Gone With the Wind Redux

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2004)

"Cold Mountain" is a grand old-style, satisfyingly catch-you-up-in-the-sweep-of-emotions/resistance-is-futile Hollywood epic, whose primary difference from "Gone With the Wind" is that the actresses get to flash some tasteful T & A and use a four-letter word more vulgar than "damn" about manure.
Perforce it can only be a hurried "scenes from" the engrossing novel which puts Penelope and Odysseus amidst the Civil War where author Charles Frazier added irony to Homer as Ada/Penelope first has to (metaphorically) learn to weave as she keeps suitors and other dangers at bay and Inman/Odysseus is not a hero but barely survives as a deserter to face parallel trials on the way home.
The book at least includes a map so readers can trace Inman's lengthy Odyssey, but the movie unfortunately opts out of that 1940's-style even as it follows other conventions of the genre, particularly as seen through John Seale's beautiful cinematography from the fog of war to the fog of snow.

While producers Miramax are technically not a major studio, their casting is part of what puts this in the grand Hollywood tradition.

Even under dirt and mussed hair, Nicole Kidman and Jude Law are two of the mostly stunningly beautiful human beings on the planet --and it's a pretty safe bet that they'll be entered in MTV's "Best Film Kiss of 2003"--yet they almost don't stand out amidst an attractive cameo cast with the likes of Natalie Portman, Cillian Murphy, Giovanni Ribisi, Charlie Hunnam, with Ray Winstone as the villain, etc. It was almost startling to see Eileen Atkins's mountain woman as the first non-pretty or handsome character actor. Renée Zellweger gets to chew the scenery as an over-the-top Ma Kettle, but her comic relief is enjoyable.
While the complex production design, from battles to farms to log cabins, creates whole environments, "Ada"'s wardrobes must be pretty huge to fit all those beautiful dresses; it was only in the last days of poverty of the war that she actually had to repeat wearing one.
A good deal of the credit for the irresistibility of the movie is the music, especially T. Bone Burnett's Americana and Jack White's Americana-sounding selections, and I would have preferred even more of those and a bit less of Gabriel Yared's score. Allison Krauss's singing is especially evocative in enveloping the audience in the mood and themes, in "The Scarlet Tide" and closing with Sting's "You Will Be My Ain True Love", which is a shoo-in for an Oscar nom.
There was a credited dialect coach, but I found the Southern accents bland. And none of the quibbles really matter.