with a different actress. Leigh is fearless in conveying all of Scarlett's unlikable traits: She's selfish, manipulative, and more than a little narcissistic. But she also brings the underlying strength the character demands.
For all of her faults, Scarlett never crosses the line into seeming unredeemable. There's a disconnect between her vindictive words and her actions. The forty minutes of film leading up to the intermission are notable. Scarlett first declares that she hates Melanie and her unborn baby for keeping her in Atlanta when she really wants to return home. But when Melanie goes into labor, Scarlett delivers the baby. Her efforts keep Melanie and the baby alive long enough for Rhett to get them out of the burning city; and after Rhett leaves them to join the war effort, Scarlett takes charge, making sure they all survive not only to reach Tara, but through the months of poverty that follow. It's a flat-out heroic effort that far eclipses the demands of the promise she made to Melanie's husband.
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| Hattie McDaniel as Mammy, almost certainly the smartest character in the film. |
OTHER CHARACTERS:
Ashley Wilkes: Leslie Howard does not give one of his better performances as the long-time object of Scarlett's affections, and it is unfortunate that this is many viewers' sole exposure to him. Howard is too old, and he seems far too aware of this, resulting in a performance that's uncomfortable and mannered. Even more than age, I suspect, he had just reached his breaking point with playing weaklings and cowards. "I hate the damn part," he wrote to his daughter; and after it was done, the rest of his too-brief career would be spent playing stronger characters in movies aimed at supporting the British war effort.
Melanie Hamilton: Olivia de Havilland does the impossible, bringing humanity to a character who could so easily have come across as a sanctimonious saint. She does this by making sure that Melanie never comes across as a fool. Whatever she may say, her nonverbal reactions show that she is fully aware of Scarlett's faults, including her flirtation with her husband - She just isn't willing to reduce her to those faults. Both de Havilland and the script find moments of steel that prove the lie in Ashley's claim that she lacks Scarlett's strength. After Scarlett is attacked by vagrants, Ashley leads a posse to clear out the spot where she was attacked - something that could easily lead to him being hanged by the occupying Union forces. Melanie takes charge throughout the scene, keeping Scarlett quiet while silencing the other women's recriminations, and behaving with poise when a Union officer comes to search the house.
Mammy: Hattie McDaniel became the first African American actor to receive an Oscar, awarded Best Supporting Actress, and the award was well deserved. This part could easily have come across as a condescending comedy stereotype, but McDaniel plays her with intelligence and strength. She's effectively the movie's Greek chorus, as she observes the misadventures of Scarlett and Rhett, clear-eyed about their faults as individuals and as a couple even as she supports them. Despite the superficial subservience of her role, she never comes across as weak, and is always presented as a full human being: funny in some scenes, compassionate in others, grumbling complaints to her charges even as she goes beyond the demands of simple duty to help them. At one point, Rhett names her as the only person whose respect he actually craves.
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| Casualties of war: the dead and dying during the siege of Atlanta. |
THREE DIRECTORS AND THEIR MICROMANAGER PRODUCER:
Though director George Cukor was attached through more than two years of preproduction, playing a major role in shaping the film, he ran into problems with both Selznick and Clark Gable: He clashed with Selznick over both the script and Selznick's interference, while Gable reportedly resented being directed by "a fairy." Cukor might have weathered one conflict or the other, but not both, and he was fired a little more than two weeks into filming. Though much of Cukor's footage ended up being reshot, Selznick later estimated that "a solid three reels" of Cukor's scenes remain in the movie, including such well-remembered moments as Melanie's childbirth and the shooting of a deserter; and Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland continued to seek his guidance on their performances throughout the remainder of production.
Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming was Gable's personal preference, and he shot the majority of the movie before leaving due to exhaustion. Sam Wood took over for a brief period, and Selznick's published memos indicate that some consideration was given to keeping him on... but in the end, Wood's footage wasn't at the level of either Cukor's or Fleming's. Fortunately, Fleming was able to recover to finish the film, and ended up with the sole director's credit.
Given all this, it's remarkable how visually and tonally consistent the final product is. Though Cukor particularly chafed at Selznick's micromanaging, that very quality probably saved the movie. Cukor oversaw the planning; Fleming shot most of it; Wood kept the production alive. Where I'm aware of a director/scene match (and I'm mostly not), I'd judge Cukor's footage to have more emotional intensity and Fleming's to have more visual sweep... but regardless of who shot what, the end film was Selznick's, and the very dictatorial control that made the production so hard on cast and crew is almost certainly what kept the end result unified.
