In 1935, young producer David O. Selznick left MGM to start his own production company. Despite his successes at MGM, Paramount, and RKO, Selznick longed for creative freedom. In those days the studios were movie factories–producing one after another, with a bigger eye on the budget than the quality.
Selznick didn’t want to crank out films. He wanted to make one-of-a-kind original works of art that would stand the test of time.
And he believed Margaret Mitchell’s romanticized novel of the fall of the south could be his crown jewel.
He spent two years casting his masterpiece, interviewing 1,400 women before deciding on a leading lady. He second guessed every move by his scriptwriters. He was a complete control freak–burning through three directors who couldn’t take his constant meddling and his blistering memos that went on for many single-spaced typed pages.
He nearly worked himself to death and bankrupted his new company, but in the end he accomplished his impossible goal.
Gone With the Wind is the greatest movie that ever was and ever will be.
No movie will ever again capture a nation’s attention again like Gone With the Wind because movies no longer hold an outsized place in our culture.
In 1939, you watched sports by going to the games. You read the news in the morning paper. You read stories in novels or listened to them on the serialized radio shows.
The only screen you ever saw was the giant silver one at the movie theater.
And there was Gone With the Wind, an epic tale that blew away anything anyone had ever seen before. It was the first movie many people saw in color, over twice as long as the average film of the day.
It was promoted as an event–unlike other movies of the time, it had reserved seating, premium priced tickets, and an intermission. It was initially booked only in huge theaters with at least 850 seats.
People knew they were seeing something special.
More people saw Gone With the Wind in the movie theater than any other movie that has ever existed, and it is inconceivable that another movie will ever surpass it. It sold more than two times as many tickets as Avengers: Endgame, the top film of last year.
It holds a place of cultural relevance nearly as high as The Wizard of Oz, without the benefit of thirty years of annual event showings on television. (While The Wizard of Oz made its television debut in 1956, viewers could not watch Scarlett and Rhett on the small screen until 1976.)
It’s been the subject of recent controversy over its romanticized depiction of slavery, but the fact that people want it banned in 2020 only further illustrates its hold on the American public.
Even if you haven’t seen it, you likely know the plot. Vain, selfish southern belle Scarlett O’Hara convinces herself she loves Ashley Wilkes, the one man she cannot have, and one who is temperamentally unsuited to make her happy. While pinning for happily married Ashley, Scarlett misses out on happiness with Rhett Butler, a man who does love her and would make her happy.
All this plays out during the Civil War and its aftermath, a war that devastates the south and decimates Scarlett’s family and beloved plantation home, Tara.
Gone With the Wind is classified as a historical epic romance, but it’s really a war movie.
And while Scarlett and Rhett’s romance gets all the press, in many ways the central relationship of the film is that between Scarlett and Ashley’s wife, Melanie Hamilton Wilkes.
Scarlett is often written off as a vicious conniver, and Melanie the saintly doormat who’s oblivious to Scarlett’s faults.
Yet it’s not that simple.
In the film’s opening scene, Scarlett makes clear her disdain for Melanie Hamilton, as a no-fun “goody goody” whom Scarlett would dislike even if she weren’t engaged to Ashley Wilkes.
Melanie, for her part, hopes she and Scarlett will become great friends.
Scarlett spends the first half of the film as a spoiled rich girl who schemes to steal Ashley away, even after he marries Melanie. She is shameless and plays on Ashley’s lust–if not love–for her. Even when the war begins, she is more consumed by petty jealousy and concerns. With Ashely off to war, Scarlett visits Melanie in Atlanta so that she will be there to see Ashley home from the war.
Scarlett despises the war and can’t stomach nursing the injured men. She is as selfish as ever. But everything changes when the Yankees are on the cusp of invading Atlanta and a pregnant Melanie is too weak to evacuate. Though she wants nothing more than to return to Tara and her mother, Scarlett stays behind with Melanie. She has the chance to leave with Rhett, and again with Melanie’s Aunt Pitty, but she stays.
