Gone With the Wind

Time often sheds a lot of light on things in the past that are not acceptable in the present. Much like how media and entertainment continues to grow, the manner in which people accept certain elements from the past can change and that holds true for what is shown in films of bygone eras; be it insensitive and offensive material, or just storylines and situations that come across as either tone-deaf, blissfully unaware of future events, or just ignorant to what is seen as hurtful even back then. It’s a shame that many classics films that are deemed as monumental pieces of history to this day are home to these awkward elements, but it is important to look them in the face and acknowledge them as opposed to burying the truth and pretending it didn’t exist. One such film that took a massive dive from this viewpoint was the highly successful 1939 film, Gone with the Wind. Set during the backdrop of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era, the movie follows Scarlett O’Hara (played by Vivien Leigh), a southern daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, who is rebuffed by the love of her life, Ashley Wilkes (played by Leslie Howard) who is forced to remain docile with his new wife, Melanie Hamilton (played by Olivia de Havilland). After settling in an unloving marriage before the Civil War kills her husband leaving her a widow, Scarlett finds herself in the eye of Rhett Butler (played by Clark Gable), a roguish steely-eyed man who forms a strained yet beneficial relationship with Scarlett, which proves most useful when the war brings death and destruction to their home once the Yankees succeed. Now needing to regrow her home of Tara back from scratch, Scarlett takes over her household and does everything she can (regardless of morality) to keep her life stable and wealthy, while slowly drawing in the attention of Butler, who wants her for himself. Based on the 1936 novel written by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind is a movie that has aged quite poorly with time. Once considered one of the greatest movies of all time is instead now known for its racist portrayals, false depictions of real history, and an ignorant appraisal of a period that was anything but great. Its important to look back on this movie, and objectively look at what still works and what doesn’t.

The history behind this movie is quite fascinating as it took a long time for the final product to be completed due to several behind-the-scenes issues. The film couldn’t start til two years after producer David O. Selznick bought the book right due to wanting Clark Gable for the lead who was under contract by MGM at the time, the original director of the film, George Cukor, was replaced with Wizard of Oz director, Victor Fleming, after only three weeks of filming, scripts were rewritten, resubmitted and readjusted throughout production, it was considered one of the most expensive films of the time (with its estimated production cost being that of 3.85 million which was substantial back then), and it was roughly four hours in length, which was massive even for films back in that era. A common practice done with movies based on novels back in the day was an insistence in including every detail from the source, which often made the films feel like they have two or three movies worth of material in the one and Gone with the Wind is no different. Every plot development, character and consequence is in this film, and for the first half, it actually works out quite nicely, with a good pace, interesting characters, a false but new portrayal of a side of history not often talked about in film, and presenting a story of struggling through strife and coming out stronger than before in a theatrical but memorable manner. It has its flaws and shows its age, but excluding those issues, the first half of this story (which is still an hour and forty minutes) is honestly pretty solid. However, its during the second half of the film where problems start to get really noticeable. While the problematic elements were digestible during the first half, they can’t be ignored as it continued on; the racist portrayal of ‘’accepting ”slaves who ”loved their owners”,  this glorification of a time and location that wasn’t all that great, the mere fact that it wants the audience to feel sorry for the side of the war that wanted to keep slavery, it’s a harsh pill to swallow, but everything interesting and even intriguing in this plot goes downhill the further it focuses on the love triangle, which sadly is a big portion of the movie. The romance portrayed is clearly unhealthy on several angles; from a woman refusing to move on and feeling like life is pointless without this one man, or a man’s need to own this woman as opposed to love her which results in an abusive relationship mentally, physically, and sexually. Its icky in all the wrong places, and even worst, it’s just boring and drawn out, leaving nothing but pure hatred and vileness from this component. It wastes a lot of good story developments for something more traditional Hollywood, it gets needlessly cruel and mean-spirited, and the ending feels incredibly unfulfilling and undeserved.

