Gone With the Wind (1939)

[caracas1914]

Prissy embodied so many stereotypes and yet that one "fuck you" glare she gives Scarlet during the Atlanta scenes is priceless.

 

I thought I read Leslie Howard hated the role of Ashley (who can blame him) and I shudder what would have been of the role with any other actor.  This sort of dreamboat passive intellectual leading guy was Leslie Howard's bread and butter.  A lot of people think he was the weakest link of the main cast but I don't.  I thought they were all very good, but I just thought the hurdles he had for the role were fairly daunting.

 

Vivien Leigh didn't try to sentimentalize Scarlet at all in her approach and I like that.  She embraced the Bitch unequivocally. 

 

The book and movie did show that Scarlet was as good as any man as far as her business ventures and drive, the problem was that for it's time it was spelled out it made her less than a complete woman. One cut from the book makes sense, she has 3 children and pretty much neglects all three, and there is a scene where she tried to connect with the two oldest kids and just does not get them.  It spells out that Scarlet has not a single motherly bone in her body, LOL.    It annoys me because Rhett Butler is just as fucked and screwed up  in his own way (never mind Ashley) yet nobody has to spell out his flaws.   I thought Rhett was basically an emotional coward, in that  he never confessed his love for Scarlet until supposedly it's gone.  The whole premise that she would turn him down or use his love is legit, but sorry, at least lay it out there if it's worth it to you.  His model should have come with a spine.

 

The best side of Scarlet was when she did not abandon Melanie in Atlanta and led her to Tara in the middle of the fighting.   Nobody can rationalize at that point she was doing it just because of her word to Ashley, Scarlet was not going to let Melanie down and that was that.   I think Melanie knew in Scarlet she had someone of strength on her side.

 

Melanie I always suspected knew Scarlet better than Scarlet realizes, but deep down actually liked some of the bitchy backbone spine of her sister in law.  She loved Ashley but I never got the feeling she actually thought highly of his abilities at all, he was her useless and impractical wispy husband and her burden to bear.

 

I sitll can't  wrap my head around that they actually filmed Jean Arthur screen tests for the role.  I love Jean Arthur but really.....

Edited June 19, 2015 by caracas1914

[Rick Kitchen]

My favorite of the screen tests was Paulette Goddard.

[caracas1914]

I thought Paulette's take on the 'I love you' confession to Ashley screen test was interesting, it was almost a comical turn.

Paulette definitely had quirky ideas on the role and at certain points she looked so close to landing the part.

She imo could have handled Scarlet but it would have been different from Vivien.

Have to say that Vivien's take on Scarlet was no nonsense and a bit hard/ not coy or whimpering or sugary at all. Paulette's screen test Scarlet seems a bit softer.

[Julia]

Prissy embodied so many stereotypes and yet that one "fuck you" glare she gives Scarlet during the Atlanta scenes is priceless.

 

I can completely understand why people are offended by that character, and there's a lot about her that's offensive, but what I think was intended to be laziness and stupidity played for comic relief in the movie read to me like Prissy being smart enough to scam her way into a comparatively soft position inside the household by pretending to have skills she didn't really have and not dumb enough to put in more than a minimum effort if no-one was watching. I can't blame her for either of those things. It's not like she was exactly a stakeholder.

[VCRTracking]

I always think of plantation owners like Scarlett's dad, who were probably serfs and the lower class in Ireland, Scotland and England who came to this country and became rich and got to become the top of the heirarchy above poor whites and black slaves. Basically instead of eliminating the class system that oppressed them in the old country, they turned it around and became the "aristocracy" and were now the oppressors.

[Inquisitionist]

A lot of people think he was the weakest link of the main cast

 

Count me in those numbers.  Biggest problems with the casting were that Olivia de Havilland was too pretty to play Melanie, and Leslie Howard wasn't pretty enough to play Ashley. 

[VCRTracking]

Leslie Howard is good in other roles(The Scarlet Pimpernel, Petrified Forest and The 49th Parallel). But competing with Clark Gable, he just looked like such a wuss. Funny enough Michael Caine tells this story of when he was a rising star in the 60s and met Bette Davis in New York, she looked at him and said she looked like Leslie Howard and said to him "Did you know that Leslie Howard screwed every woman he was ever in, with the exception of me? I told him I was not going to be plastered at the end of his list of conquests." When Caine made a noise of sort of moral approvement, Davis continued: "The reason I was staring at you was what difference what would if have made now if I had." Caine describes  that last part as having a wistful tone about it.

[BatmanBeatles]

Count me in those numbers.  Biggest problems with the casting were that Olivia de Havilland was too pretty to play Melanie, and Leslie Howard wasn't pretty enough to play Ashley. 

It's lucky they found someone as beautiful as Vivian to play Scarlett. Then she would not have been overshadowed by Olivia.

[Inquisitionist]

But competing with Clark Gable, he just looked like such a wuss.

 

And too damned old.  At the start of the movie, Ashley is supposed to be about 25 to Scarlett's 16 and Rhett's 33.  All the make-up in the world wasn't going to make Leslie Howard look anything but middle-aged.

 

I have long pondered who could have been cast instead, but the "known" actors of the time didn't provide many good options. 

[Julia]

Franchot Tone would have been perfect, I think. Not that Leslie Howard wasn't wonderful, but it's hard to watch him in Pygmalion and not feel as if Ashley was not a great choice for him.