When Melanie goes into labor, Scarlett looks for help and finds none–most of the Confederate Army has pulled out of Atlanta, the doctor cannot leave the thousands of injured men, and Scarlett’s slave Prissy admits she lied about knowing how to deliver babies.
As Melanie cries out for help, Scarlett realizes she is on her own.
And for the first time in her life, she rises to the occasion. She walks up the stairs with a look of grim determination on her face, and for the first time we see the steel-willed survivor inside her.
Scarlett delivers the baby and saves Melanie’s life. She takes them on a harrowing journey back to Tara, where Scarlett hopes her mother will take over.
But when they reach Tara, they find the place looted and burned and without a scrap of food or money. Scarlett’s mother is dead and her father has gone insane. Melanie is still dangerously ill. Scarlett’s two sisters are useless. All but three of the slaves have run off.
There was never a more ill-prepared head of the family than Scarlett O’Hara.
Standing with a raised fist and a dirty radish pulled from the ground, she vows:
“As god as my witness, they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor will any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill. As god as witness, I’ll never be hungry again.”
That quote sets up the second half of the film–Scarlett will lie, cheat, steal and kill to protect Tara. And despite continuing to despise her and desire her husband, Scarlett considers Melanie and the baby part of the folk under her protection.
Scarlett gets them through the war and its brutal aftermath. Even when Ashley returns home, he is of no help to Scarlett. He is a southern gentleman, without the grit required to drag them back to prosperity.
Like all of us, Scarlett’s greatest strength is also her greatest weakness.
If not for Scarlett, Melanie, her baby, and Ashely would’ve starved to death in the aftermath of the war.
And yet when the war is over, Scarlett cannot shed her skin of ruthlessness.
Rhett sweeps her off her feet and marries her, wanting nothing more than to spoil and soothe her. Though she has every outer appearance of returning to the petty rich girl she once was, her nightmares betray that the horror of war has not left her.
She is haunted by her former hunger, driven to acquire more money via fair means or foul to keep the beast of poverty at baby.
Because of this, I’ve always had a soft spot for Scarlett O’Hara. So does Melanie Wilkes.
Even as Scarlett continues to try to steal her husband, and her well-bred social set wants Melanie to drop Scarlett as a friend, Melanie stands by Scarlett.
Years later on her deathbed, Melanie wants to talk to Scarlett. There are no tearful confessions on either side, but Melanie says just enough to know that she has not been oblivious to Scarlett’s machinations for her husband, and asks Scarlett to care for him.
It’s not because she’s a doormat–it’s because she knows that she and her baby wouldn’t be alive without Scarlett. And it’s clear to Melanie, as it is to Rhett–that Scarlett has PTSD from the war, though they wouldn’t know to call it that.
In the end, Melanie knows Scarlett better than Scarlett knows herself.
And Scarlett, despite her lifelong protests that she despises Melanie, never left the weaker woman behind.
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So it may or may not be one of the talked aboiut films of 2020, but I enjoyed this film a lot back in the day, and it still works today. But is it really a war movie? It deals with lives during wartime, but does it deal with war itself? That’s my question!
It’s fair pushback that I’m stretching the term “war movie” as far (perhaps farther) as it can go to encompass Gone With the Wind—but hear me out!
A better definition might be that it is a home front movie, in line with Mrs. Miniver (a definite war movie without a single battle scene) and even A League of their Own.
Scarlett and Melanie suffer through the hells of war as much as many of the soldiers fighting, and the film doesn’t shy away from those portrayals. The scenes in which Scarlett confronts the war are (in my mind) the most compelling and keep Scarlett from becoming a one-dimensional villain despite all the despicable things she will go on to do. And everything she does in the second half of the film is driven by the scars she carries from the war.
I submit that an accurate and succinct description of Gone With the Wind is that the civil war both makes and permanently ruins Scarlett O’Hara.
Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and GWTW is a war movie, damn it!