Gone With the Wind

One thing people watching Gone With the Wind will immediately notice when loading this film up on streaming is that there is a lot of effort being put into making sure you are fully aware that this is a film from the 1930s depicting a time when slavery was prevalent in the southern United States. This film depicts things in a way that was what the 1930s considered ideal, showing African Americans as being happy with their lot in life, dedicated to their white masters as if there was nothing wrong with the way they were being exploited. It’s the kind of filmmaking that romanticizes the South while ignoring the realities of slavery in the pre-Civil War era. 

The version I watched on HBO Max included a young Black woman taking about five minutes to explain all of this just to make sure we were fully versed in the history and background of the film before watching. This was then followed by an on-screen text basically saying the same thing. It’s as if the studio licensing this film out doesn’t trust their audience to understand these things without them spoon-feeding it to us. It presupposes that anyone endeavoring to watch a nearly four-long epic Civil War era film from over eighty years ago will not be able to put the film in its proper historical context without this warning. In short, it insults our intelligence. Mercifully, such an introduction is absent from the current home video releases.

The film is a romanticized view of the South because it is told from their point of view. The Yankees are portrayed as thieves and murderers because that is how they were seen by the Southerners. It would look a great deal differently were it told from the Northerners’ point of view. The South is painted with broad brushstrokes, emphasizing what the South was famous for: massive plantations, southern belles, and proper gentlemen eager to go to war to protect their way of life. It also paints the slaves as happy workers, dedicated to their households, which is a far cry from the reality of the situation.

We see this from the opening shot as the camera homes in on our protagonist, the young and beautiful Miss Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), as she flirts with two young men who are doting over her every word. Scarlett lives at Tara, her family’s cotton plantation in Georgia, with her parents, her two sisters, and their slaves. She is all smiling and carefree until she hears that Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), the one man she cannot have, is engaged to marry his cousin Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). 

She throws herself at Ashley, but while he admits that he loves her, just as all the young men do, he is marrying Melanie anyway because she is the right woman for him. Meanwhile, word has reached Tara that war has broken out with the North, and all the men are anxious to join the Union Army and easilydefeat the Yankees. Only Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) seems to realize that the South is at a severe disadvantage and likely to be defeated. Scarlett, upset at being rejected by Ashley, agrees to marry Melanie’s younger brother, Charles, as her way of hurting Ashley. Shortly afterwards, Charles, enlisted in the war, dies from pneumonia, forcing Scarlett to go into mourning for a husband she didn’t love. 

As the war rages on, the South is devastated. Scarlett returns to Tara to find that the land has been ravaged and, without their slaves, there is no one to pick the cotton except her and her sisters. On top of that, a large tax bill is coming due, and she could lose the plantation if it goes unpaid. Through some manipulation, she marries again, this time to her sister’s fiancé, Frank Kennedy, who is wealthy enough to pay the back taxes. When Scarlett is later attacked in shanty town, Frank, Ashley, and several others make a night raid that results in Frank’s death. Scarlett is once again a widow to a man she didn’t love. 

After Frank’s funeral, Rhett Butler, who has been in and out of Scarlett’s life up to this point, proposes to her, proclaiming that he knew she was the woman for him since the day they met. She agrees, and the two are married, bringing with it an increase in wealth and prosperity to Tara. But she still pines for Ashley, despite having a daughter with Rhett that she adores. 

Gone With the Wind is considered the most popular film ever made. It sold more tickets back in 1939 than any other film in history and still, when adjusted for inflation, holds the record for the biggest box office of all time. That is an impressive feat, especially considering the United States was at the tail end of the Great Depression at the time. Margaret Mitchell’s epic novel was immensely popular at the time, and people were eager to see it translated to the screen.

It was a stroke of genius to cast Vivien Leigh in the lead as Scarlett O’Hara. Scarlett is spoiled and selfish, and the type of character we should despise, yet we cannot hate her too much because she is also magnetic, and we are attracted to her just as the rest of the beaus we see mooning over her at the opening party. There were all sorts of reports of who was being considered for this important and complicated role, including Paulette Goddard, who was a rising star at the time, but Vivien Leigh beat them all out, and it is easy to see why. She was young and beautiful and could project stubbornness and willfulness while at the same time showing just how vulnerable and uncertain she really was behind that tough façade. 