The movie has a long laundry list of characters, and for a majority of the time, some are done pretty well. When casting for the movie was announced, one of the iconic moments from the film’s build-up to completion was who was going to play the lead character, Scarlett. With the book being insanely popular during the time, this was arguably fandom’s first big scream for a popular actress to play one of their favourite characters, and the list of options was pretty massive with names like Tallulah Bankhead, Miriam Hopkins, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis being contenders, but the role was given to relative newcomer and British actress, Vivien Leigh, which was met with a ton of backlash due to her non-southern background. However, the crowd and the critics were won over rather quickly because she is easily the best part of this film. Not only is the accent spot on (you’d never expect her to have a completely different voice), but Scarlett is very close to being a very well written female character. It’s a role that has qualities that are ahead of her time, and its one that an actress would love to play; a rich spoiled girl who is thrown into wartime against her will, is forced to flee and is left penniless and decides to make her wealth her own way, even destroying her own credibility to get it done. She’s a flawed heroine but shows her determination and strength by transforming from a weak-willed child to the stern and unfeeling head of a house, its admirable, and Leigh does bring that soft girly side as well as that firm controlled womanly side very effectively. However, her obsession with her love interests is pretty pathetic (especially with how Rhett treats her) and the film’s weird insistence on painting her as the sole evil character when many others do far worse than her is just another tragic circumstance of the past. Like as an example, Rhett Butler is a truly disgusting character in every way. This is separated from Clark Gable, who does perfectly fine for the role, but this character is so bland, so heinous, so abusive, and so disgustingly unlikeable that its awful the film tries to pretend he’s somehow the one in the right. If Scarlett is the best part of this movie, he’s easily the worst. The side characters range from acceptably well-acted to flawed in many ways; Olivia de Havilland does her best with a basic character, Leslie Howard portrays arguably the only somewhat decent man in this movie, and while the portrayals of the African American characters are horribly stereotypical and offensive, Hattie McDaniel does do a very good job as the lead maid. trying everything in her power to come across as more than just the ”Mammy” caricature and like an actual human being.

For a movie that was made during the late 1930s, its still to this day a beautiful looking movie. The Technicolor does a great job making everything pop and feel full of rural life and harsh coloration, the movie abuses sunsets so much because of how great it looks silhouetting a character, a lot of the sets are very well structured and make for good locations to be around, and the movie clearly has a big scale to it with shots that really show off the expansiveness of the environment and in how many people are on screen. The first half of the movie does bring a lot of decent scope and presence to the story, like it could have been this grand epic tale out on the countryside, but the second half’s lack of narrative weight, moody atmosphere and only driving force being needless stupid arguments, doesn’t allow it to reach that level and instead limits it to solely unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things. The writing feels very wishy-washy and very much feels picked right off the pages from Margaret Mitchell’s work, and from looking at her upbringing and context surrounding the story, the direction the story takes makes a lot more sense. The portrayal of everything in the book and the film, both the good and the bad, are the product of her own mindset and viewpoint from growing up around that period and that atmosphere. The mindset of the slaves, how the south and the confederacy was supposedly a good thing, all of it wouldn’t have been viewed as awful because she experienced it first-hand through the lens of being told by her environment and her parents. It doesn’t excuse any of the hurtful wrong material that came from it, but it means that it doesn’t feel like actual malice, rather ignorance from growing-up in that era with rose-colored glasses

It’s really hard to say that this is a movie that needs to be seen, and that’s even excluding the dated aspects about it. It doesn’t quite reach the levels of borderline offensive that other material at the time would have done, or even some from its own source (they actively work with the KKK in the book, it’s quite disgusting), but it is blatantly there also. It should be something that people who are curious should experience, not just to remember the bad and realize the great progress made, but also for what this movie does, to its credit, do right. There are some great visuals, quotable lines, and some interesting characters in this film, it just takes a very long time and wadding through some unpleasant aspects to get to it. It will be down to personal taste just how much you’re willing to stomach with this, but if you accept them and move on, there will at least be some good aspects around this film that are worth sticking around for. Make the decision if this movie deserved to be forgotten like dust in the wind or not.