# Gone with the Wind (1939)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    GONE WITH THE WIND

Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. New Line Cinema (revival) Director: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood, William Cameron Menzies, Sidney Franklin (produced by David O. Selznik) Writer: Sidney Howard, Jo Swerling, Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, et al (novel by Margaret Mitchell) Cast: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil, Victor Jory, Laura Hope Crews, Hattie McDaniel, Ona Munson, Harry Davenport, Ann Rutherford, Evelyn Keyes, Carroll Nye, Paul Hurst, Isabel Jewell, Clirff Edwards, Ward Bond, Butterfly McQueen

A revitalized "Gone With the Wind" with a digitally remastered sound track opened at about the same time as "Argmageddon," and surprisingly enough, the two films share common ideas. Thematically, both are about the will to survive in the face of disaster. In the former story, Scarlett O'Hara has been reduced to poverty by the devastation of the Civil War and must use her wiles to subsist. In the latter, the entire world must use its cunning to endure a rendezvous with an asteroid whose trajectory threatens the planet. There's no problem getting the young generation to the movies to see "Armageddon." But what would a demographic analysis say about the crowd that views GWTW? I'd guess that the curve will be skewed greatly toward the 50+ folks who have seen the film at least once before--either at its original 1939 opening or during the 1954 or 1961 incarnation, the 1967 widescreen version or the 1989 restoration. More's the pity. GWTW is not simply the sort of story one goes to simply to reminisce about the favorites of one's youth: it's perhaps the best example of a classical theatrical romance which even today does not reveal a single campy bone in its body. For all the grand, sentimental sweep of the Old South, the tears and laughter of archetypal romantics, the stereotypical portrayals of blacks and bandidos, GWTW is as believable in today's cynical world as it was in the thirties when the crowds packed the theaters for mushy fantasies. And for those of us who took our history classes in Northern schools and simply assumed that the antebellum New Yorkers were the good guys and the Georgians the reb terrorists, Margaret Mitchell's account--sweepingly brought to the screen by David O. Selznik (the Spielberg of his day)--portrays looting, "white- trash" Yankess despoiling the gentility of the Confederates. Even the American Film Institute cannot be criticized for putting this historical romance on its all-time best-100 list, where it ranks close to "Citizen Kane" as The Great American Movie.

"Gone With the Wind" considers the dramatic changes which take place in the American South between the period of 1861 and 1873. The transfigururation is reflected in its chief character, Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh), who mutates from a spoiled, self-indulgent, strong-willed flirt, into a mature, giving, and equally strong-willed woman. In the role that any actress would die for, Vivian Leigh portrays a bright-eyed, beautiful southern belle residing on the lovely Tara plantation in Georgia who is as sturdy as any woman of the 1930s (when the film was first introduced) or even of modern times. She remins in love with a wishy-washy but genteel Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) even after he marries the saintly Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). Ashley's flaw is that he never convincingly rebuffs Scarlett's advances but as interpreted by director Victor Fleming, he leads her to believe that he would abandon his wife for Scarlett in a moment if only his honor did not hold him back. One of the intriguing puzzles of the film, in fact, is Ashley's mbiguousness. We puzzle to decipher the man's true feelings throughout the work's entire 238 minutes, his mild encouragement to Scarlett leading her to ultimate comeuppance.

Fleming received the combined help of an army of directors, including George Cukor, Sam Wood, William Cameron Menzies and Sidney Franklin in attempting to overome the difficulties both on and off the set of GWTW. Even on celluloid you'd guess that Clark Gable (Rhett Butler), the Robert Redford of his time, was a drinker and womanizer in real life, and Vivian Leigh was a drug-abuser who treated men off stage in much the manner that she dealt with them at Tara.

The best scenes in the movie are those involving the push and pull of the O'Hara-Butler relationship, as Vivian Leigh exerts her considerable talents to portray her conflict between an unladylike attraction to a bold and impertinent blockade runner and her need to appear as a Southern aristocratic woman should. GWTW's humor comes largely from the stereotyped depiction of Mammy (Hattie McDaniel, who captured one of the movie's eight Oscars), a slave who knew Scarlett from the time she was born and who is looked up to by the pretty lass as though she were her mother. Like an antebellum Aunt Jemima, Mc Daniel steals every scene she's in, bossing around the household and condemning the actions of the Yankees who somehow thought of themselves as welcome liberators of the slaves.

All of the drama of GWTW is successfully combined with dazzling production values. An immense fire is created when cars of ammunition explode as Scarlett and Rhett are fleeing the advancing Northern armies. The image could pass muster even in the age of 1990s fx, the flames of Atlanta providing a feverish testimony to the tragedy of this war between brother and brother. The most heart-rending scene is of hundreds of broken bodies lying, bleeding, dying on the streets as Erenst Haller's camera pulls back for a horrific bird's eye view.

"Gone With the Wind" is the sort of film that some have in mind when they say "they don't make 'em like they used to." There is room in our movie theaters for the great classics like this one and for the boldly original and independent works that push back the frontiers of the cinematography. Musically, you might consider GWTH like a well-constructed work of J.S. Bach while, say, a current sci-fi original like "Pi' can be compared to a dissonant concert of Paul Hindemith. True cinemaphiles will always make room in their entertainment schedules for a rich variety of works, and "Gone With the Wind," bound to enjoy revivals for the century to come, will rank among the finest of them all.

    Rated G.  Running time: 238 minutes.  (C) Harvey Karten
    1998

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