Top Quality Story-Telling Helps Make Up For Its Weaknesses

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2002)

Story-telling technique doesn't get much better than this, so it's no surprise that the movie is still so well-known despite its age and length. From the detailed, lavish settings to the carefully filmed action scenes to the well-timed, steady pace, many things are done masterfully. These and other strengths make it an entertaining and sometimes exciting classic despite some weaknesses in its characters and its historical perspective.
In one sense, you have to wonder whether it would have been a better story if the main characters were more worth caring about. Nothing against Gable or Leigh, who both give fine performances that bring out exactly what their characters are about, but despite Rhett's resourcefulness and Scarlett's strength, they really are not very admirable persons, and it's just hard to care very much whether they are happy or not. It makes the whole movie rather less affecting; it's always interesting yet only occasionally is it really compelling. Yet at the same time, the characters in themselves are convincing, and perhaps their less-than-admirable nature makes for a more believable balance to the historical backdrop, which is a highly idealized, not to say sanitized, portrait of the Old South.
All that aside, whether you like the characters and settings or not, it's filled with good examples of how to tell a story on film. The escape from Atlanta sequence deserves its place as one of the finest set pieces in movie history, and although nothing in the rest of the film has the same intensity level, there are many other good scenes that make it a picture well worth watching.