[Rick Kitchen]

Franchot Tone would have been perfect, I think. Not that Leslie Howard wasn't wonderful, but it's hard to watch him in Pygmalion and not feel as if Ashley was not a great choice for him.

 

Ha, I was just thinking Franchot Tone.

 

What about Robert Donat?

[Athena]

What about Robert Donat?

 

Ding ding! Winner. :)

 

I adore Donat and he would have been able to do it. He was definitely younger and handsome (but not necessarily pretty) to be Ashley. If he had been offered it, he would have turned it down. He didn't like the US or Hollywood much; he turned down Captain Blood to do The 39 Steps.

[VCRTracking]

Donat ended up playing the title role in Goodbye Mr Chips that year and beat Clark Gable for the Best Actor Oscar, so I don't think he was crying over missing out on playing Ashley!

 

 

It's lucky they found someone as beautiful as Vivian to play Scarlett. Then she would not have been overshadowed by Olivia.

 

There were undoubtedly many beautiful actresses in Hollywood at that time but I think Vivian Leigh could have only made the moment work when she walks in at Ashley and Melanie's party in the red dress:

 

 

 

Edited June 30, 2015 by VCRTracking

[BatmanBeatles]

That's true. I'm not sure they could have found an actress to look exactly like Melanie. In the book she is often described as not only plain, but she had the appearance of a 12 year old girl.

[caracas1914]

Olivia de Haviland had the right temperment for Melanie, hard to explain. There's a ladylike vibe to so many of her performances( not in a bad way mind you)

Edited July 1, 2015 by caracas1914

[Bruinsfan]

I've always been a fan of hers because of her un-ladylike rant in her big breakout performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was hilarious how all the other characters were sort of flinching and backing away from Hermia as she got angrier and angrier.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Bruinsfan

[VCRTracking]

 

Olivia de Haviland had the right temperment for Melanie, hard to explain. There's a ladylike vibe to so many of her performances( not in a bad way mind you)

 

It also worked extremely well in a different way in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

 

The saddest part of Gone With the Wind for me isn't Rhett finally leaving Scarlett in the end. It was that Scarlett didn't realize until she was dying that Melanie had actually been her best friend all along. Or maybe she knew but didn't want to admit it and that Scarlett didn't appreciate her until it was too late.

[Rick Kitchen]

Today is Olivia deHavilland's 99th birthday.

[blixie]

I think Scarlett first allowed herself to appreciate Melanie when she saved her ass with the Yankee, and one of the reasons she's pissed off about the Red Dress incident is because she really hasn't been angling for Ashley in long while both because of Rhett AND because of Melanie (and because Ashley is g-d tease). I think Ashley loses his shine for her when he won't take control of Tara and solve all her problems. I mean she's still built her whole world around the idea of being in love with him/being separated from him, but that embrace India sees is one of the more innocent ones, so I think Scarlett is really pissed off she's paying a price for a crime she feels she hasn't actually committed, aka banging  Ashley. At least she's not guilty in her own mind, like if she must be shown up as whore let her BE a whore. And it's Melly standing by her that makes her actually feel guilty for the first time, less for wanting Ashley and more for lying to and betraying a woman who has been there with her through hell.

 

I really can't stand India, I'm like bitch go talk to Sue Ellen, you are way down the list of people burned by Scarlett O'Hara.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

It also worked extremely well in a different way in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

 

The saddest part of Gone With the Wind for me isn't Rhett finally leaving Scarlett in the end. It was that Scarlett didn't realize until she was dying that Melanie had actually been her best friend all along. Or maybe she knew but didn't want to admit it and that Scarlett didn't appreciate her until it was too late.

 

I don't think Scarlett appreciated either Melanie or Rhett until it was too late. She wasted all that time running after stupid Ashley, and then Melanie died and Rhett left her. Yes, Rhett was terrible in a lot of ways. I'm not disputing that, and I hate that I can't criticize Scarlett without it being brought up that Rhett was no saint either. But had Scarlett been able to value Melanie more, that might have allowed her to see the reasons Ashley loved her. What's worth noting is that Rhett did see Melanie in a more honest light than Scarlett did, or if not "honest" then a more positive one.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Cobalt Stargazer

[avecsans]

It's funny to me how my perspective on GWTW has changed since I was a kid. Obviously the horrendous racism makes me squirm and I am ashamed that I never really thought about it back in the sixties when I first read the book and saw the movie.

I really used to hate Melanie because I thought she was a wimp but now I admire her strength. And while I never really liked Ashley per se, I bought into the idea that he was a noble gentleman instead of recognizing that he was weak.

I think my soft spot for this movie (and the book) is that it reminds me of my late beloved mother. She introduced me to the book and took me to see the movie in a beautiful old movie theater. She thought Lesley Howard was so handsome, which I don't get to this day. (Sorry, Mom!) Now, Clark Gable? There was a handsome man, and perfect casting.