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| Rhett declares his love for Scarlett. |
THOUGHTS:
There are two solid hours of Gone with the Wind that are every bit the equal of the movie's reputation. The second and third hours are spellbinding. Scarlett is taken from privilege to poverty, and back to wealth that is this time wrested from the world through the force of her own will. This journey is reflected by her character arc. She begins as a Southern belle whose world seems to exist to accommodate her every whim. When Atlanta starts literally burning around her, she insists on returning home, fleeing to the safety of family and childhood... But home is a broken place, and she is forced to rely on her own ingenuity first to survive and eventually to thrive.
The cinematic technique on display is breathtaking, with individual shots that the mind can't help but hold onto. Wounded and dying men spread out across an Atlanta square. Rhett and Scarlett escape from Atlanta, fending off the desperate and the dangerous as the city burns around them. Rhett professes his love for Scarlett against a sky of pure red. Scarlett, alone with a Union deserter, plants herself against a wall as he approaches, concealing the gun she is holding until the second she resolves to defend herself. Then she and Melanie eagerly rifle through the dead man's pockets for money to allow them to survive for just a little while longer... all of this supported by one of the most instantly recognizable music scores this side of Jaws or Star Wars.
Unfortunately, the movie's grip falters during its final hour. The focus narrows, the backdrop of Reconstruction vanishing as the drama becomes solely concerned with Rhett and Scarlett's relationship. Minus the broader context, with suddenly no more scenes centered around Scarlett's business efforts or complications caused by Union troops, the toxic antics of Rhett and Scarlett are reduced to the stuff of soap opera. The movie also suddenly looks cheaper, I suspect a result of the action moving mostly away from locations and into indoor studio sets.
Probably the most misjudged element about this final hour is a switch in protagonist. For three solid hours, we have followed Scarlett's story and journey. Suddenly, however, Rhett becomes the viewpoint character, with Scarlett absent from several scenes. The movie essentially changes its orbit, and the whole atmosphere is thrown off-kilter. Also, while Gable's Rhett charms and dominates as a supporting character when seen through other people's eyes, up close it becomes rapidly apparent that there's nothing particularly remarkable or even interesting about him.
The movie does recover for the ending, returning to Scarlett's viewpoint for its final scenes. And yes, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" is a wonderful line, well delivered in the midst of a beautifully photographed exit. But for me, at least, it comes too late to recapture the magic of the film's first three hours.
SEQUELS AND RETELLINGS:
Various sequels and alternate versions of Gone with the Wind have been published in print form. Three were authorized by Margaret Mitchell's estate: Alexandra Ripley's 1991 novel, Scarlett; and Donald McCraig's novels, Rhett Butler's People in 2007 and Ruth's Journey in 2014. Others were unauthorized, but managed to make it into print, one (The Wind Done Gone) after substantial legal wrangling; and one (The Winds of Tara) only in Australia, where the Gone with the Wind copyright had expired.
The only of these to have been filmed was Scarlett, made into a television miniseries in 1994. Starring Joanne Whalley-Kilmer as Scarlett O'Hara and Timothy Dalton as Rhett Butler, this follow-up avoids having to deal with the uncomfortable history of the post-Reconstruction South by moving the action to Ireland, where she becomes involved with an unscrupulous aristocrat (Sean Bean). I have neither read the book nor seen the mini-series, and I have no interest in doing so. Reception was mixed at the time for both book and movie, and their reputation has if anything decreased in the decades since.
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| Scarlett and Melanie (Olivia de Havilland) read a casualty list. |
OVERALL:
For its first three hours, I would have said that Gone with the Wind stands as a masterpiece in spite of its problematic racial politics. The first hour is a bit slow, but that's often the case with large-scale movies; it takes time to establish characters and set the major events in motion. Once that groundwork has been laid, the next two hours are among the finest 120 minutes of film I have seen. At the 3 hour mark, I was certain I would be awarding a perfect "10."
The spell breaks in the final hour. The focus narrows to unremarkable domestic drama, and the script makes an ill-advised switch in viewpoint that is to the detriment of both leads. It finds its focus again in the final scenes, but by then the damage has been done.
It remains a fine movie, with some outstanding performances and some superb cinematic craftsmanship. But the stumbles of the final hour leave me deducting a couple points from the final score.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
Related Post: Gone with the Wind and Race: Musings about the Controversies Surrounding "The Greatest Movie Ever Made."
Related Post: David O. Selznick vs. the Hays Office: Battling the Censors for Gone with the Wind and Rebecca
Outstanding Production - 1938: You Can't Take It With You
Outstanding Production - 1940: Rebecca
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