Watched "Gone With The Wind" for the first time. My initial thoughts.

Last week I had a night off after a long week of double shifts. Felt like being a couch potato so picked a movie to watch. All these years and I had never seen what I always assumed was considered one of the greatest movies of all time. "Gone With the Wind".

I stuck with the whole show intermission and all. About a third into the movie I started realizing something though. The two main characters really are a dispicable couple of people. Scah-let is just about as cruddy a woman as can be imagined. Almost totally without any integrity or caring. And Rhett isnt much better. Though Clark Gabel is funny as hell in the part. At least he realizes he is a rat.

The other thing is the whole movie is overblown. The same scene of Scarlets' selfishness replays itself over and over it seems. They could have cut about a third of this movie.

The cinematography was amazing. Ill say that much. The whole thick molasses feel of the south was brought to life. You could smell the dogwood. And the actual storyline was inner'esting. But it was a very different acted movie than I had in my mind. Much more vile than Id imagined.

However, I would not rank this in the top movies of all time. I think it could have been. But they just kept telling the same conflict over and over too many times.

So, this comes from a Gone With the Wind newbie.

Any thoughts? Insights ye movie critics and experts?

 

I understand the film's place in history but I wouldn't put it with Citizen Kane, Casablanca or the first two Godfather films when it comes to all time lists like it generally seems to get lumped in with.

The Wizard Of Oz is the better film that year.

 

"The Wizard Of Oz is the better film that year." Yep ...

 

Did Oz come out the same year? Didnt realize that. Im far from a movie expert. Which is why I kind of started this thread. I really have little to bias towards it. The only thing I knew of the movie is that it was a "tale of the south", the poster and "Frankly, my dear, I dont give a damn." Oh and the Carol Burnette skit.

 

Gone with the Wind is a spectacular production, especially for its day, but certainly, both times I saw it I found myself thinking at the end "why did we just watch a four hour movie about this horrible woman?"

 

It bores the hell out of me.

 

Don't judge it from the perspective of 2016. Judge it from the way life was in 1939. There's a bigger world out there than what you're aware of in your own life and your own experience.

Judging any work of art has to be done in historical context. I wouldn't compare (say) a 1939 song in comparison to a 1969 rock hit, or a 2016 rap hit. They might all be good in their own way, but you can't compare one against the other.

I think the story from a dramatic point of view is not that complicated: a woman gets what she wants, loses what she wanted, gets it back for a time, then loses it but resolves to get it again. Everything else is just detail... but it's a movie rich in detail. I don't love it as a film, but it's very much a classic in every important sense of the word. If you think about it in terms of performance, and that a somewhat neurotic British actress could portray a flighty, selfish Southern woman in the 1860s, and the world's biggest leading man could play the male lead, you might think of it differently in terms of what it was like to make the film. You might argue that the characters were broad sketches, but that's the way a lot of movies were done in the 1930s.

 

I wrote comments similar to these somewhere else a few years ago.

I hadn't really watched it for many decades after we took a junior high school trip to see it in the 70s until I watched the blu-ray a few years ago.

I was impressed with the cinematography and other production values.

My wife refuses to watch it because it's racist.

When I watched it, I felt similar to mpayan. The white characters were privileged, selfish children. I found no redeeming qualities in them at all. I don't think of them as the protagonists.

The only people in the movie who seemed to have any common sense were the slaves, probably because they didn't have the luxury of any other viewpoint.

 

it boggles my mind that Victor Fleming directed "Gone with the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz" in the same year!

 

It might be that I had a preconceived idea about the movie in my mind. Kind of had the movie worked out in my own mind before hand based on pop cultures influence. Ive done that before and then after veiwing a movie a couple of times realized things about it that I hadnt the first time. Maybe I went in more biased than I realize. Mind you, I didnt hate it. I liked many things about it. But after awhile Scarlet especially turned my stomach.

 

Steve, check out the book Scarlett Fever by William Pratt...a very close friend wrote this and was a GWTW maniac...he loved this movie beyond belief...when we got together we'd have long conversations about movies and listen to movie sound tracks...he was a great human...he had every soundtrack album ever released. I kid you not...He passed away years back and I miss him dearly...It's available at Amazon for 50 cents!

 

your welcome...Wow! that must be a wonderful viewing experience!

 

One of my favoorite movies. I think it's one of those films that needs to be seen on a large screen in a theater to really appreciate. There are many wonderful nuances in the performances that just cannot be picked up on a small screen. It is a very "big" film.

Every time I see this film I get a deeper appreciation for it. There are many levels to this story and lots of growth the characters go through.

 

I'd be scared to own a nitrate print. I guess he takes necessary safety precautions.

 

It's been a long while since I watched it in its entirety. I did watch good chunks of an HD showing last year. Still enjoyed the bits I saw and it looked really good.

 

yes, fearing the dreaded vinegar smell!

 

Todd, if you don't have the book I mentioned...get it! it's fabulous.
Yes, it's a grand movie! I love it especially after learning so much from my friend William! He had a wealth of info! He pretty much knew Hollywood inside out...Incredibly interesting stories...We'd have weekly visits...great times.
P.S. What's your favorite (best) version on Blu-ray & DVD?

 

This is what I think some people today don't seem to understand, IMO. They seem to want good guys and bad guys, but often the main characters in older movies were much more complicated, It wasn't so much about depicting a virtuous or admirable person as it was about creating an unforgettable character. And Scarlett is, undeniably, a powerful character. Her obvious flaws made her the icon that she is. It's ironic, because people, myself included, tend to think of older movies and stories as being all black and white morality and watered down and today's movies as being gritty and unsentimental, but sometimes it seems quite the opposite. Every John Wayne movie I've seen, I always start out thinking, "This guy's a ****in' jerk!" But by the end of the movie, I like that ****in' jerk.

 

I'll order it Michael. I'm very sure I will love it. Thanks for recommending it!

 

Your welcome my friend! That's great...

 

I'm not a film expert (far from it)but I've seen plenty of nitrate audio tape. A reel came in years ago that smelled so bad I could barely be in the same room with it. You could see the shadow of the reel spokes on the lid. Curled so bad it was 1,200 feet of brown plastic spaghetti, barely recoverable. Yet reels of nitrate that were not in the box were just fine. So I really think that nitrate has to "breathe" to survive.

I know some folks might dislike the film for whatever reasons, but we need to realize that the point of making the film was not to make a documentary on the south, but to portray a love story that took place during the civil war. TCM showed a documentary about the making of the film, and the amount of work that went into it was unbelievable.

Just a few things that I remember:

Clark Gable couldn't dance. He was on a moving platform for the dance scenes.
The burning of Atlanta was the burning of the old sets on the lot, like the gate from King Kong.
The score hadn't yet been completed at the time of filming, and the test screenings had the sound track to a different film.
The first draft of the film was rejected, and it was re-written. The main screen writer wasn't in Hollywood. He worked from his home in New England.

I'll have to watch it again, it was a fascinating documentary.