[caracas1914]

The funny thing about Olivia De Haviland and GWTW is that it supposedly even enters into her infamous feud with her late sister, Joan Fontaine.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/joan-fontaine-olivia-de-havilland-666087

"Meanwhile, David O. Selznick and his independent studio Selznick International Pictures were putting together Gone With the Wind (1939), and virtually every major actress in town wanted to play the part of Scarlett O'Hara. Joan told me that Cukor, the film's initial director, called her in to discuss a part in the picture — not Scarlett, but rather Melanie — and, as she recalls: "I made a tremendous mistake and I have regretted it always. Because it was George Cukor, I wore some rather chic clothes. He said, 'Oh, you're much too stylish for the role that I want you to do.' And I said, 'Well, what about my sister?' And he said, 'Who's your sister?' I explained. And he said, 'Thank you.' And that's how Olivia got that role."

Joan's version of events suggests several things: that she was the first choice for Melanie; that Olivia was less stylish than she; and that Olivia only got the part for which she will always be remembered because of Joan's generosity. Olivia's version of how she got the part makes no mention of this, either because it never happened or because she wants it thought that she got the part on her own. Regardless, Olivia told me that Cukor called her up one day and asked if she would be open to doing something "highly illegal," which intrigued her and led her to ask what. He told her that he wanted her to secretly come in and read for the part of Melanie with him and Selznick, even though she was under contract to Warner Bros., and if she seemed right for the part they would find a way to make things work. She came in, and went over well, but when Selznick asked Jack Warner to loan her out for the picture he refused — until, that is, Olivia secretly met with and convinced Mrs. Warner to lobby on her behalf, which ultimately worked. The rest, as they say, is history."

[TigerLynx]

I think Scarlett did value Melanie even if she didn't express it very often.  Scarlett and Melanie complemented each other in a lot of ways.  Scarlett had the strength to plunge ahead, and do things she wasn't supposed to which kept her, Melanie, and the baby alive during the war, and enabled her to support everyone after the war.  Melanie had a quiet dependable strength that Scarlett could always rely on, and Melanie had Scarlett's back every single time.  In the end, Melanie was the real loss.  Scarlett would have been better off without either Rhett or Ashley in her life.

 

One of Scarlett's problems was she didn't care what people thought so she didn't always appreciate Melanie being a friend and not judging her.  Rhett being 33 and Ashely being 25 to Scarlett's 16 adds a whole new level of creepy.

Edited July 2, 2015 by TigerLynx

[BatmanBeatles]

Know what's creepier? In the book it is revealed that Mr. O'Hara was in his 40's when he met and married Mrs. O'Hara, when she was 15 years old. That is also the age range between Suellen and Frank Kennedy.

[Julia]

What's even creepier is that it was pretty clear that O'Hara was clearly meant to have married up to a woman who didn't love him but whose family needed the money.

[BatmanBeatles]

I don't recall that.

[LilWharveyGal]

Know what's creepier? In the book it is revealed that Mr. O'Hara was in his 40's when he met and married Mrs. O'Hara, when she was 15 years old. 

If I'm remembering correctly, Barbara O'Neil (Mrs. O'Hara) was only about 3 years older than Vivien Leigh, so the movie was even worse. :)

[BatmanBeatles]

That is so weird.

 

For a long time I didn't know that the actor who played Mr. O'Hara played Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life.

[Dejana]

What's even creepier is that it was pretty clear that O'Hara was clearly meant to have married up to a woman who didn't love him but whose family needed the money.

 

 

I don't recall that.

 

It was a subplot in the book. Mrs. O'Hara had her own "Ashley" in a way: his name was Philippe and he might have been a cousin? IIRC, Mammy mentions it to Scarlett later, that his name was on Mrs. O'Hara's lips as she lie dying at Tara. 

 

I don't know what real marriage patterns were across all classes, but in this "genteel" world Margaret Mitchell presents, the girls weren't sent to college or meant to have their own accomplishments outside of motherhood and being ladylike. Meanwhile, the men were expected to have some sort of advanced education and/or training to either support themselves or know how to run the family business, before they got married. It sets up a world where the eligible men would generally be much older than the single women. 

Edited July 2, 2015 by Dejana

[Julia]

I don't recall that.

 

My bad, I should have looked it up. She married a man she didn't love because the man she did love died and her father wouldn't let her be a nun.

 

ETA What Dejana said.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Julia

[BatmanBeatles]

Right. Phillipe was Mrs. O'Hara's cousin. Her family didn't approve of him and sent him away. He died in a brawl in New Orleans. Ellen was so upset she married Mr. O'Hara to get away from her family. Her father didn't care much for that, but he didn't want her to become a nun so he allowed it.

 

Scarlett learned that her mother called out Phillip's name right before she died, but Mammy refused to tell her the significance of that person.

 

I read the book more times than I can count.

Edited July 2, 2015 by BatmanBeatles

[Julia]

Right. Phillipe was Mrs. O'Hara's cousin. Her family didn't approve of him and sent him away. He died in a brawl in New Orleans. Ellen was so upset she married Mr. O'Hara to get away from her family. Her father didn't care much for that, but he didn't want her to become a nun so he allowed it.

 

Still, it shows that Scarlett didn't get all her rebellion from her father. Her mother's cousin must have been quite a piece of work for a sixteen year old to want to marry if he died in a bar fight. Not only that, her father apparently didn't want her to become a nun at least partly because he didn't think much of Catholics, and look who she married.

[raven]

There was a romantic, first love vibe with Mrs. O'Hara and Philippe, even with the little bit of info we got.  He was definitely the black sheep of the family.