Olivia de Havilland is equally as good in the much more humble role as the loyal and trusting Melanie Wilkes. This character has a lot of love in her and refuses to see the bad in those around her, including Scarlett. When Scarlett is caught making advances on Ashley, Melanie refuses to believe it, only seeing the good that Scarlett has accomplished in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. On the surface, this can be interpreted as a character flaw, but the reality is that she has a humility and spirit to her that props her up. It is a disservice to her that she is married to a man who is conflicted by his feelings for another woman, even though he mostly has the willpower to ignore those feelings. 

Rhett Butler, on the other hand, is a fascinating character with a lot of contradictions. He opens the film openly mocking his fellow Southerners for their boastfulness in the face of the Yankee army. He stays behind while the others are fighting the war. Yet in the face of surrender, he chooses to step up and fight for the South, even though he knows it is a lost cause. He sees Scarlett marry twice, first out of spite and second out of desperation. Seeing that, he still wants her and marries her. He tells himself that she will come to love him but keeps getting reminded that her heart is elsewhere. By the time she does come around, he has grown cold and calloused, fed up with her and her infatuation with Ashley. This film’s ending has become famous, especially with Clark Gable’s infamous final line, and, though it may seem on the surface to be anticlimactic after nearly four hours of screen time, this is the ending this film has been building up to that whole time. 

Many in recent years have maligned this film for being culturally and historically insensitive, especially in its treatment of the Black characters. This is a sad reflection of the times in which it was made. Hattie McDaniel, who played the house servant Mammy, won an Academy Award for her role here, the first Black person so honored, yet she was not allowed to sit with the rest of the cast at the ceremony but kept separate from them, segregated for the color of her skin. She took it graciously, knowing that just getting the award was a step in the right direction, but it had to have stung knowing that there was still a long way to go in the world. 

Gone With the Wind is a film that still needs to be seen. It’s a time capsule, not just of the Civil War era, but, more importantly, of 1930’s Hollywood. This was not a good time for actors and actresses of color, and that is reflected in the way they are portrayed on screen. There are a lot of stereotypes, mostly negative, being showcased here, but it feels born out of ignorance more than intentionally malicious. For some, that can still be offensive. But we also shouldn’t censor or cancel it because it is a part of our history, and we need to face that head-on rather than pretend it didn’t happen. When we can see past that and get into the film proper, we find that this is a gorgeously made film and a real showcase for Vivien Leigh, who has never been better than she was here. 

This film is one of the longest films to ever be nominated for Best Picture. That length can be daunting to some who feel they cannot dedicate four hours to a single film. The film earns its length, though, and never feels bloated. A good film is neither too short nor too long but just the right length. It was based on Margaret Mitchell’s epic-length novel and takes advantage of the screen time to bring as much of that novel to the screen as possible. It’s all the better for it, too, as that length allows for rich character development and some amazingly effective set pieces to breathe, such as the burning of Atlanta and a fabulous, yet horrific, wide shot showing the true scale of the wounded Southerners. Gone With the Wind is a treasure, a film with flaws but brilliant nevertheless. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Outstanding Production: David O. Selznick (won)

Best Director: Victor Fleming (won)

Best Actor: Clark Gable

Best Actress: Vivien Leigh (won)

Best Supporting Actress: Olivia de Havilland

Best Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel (won)

Best Screenplay: Sidney Howard (won)

Best Art Direction: Lyle Wheeler (won)

Best Cinematography - Color: Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan (won)

Best Film Editing: Hal C. Kern and James E. Newcom (won)

Best Original Score: Max Steiner

Best Sound Recording: Thomas T. Moulton

Best Visual Effects: Jack Cosgrove, Fred Albin, and Arthur Johns

Special Award: William Cameron Menzies (Honorary)

Technical Achievement Award: Don Musgrave and Selznick International Pictures (Honorary)

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Release Date: December 15, 1939

Running Time: 238 minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland

Directed by: Victor Fleming