Gone with the Wind (1939)

(148th - 7.9 - 6-Excellent)

So this is Gone with the Wind? I've heard so much about this film: about how it's the greatest love story of all time, how it's the epic to end all epics, how there is nothing like it in the history of cinema. It's not just well placed here in the IMDb Top 250, it's also fourth on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest films of all time. It swept the Oscars in 1939, leaving with no less than ten of them. So why is it so highly regarded by all and sundry? Well now that I've finally seen it I can understand why, but there's also a massive and fundamental flaw that I just can't get past, which means that I don't see how I can give it a Classic rating and keep a good conscience. I'll get to this flaw shortly.

Before I do, I'd like to point out that every actor in the film does a superb job, and as can be expected in a four hour film there are a whole bunch of them. Clark Gable doesn't just act Rhett Butler, he exudes him. Even though he didn't want to take the job to begin with, he does it so well that it's hard to imagine anyone else in the part. It's Rhett Butler that he will always be remembered for, even though by the time he died in 1960, two days after finishing The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe, he had made 67 sound movies on top of his few silent film appearances, and was known throughout the 1930s as 'The King of Hollywood'.

Vivien Leigh, the unknown from England who landed the role everyone in Hollywood wanted for their own, is wonderful as Scarlett O'Hara, the central focus for the whole movie. She's believable as a rich bitch and she's believable as the woman who does what she must when she must, and the consequent balancing act between weak and strong is not an easy one to manage, especially for an unknown starring opposite some of the greatest names in the industry. Then again she was dating Laurence Olivier at the time.

Leslie Howard has his own balancing act to manage, juggling between the spineless man and the honourable warrior, and he's just as good as Leigh. His wife, Olivia de Havilland, is whiter than white, too much so, but she makes it almost seem natural. And above all of these superb performances, my personal favourite is Hattie McDaniel's as Mammy, the big black slave who effectively runs the show at Tara, the O'Hara homestead.

The background that all of these players act against is nothing short of epic. Margaret Mitchell's novel isn't about Scarlett, it's about the demise of an entire nation, with Scarlett merely our guide through the Civil War that caused the South to effectively cease to be. David O Selznick's film covers the same grand scale. There are some truly wonderful set pieces, from the burning of Atlanta to the stunning romantic sunsets to the endless sweeping staircases to the justifiably legendary long pan across the stupendous numbers of confederate wounded. All the way down the line the film is beautifully shot, which has a good deal to do with the production design of William Cameron Menzies. In fact Gone with the Wind marks the first time that anyone at all was credited with production design, purely because what Menzies did went way beyond the old position of Art Director.

In short, I'm not surprised at those ten Oscars and the rest of the legend. So to the catch. Who the hell am I supposed to care about in this picture? Other than Olivia de Havilland's saintly Melanie Wilkes, everyone in the film is either a pathetic wimp or entirely unlovable. It doesn't matter how much money or influence each has, they're all nobodies and I couldn't care what happened to any of them, least of all Scarlett O'Hara who is truly despicable.

Scarlett starts the film as a rich brat who toys with her suitors, then falls for her neighbour Ashley Wilkes who is already planning his marriage to Melanie. When she finally realises that she can't have him, she promptly marries someone else who she doesn't give a monkey's about and isn't unhappy in the slightest when he dies in the war. As a supposedly mourning widow, she falls for Rhett Butler but ends up marrying her sister's fiancée instead purely for the money and position. Not only is she a blatant gold digger but she's a blatant gold digger at the expense of her family, which is even worse. Eventually this husband dies too leaving her free at last to marry Rhett. Of course she promptly goes on to make his life a misery in the same way she did her other husbands, even though they manage to stay on speaking terms just long enough to produce a daughter. How a film entirely devoid of romance can be seen as the greatest romance of all time, I fail to understand.

I presume I'm not supposed to cheer at the death of her daughter and the break-up of her marriages, but I did. The happiest part of the film for me was when she finally drove Rhett away too, because it was the first real piece of justice in the film. Of course Rhett isn't much of a catch either, being little more than someone who makes money out of the misery of others. He spoils his daughter to the point of her death, but he does at least care about her. That puts him a cut above Scarlett at least. Ashley Wilkes is apparently a great soldier but he's nothing once the war is over and he's back home. His wife is the one redeeming character but she's just too perfect. She's more of a saint than Mother Teresa, and entirely blind to everyone else's faults to boot.

Admittedly by no stretch of the imagination could I claim to be a romance fan. I know little about the genre and don't pretend to understand it. However I have seen some blatant tearjerkers and I've even surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying some of them, including such unashamed chick flicks as The Bridges of Madison County. One in particular that I enjoyed recently is almost the polar opposite of this film. Camille was made only two years earlier, in 1937, but it avoided Technicolor, sweeping grandeur and the whole epic scale that Gone with the Wind thrived on. The most important difference is that, while it may not have jerked my tears, it certainly succeeded in catching my emotions and I just plain cared what happened to the petulant heroine Marguerite, who begins the film as a spoiled brat just like Scarlett but eventually finds redemption in love. The why of it is half Greta Garbo's powerhouse performance and half the script that paints her far more vividly in black and white than Scarlett ever managed in colour, but the end result is that it's a joy and Gone with the Wind is almost an endurance test.

I've also travelled through the South, through Savannah and Charleston and Atlanta, and I've had the pleasure of encountering some of the kindest folks that I've ever met right there below the Mason-Dixon. I understand what southern hospitality is because I've experienced it first hand and I appreciate what the South did to make these people who they are. However I didn't see any of this in Gone with the Wind, because instead it was full of spoiled brats who deserved everything they got.

So Scarlett screws up her life, even with all the chances she's given, and so does Rhett and so does Ashley and so does Charles and so does every other supposed lady or gentleman in Gone with the Wind. Well, my dear, to steal the legendary line from Clark Gable, frankly I don't give a damn. They just didn't deserve any better! I can't feel sorry for any of them, and if they are really what Margaret Mitchell's South was all about then why the heck didn't the Yankees start the war a couple of hundred years earlier and save everyone the trouble?

To be fair I should point out that I haven't read Mitchell's source novel. However I presume that while this flaw probably lies with the novel rather than Selznick's film, it still doesn't excuse it. It's still there and we still get to suffer from it.