 

Scarlett's dad did love her mother and was in awe of her.  I think there's even a line that he couldn't believe her family allowed her to marry him, she was out of his social class.  He never knew about Philippe. 

 

 

But had Scarlett been able to value Melanie more, that might have allowed her to see the reasons Ashley loved her.

Yeah, Scarlett was incapable of forming relationships with other women.  Scarlett personifies every nasty female stereotype - she's competitive for men and their attentions, judges women based on their looks, catty in the extreme, etc. She scorns Melanie for being "plain" and "stupid".  Melanie is too good to be true with her absolute refusal to think anything bad of Scarlett or Ashley.  She's a great friend, mother, inner strength, etc but physically fragile - almost a caricature but I think MM does flesh her out as a real person.  Her acceptance of the Klan is troubling (now) but it would have been really odd to paint her as progressive.

 

It was hinted that Rhett had an illegimate child.  There's talk of a male ward that he's responsible for but not much else is told about it, it stood out for me as a dropped thought of Mitchell's.  Maybe she didn't know where to go with it.  For non-book readers, it's not mentioned in the movie at all, which is good since it doesn't go anywhere!

[Scarlett45]

raven It was implied that Rhett's ward may have been Belle Watling's son. She had (in both the book and the movie) a son that was away at boarding school, and in the book Rhett is paying for a young boy's education. Given the amount of time Rhett lived in Atlanta (pre the start of the novel) I could see it. Rhett also gave Belle the start up money to fund her own house, a great investment sure, but also a way to assist his friend/mother of his child to get out of working each night. It wasn't the safest profession nor is it one she could've done forever. Rhett always said he admired Belle's brains. Edited July 3, 2015 by Scarlett45

[Rick Kitchen]

That is so weird.

 

For a long time I didn't know that the actor who played Mr. O'Hara played Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life.

 

He also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor the year that GWTW came out, for Stagecoach.

[TigerLynx]

The scene with the red dress once again shows who really cares about Scarlett.  Rhett forces Scarlett to go to the party, and then abandons her at the door.  Ashley is not happy Scarlett has arrived, and stands there doing nothing even though he knows in this instance Scarlett didn't do anything wrong.  Melanie is the one who goes to Scarlett, and forces the other guests to greet her.

[Captain I0]

By chance, I took it upon myself to rewatch Gone with the Wind this weekend, in it's entirety which is something I haven't done in probably 25 years when I was a kid.

I am left with a number of disturbing thoughts

First off... Scarlette O'Hara? I realize that we look at life through a much different lense today, but she is simply an absolutely horrible person throughout. I find it hard to fathom that she could be found likeable (or root-for-able) in any era. Even in the reimagined fantasy Old-South that's portrayed, people still tell her she's a cruel, horrible person. She literally beats a horse to death, giving it the killing blow while within 100 yards from Tera, while saying "move Beast!" I know, I know. Horses were beasts of burden then, but the inclusion of that scene is simply strange and can only be seen as a way to further cement her as ruthless and horrible.

And yet, she's the "heroine" of the story and I have to believe you are supposed to root for her on some level. I just never could. There is a slight hint of female empowerment with her character, but it's so greatly overshadowed by everything else negative about her as to make it nearly worthless in that regard. And with how much of her gain is taken at the expense of other women, it's hard to see much redeeming there even in terms of any female empowerment.

I had a ton of other thoughts about it, but most are related to this main point. It's anti-American, confederate propaganda. I find it fascinating and disturbing that we allowed it to be such a wildly herralded piece of Americana(from a cultural standpoint, not a freedom of speech one).

Just imagine how present day flag waving conservatives talk about various pieces of art, or fiction, or speech that paints any kind of negative light on things America has done in the past.

This piece literally paints General Sherman as a monster, while holding up those that took up arms to try and end our country as heroes. It shows our country's enemy combatants as folksy, well mannered gentlemen and the Union soldiers (otherwise known as American soldiers) as rapists, murderers and thieves. Try to imagine how conservatives (or conservative southerners) would feel about a movie that gave the same treatment to Iraqi soldiers, or Iranian or one of our enemies, while portraying American attacks as destructive slaughter.

And the thing is, this type of confederate propaganda has worked. They introduce the carpetbaggers with a literally singing "Uppity Darky", portray the freed slaves as idiots that have their votes bought by free handouts from the Union government, and propagate the idea that the slaves were too stupid to make it on their own, and were happier and better off with their white masters who knew better.

Considering the modern political "Southern Strategy", really the undercurrent of this is that this type of propaganda has managed to keep the idea of the Old South alive and the same fallout from the Civil War and many of the same attitudes about the Confederacy and blacks going strong 150 years later. Many people today still support political ideals based on believing in the fantasy of the "Old South" that was portrayed in this movie, whether they do so conciously or not.

I would like to see GWTW as a simple piece of fiction, with a backdrop set around the Civil War, like I did when I first saw it. However, i can't... and it's not. It's not "Birth of a Nation", but it may have been more harmful because it is seen as so harmless for so many people that it was so reviered for so long.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Captain I0

[Cobalt Stargazer]

I had a ton of other thoughts about it, but most are related to this main point. It's anti-American, confederate propaganda. I find it fascinating and disturbing that we allowed it to be such a wildly herralded piece of Americana(from a cultural standpoint, not a freedom of speech one).

Just imagine how present day flag waving conservatives talk about various pieces of art, or fiction, or speech that paints any kind of negative light on things America has done in the past.

This piece literally paints General Sherman as a monster, while holding up those that took up arms to try and end our country as heroes. It shows our country's enemy combatants as folksy, well mannered gentlemen and the Union soldiers (otherwise known as American soldiers) as rapists, murderers and thieves. Try to imagine how conservatives (or conservative southerners) would feel about a movie that gave the same treatment to Iraqi soldiers, or Iranian or one of our enemies, while portraying American attacks as destructive slaughter.

And the thing is, this type of confederate propaganda has worked. They introduce the carpetbaggers with a literally singing "Uppity Darky", portray the freed slaves as idiots that have their votes bought by free handouts from the Union government, and propagate the idea that the slaves were too stupid to make it on their own, and were happier and better off with their white masters who knew better.

Considering the modern political "Southern Strategy", really the undercurrent of this is that this type of propaganda has managed to keep the idea of the Old South alive and the same fallout from the Civil War and many of the same attitudes about the Confederacy and blacks going strong 150 years later. Many people today still support political ideals based on believing in the fantasy of the "Old South" that was portrayed in this movie, whether they do so conciously or not.

 

I disagree, at least partly. While the phrase "a product of its time" isn't always something people want to hear, GWTW really is. Margaret Mitchell was born just before 1901, and the movie was released in 1939. Regardless of anything else, there's no way a movie like this would, or even could, be made in the modern era.. Given how every new movie goes under the microscope now, from everything to whether or not the female characters are on a par with the male ones to how the POC characters are treated, without being completely re-worked Gone With The Wind would have stayed in development hell forever, or at least until everything in the source material had been scrubbed up and sanitized. To be slightly facetious, I have a very hard time imagining the comic book purists or the people who were annoyed by Jennifer Lawrence's casting in The Hunger Games saying that a hypothetical remake should be made exactly as the first one was. That whole "The source material should be sacrosanct!" argument would disappear faster than an ice cream cone in the dead of August. :-)

 

And I'm not even saying that's a bad thing. A Scarlet O'Hara that wasn't such a bitch wouldn't grate my nerves as much, and maybe it wouldn't take Melanie's death to wake her up to the fact that Ashley is her unattainable dream. Rhett would be an actual good guy instead of a war profiteer, and he and Scarlett would never get to the point where he has to leave because he can't deal with her DRAH-MA anymore. The war would still happen, but everything else would be completely different.

 

If it helps, you could look at most of the characters as benign monsters. With the exception of Melanie, since even Ashley is too weak to be genuinely good, the main players are self-absorbed cretins who are also products of their time, and the war is a backdrop for their society as it implodes all around them, leaving them to have to rebuild and maybe make something better in its place. Tomorrow is, after all, another day. :-)

[Julia]

Maybe it helps understand Scarlett if you look at the book as an apologia for the post-war south. It had to be hard for a bitter ender like Mitchell to reconcile her fantasies about the refinement of antebellum life with the reality of the South at the turn of the century. Scarlett was a stand in for the imaginary southerners who were ennobled by that touch of grace and the love of the land but had to be coarsened to survive in a post-war landscape full of vulgar northerners who didn't understand the romance of chattel slavery.

 

Think of her as the self-insert of the kind of writer who's sure she was Cleopatra in a past life and not, say, the slave who cleaned Cleopatra's chamber pot and died of cholera at eight years old.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Julia

[Captain I0]

 

I disagree, at least partly. While the phrase "a product of its time" isn't always something people want to hear, GWTW really is. Margaret Mitchell was born just before 1901, and the movie was released in 1939. Regardless of anything else, there's no way a movie like this would, or even could, be made in the modern era.. Given how every new movie goes under the microscope now, from everything to whether or not the female characters are on a par with the male ones to how the POC characters are treated, without being completely re-worked Gone With The Wind would have stayed in development hell forever, or at least until everything in the source material had been scrubbed up and sanitized. To be slightly facetious, I have a very hard time imagining the comic book purists or the people who were annoyed by Jennifer Lawrence's casting in The Hunger Games saying that a hypothetical remake should be made exactly as the first one was. That whole "The source material should be sacrosanct!" argument would disappear faster than an ice cream cone in the dead of August. :-)

 

 

The thing is, that the issue isn't the way the movie was made, or the source material, per se. It's the way that it was (and it) received and has been internalized by our society. As I said in my final paragraph, I wish I could see the movie (or book) as simply a period piece that was a product of it's time. And, ironically, though what you say is true in that it could never be made the same today, if it would have been made today just the same as it was, this wouldn't even be an issue. Because the general audience would have seen through most of this.

 

What I was speaking to is that the danger in GWTW (and like minded fiction) is what it did to our country's collective memory and psyche is glorify, romanticize and fictionalize the Old South in a way that has stayed with many people even to this day. I'm not even suggesting that it's the "fault" of the producers or the author. It's part product of the time and part fluke that the time period is considered "the Golden age of movies", which in reality just kind of means that it was among the era when everybody first started going to see all the major movies. And it obviously played to ideas already held by many people of the time.

 

However, people in Germany don't create romanticized fiction pieces set in the 1930's, where they look back wistfully and portray their people as good, decent folks caught up in the times.

"Oh Ashley! I love you Ashley, please tell me you love me!"

"I can't Scarlet. I am marrying Melanie. And now I must go off and do my duty for our country and haul off Jewish children to concentration camps for the Fuhrer". 

 

My point is that we really shouldn't be doing the same with the Old South and, even as a "product of it's time", we shouldn't have done so back then. It was nearly a century removed from the Civil War and the end result is that he prominence and revered nature of GWTW (both book and movie) has helped to whitewash the time period in many people's eyes. When I was a kid in the 80's, Gone With the Wind was required reading in some classes. Some others showed the movie. And they all just talked about the plot and characterization without discussing the background issues of slavery, racism or the Civil War in a mature way. Again...it's as if the movie is propaganda about the Old South, when we really should be seeing that era for the horror that it was and those that wanted to destroy our country to preserve the practice of slavery as enemies of our way of life. Not heroes, nor even "benign Monsters" as you put it, because there's nothing benign about it. And this movie goes even a step further, since it actually portrays the Union soldiers and generals as the monsters and villains.

 

And yes, 1939 was a much different era, but like I said, that's 80 years after the Civil War and should have been time enough for our country to bury the idea that there was good, worthy of being romanticized, in the Old South. 

Edited July 20, 2015 by Captain I0

[Cobalt Stargazer]

What I was speaking to is that the danger in GWTW (and like minded fiction) is what it did to our country's collective memory and psyche is glorify, romanticize and fictionalize the Old South in a way that has stayed with many people even to this day. I'm not even suggesting that it's the "fault" of the producers or the author. It's part product of the time and part fluke that the time period is considered "the Golden age of movies", which in reality just kind of means that it was among the era when everybody first started going to see all the major movies. 

 

People in Germany don't create romanticized fiction pieces set in the 1930's, where they look back wistfully and portray their people as good, decent folks caught up in the times. My point is that we really shouldn't be doing the same with the Old South and, even as a "product of it's time", we shouldn't have done so back then. It was nearly a century removed from the Civil War and the end result is that he prominence and revered nature of GWTW (both book and movie) has helped to whitewash the time period in many people's eyes. When I was a kid in the 80's, Gone With the Wind was required reading in some classes. Some others showed the movie. And they all just talked about the plot and characterization without discussing the background issues of slavery, racism or the Civil War in a mature way. Again...it's as if the movie is propaganda about the Old South, when we really should be seeing that era for the horror that it was and those that wanted to destroy our country to preserve the practice of slavery as enemies of our way of life. Not heroes, nor even "benign Monsters" as you put it, because there's nothing benign about it. And this movie goes even a step further, since it actually portrays the Union soldiers and generals as the monsters and villains.

 

If you're not saying that its the "fault" of Mitchell or George Cukor, the director, then I'm not certain what you are suggesting. It was her book and his movie, so aren't they the people who are behind this "romanticized" version of the Old South? To say nothing of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. Hattie McDaniel was actually the first POC to be nominated for and win an Oscar for her role. I'm not saying the movie isn't everything you're saying it is, but I am saying that the American movie going public wasn't solely responsible for its existence.

 

As for the Germans, when Steven Spielberg directed Schindler's List, he pretty much presented Oskar Schindler exactly as someone caught up in the time, at least to a point. Schindler was initially a war profiteer who went to Poland right behind the SS, and he made friends with the Gestapo there so he could make lucrative deals in the black market. That he was also a hard-drinking womanizer is perhaps neither here nor there, but regardless, he started a factory in Poland with the cheapest labor he could find so that he could make as much money for himself as possible. That meant having Jewish workers. At some point, his attitude changed, and he eventually saved something like 1200 lives, but looking at it through a cynical eye, how many people had to be slaughtered before he realized that being a Nazi was a bad thing? He became a hero, sure, but he certainly didn't start out that way.

[Captain I0]

 

As for the Germans, when Steven Spielberg directed Schindler's List, he pretty much presented Oskar Schindler exactly as someone caught up in the time, at least to a point. Schindler was initially a war profiteer who went to Poland right behind the SS, and he made friends with the Gestapo there so he could make lucrative deals in the black market. That he was also a hard-drinking womanizer is perhaps neither here nor there, but regardless, he started a factory in Poland with the cheapest labor he could find so that he could make as much money for himself as possible. That meant having Jewish workers. At some point, his attitude changed, and he eventually saved something like 1200 lives, but looking at it through a cynical eye, how many people had to be slaughtered before he realized that being a Nazi was a bad thing? He became a hero, sure, but he certainly didn't start out that way.

 

Except that Schindler's List did deal with Nazi Germany in a mature way. Whatever you think of Oskar Schindler or how he was characterized, the movie addressed the realities and horrors of what was being done to the Jewish people in Germany. Nazi Germany wasn't presented as a fairy tale land. The movie was done in black in white to further represent how dark and foreboding the time and place was. 

 

In contrast, here's the "Old South" in the opening words.

 

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind..

 

The two really aren't comparable. If you want to say that Oskar Schindler was whitewashed in the movie, that's a discussion we can have, but Nazi Germany and the ideas it represented was not. Whereas, Gone With The Wind really was meant to romanticize the era of the Old South and paint it as a fairy tale world (with "Knights and their Ladies Fair").

 

So perhaps I shouldn't have stated my lack of "blame" for the author and producers so completely. But I'm a champion of freedom of speech, and I think they have every right to write and/or make whatever they want, which is why I put more emphasis and "blame" (so to speak) on the how the rest of us treated the material. Again, this is something that was so loved it became required reading for many students for decades. So, I do find myself more upset at the teacher who made hundreds of kids read this, or watch this, decades after they likely would have done so on their own, than the author. 

 

Unless of course, the teacher was using it to show examples of how things get whitewashed, or showing how it was horribly inaccurate and how it was basically Confederate Propaganda. Which, I never really heard of any teachers doing.  

Edited July 20, 2015 by Captain I0

[caracas1914]

IIRC The NAACP condemned GWTW went it was released for it's portrayal of blacks.

The film could have actually been worse.

http://www.npr.org/2014/09/14/347987062/from-casting-to-cutting-the-n-word-the-making-of-gone-with-the-wind

"On the NAACP's attempt to influence the film, and how the African-American press got the N-word taken out of the script

Selznick, actually, got into a long correspondence with Walter White, who was the head of the NAACP. White wanted Selznick to hire an African-American adviser to be on the set to advise on historical matters. ...

Just as they started shooting the film, there started, in the African-American press, in particular The Pittsburgh Courier — a writer named Earl Morris, who was the motion picture editor for that paper, started writing a series of blistering editorials about the film and what they thought would be in the film. And Earl Morris focused on what he called "the hate word," and how terrible it would be to include that in the film. ... In large part because of these editorials by Earl Morris, Selznick ultimately decided to take that word out of the script. ... "

Also Clark Gable was far from a saint, but his reaction to segregation in the GWTW set was admirable...

http://hubpages.com/hub/Clark-Gable-Desegregates-Gone-With-The-Wind-Movie-Set

Edited July 20, 2015 by caracas1914

[Captain I0]

IIRC The NAACP condemned GWTW went it was released for it's portrayal of blacks.

 

Yep. I was actually aware of that. Which further supports my point that we really should have known better, even accounting for the time period.

[Bruinsfan]

Reading that certainly improves my impression of Clark Gable as a person.

[Dejana]

Think of her as the self-insert of the kind of writer who's sure she was Cleopatra in a past life and not, say, the slave who cleaned Cleopatra's chamber pot and died of cholera at eight years old.

 

Whenever there's a rumored Cleopatra movie and there's an outcry that she should played by a black actress, I wonder about how many will find it problematic somehow, to see a black woman depicted as the owner of numerous slaves and someone who birthed children by two different married (white) men. It's history but  that's never stopped people from being bothered, before. If the sibling intermarriage of the Ptolemies on film didn't come with a disclaimer/trigger warning would that cause an outcry, too? 

 

So many movies have been set in Ancient Greece or Rome and unless it's a story about freedom like Spartacus or Gladiator, the slaves shown in these films tend to be background players whose physical pain/emotional suffering/broken families/ultimate fates seem to be of little importance to the protagonists, or the filmmakers themselves. These stories take place thousands of years ago, on other continents, from empires that have long since fallen. There's seemingly little connection to today's world, so there's not same outcry about the injustices the slaves might have faced. Even now, I have a feeling that the Steve Jobs movie that's coming up is probably not going to spend a lot of time concerning itself with the inhumane working conditions at Apple factories through the years—not to say that it's systemically the exact same thing as pre-Civil War slavery in America, but the reports are often plenty appalling—and maybe film critics 50 years from now will find that an unforgivable whitewash/omission.

 

Honestly, I felt more insulted watching Cold Mountain doing everything to minimize the slavery that was depicted onscreen, as much as possible. They wanted the "romance" of a Civil War setting, without wanting to give the Southern Confederate hero and heroine any political/racial views unpalatable to turn-of the-21-century contemporary American sensibilities. But then, any story written about a much earlier period is just as much about contemporary times, as it is the story of the past.

 

As a creative person, the idea of putting past stories with in a vault, never to be seen again, or sticking them with a thousand "This is wrong!" disclaimers because the politics aren't acceptable by contemporary standards—as if what is truly "enlightened" isn't a moving target, even in more politically correct times—kind of bothers me on a intellectual level. OTOH, in practically, I don't always have a problem with it. How far does it extend—to any past film that depicts casual blackface or shows a happy Mammy figure? Does Jezebel avoid being deemed dangerous to future generations because in comparison to GWTW, it's not that popular?

Edited July 21, 2015 by Dejana

[Spartan Girl]

That story about Clark Gable's outrage over the segregation attempts on the set and the premiere is awesome, as was Hattie McDaniel convincing him to attend anyway. Those were real stars, people.

[Captain I0]

So many movies have been set in Ancient Greece or Rome and unless it's a story about freedom like Spartacus or Gladiator, the slaves shown in these films tend to be background players whose physical pain/emotional suffering/broken families/ultimate fates seem to be of little importance to the protagonists, or the filmmakers themselves. These stories take place thousands of years ago, on other continents, from empires that have long since fallen. There's seemingly little connection to today's world, so there's not same outcry about the injustices the slaves might have faced.

 

I disagree. The lack of outcry with most of this is not about how far removed in time we are, but how they aren't offensively caricatured. As you said, their pain and suffering is of little importance to the protagonists in these movies. This would have been accurate to a time when slavery existed. The people of a higher status likely wouldn't have cared about their pain and suffering much.

 

The problem with how it's portrayed in GWTW, for example, is that it isn't portrayed realistically. Not that they keep slaves, but that they are portrayed as being happy, willing participants. And otherwise better off with their masters than free.  The issue is that the book/movie portrays that fantasy of the happy slave to actually be the case. 

 

 

As a creative person, the idea of putting past stories with in a vault, never to be seen again, or sticking them with a thousand "This is wrong!" disclaimers because the politics aren't acceptable by contemporary standards—as if what is truly "enlightened" isn't a moving target, even in more politically correct times—kind of bothers me on a intellectual level. OTOH, in practically, I don't always have a problem with it. How far does it extend—to any past film that depicts casual blackface or shows a happy Mammy figure? Does Jezebel avoid being deemed dangerous to future generations because in comparison to GWTW, it's not that popular?

 

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting anything like that with GWTW. Which is why, as I pointed out, it is our response to it, that I take issue with, more so than the source material itself. I certainly have no issue with the source material existing, or having been written.

 

Ban it or vault it forever? Never would I want that.

 

The issue is that, it shouldn't have been held in reverie and read/watched in classrooms without treating the backdrop and subject manner in a mature and modern way, a half-century after it was created.

 

It's much less of an issue today, with easy access to a lot more perspectives on the world and on history. But pre-internet, fiction like Gone with the Wind really did serve to shape a lot of people's opinions on what life must have been like "back then". I am reminded of this story:

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8847385/what-i-learned-from-leading-tours-about-slavery-at-a-plantation

 

And I have to wonder how many of these people just watched a few movies or read a bit of fiction on Pre-Civil war days and never really thought to question it further. As they've grown up, the idea is cemented as we generally become more rigid in our thinking.

 

This isn't just about a book or movie that was written before the Civil Rights movement. But about how we treated it, decades after the Civil Rights movement, and how we often failed to give it any kind of mature perspective when introducing it to young people as recently as the 70's, 80's and 90's

Edited July 21, 2015 by Captain I0

[raven]

I can only comment on my own perspective, as someone who read the book in th 70s, when I was 12 or 13.  Not in school either, I've never seen it discussed there.

 

Maybe Mitchell intended it to romanticize the period but I didn't take it as such, then or now.  In adult terminology, I can enjoy Scarlett as a heavily flawed person but a great character; she's allowed to be underhanded and ruthless in ways that were typcially reserved for male characters, though granted she embodied some nasty "typically female" traits as well.  I love the fact that she is who she is...just because!  She wasn't traumatized as a child, abused,etc - the opposite, she was coddled, spoiled, given every material thing she wanted.  Restricted intellectually yes, but not give the usual "abused woman" background by writers who feel the need to justifiy that fact that she's, to put it reallllly simply, not a nice person. 

 

For me, the book reads as a condemnation of her way of life, where lies are supposed to be taken as truth and people are treated as less than human because of their color.  Nearly everyone wants to live in the past and they suffer for it.  Honestly I don't know if Mitchell was a blatant racist or what - a quick Wiki look shows me that she was raised as a Southerner, told wistful stories of that time period by her grandmother, probably had it romanticized.  According to Wiki (so it must be true! lol) she didn't act anything like a "Southern belle", she collected erotica and was described as "flamboyant" - there are other examples in the article.  She sounds like an interesting person actually.

 

 

The problem with how it's portrayed in GWTW, for example, is that it isn't portrayed realistically. Not that slavery exists. That they are portrayed as being happy, willing participants. And otherwise better off with their masters than free. There's not even an issue that the white people believed that to be true. The issue is that the book/movie portrays that to be reality.

 

That may be, but for me I never accepted it as reality.   The caricatures are front and center and always were.  If anything, I looked more closely at the representations.   The behaviors and language of the slaves were not realistic to me; heck, that of the white people were not always realistic either.  The whole thing was almost an alternate reality that I never accepted as truth.  I don't know how it was accepted in the 30s and I never had a class discussing it, could it be that in such classes only brief acknowledgement is given to the ugly parts of the story because they are so well known?  With discussions centering more on the structure, etc as you say?  I'm just spitballing, but to me the depictions of the slaves are so OTT, common sense would say they shouldn't be accepted as absolute truth, nor the portrayal of all Southerners or Northeners, they are so generalized.

 

I mean, I'm sure there were, then and now, people who longed for the way of life; I think for some it's natural to want to lord over others, or to be raised to feel privileged to do so, that it's your right.   I just don't think they got those feelings validated by reading or watching GWTW.   Personally I never accept absolute truths are generalites about anything - some Northern soldiers were monsters but not all, etc. 

 

I think both are revered for when they were published/premiered, with the book being such a monster read, so detailed, with characters you don't always root for, telling a pretty good story and written by a woman.  The move is visually beautiful, with the best aspect IMO being the Leigh/Gable chemistry; TBH I don't know if I could sit through the whole movie now, the soapier aspects become tiresome.  I do enjoy gorgeous costumes, and the movie has that. 

 

Mitchell may have portrayed it as reality but I personally don't know anyone who accepts it as such.  People who do probably wouldn't have their minds changed anyway when they find out it's not. 

[Rick Kitchen]

 

Whenever there's a rumored Cleopatra movie and there's an outcry that she should played by a black actress

 

Even though Cleopatra's entire heritage was Macedonian Greek.