Long and laborious, and so very stupid... how is this a classic?

Rating: 1/10 (14 May 2006)

This is another of those movies I wonder "HOW is this a classic?". Maybe the book was a lot better than the movie! I was watching this, not expecting much, but expecting to earn my respect, the way "Scarface" or "Casablanca", movies I don't like but have earned my respect as classic movies.
It didn't. Apart from the 20 minute "Overture" sequence involving a painting of a sky, the words "Overture" and the canned music of a symphony orchestra playing random notes, which really annoyed me ><, the movie really was a load of crap that just looked good and colorful.
The story was a long and winding tale about a girl Scarlett O'Hara complaining and whining about her pampered, sheltered little life while men are off dying in the Civil War fighting for the Confederacy, and she falls in love with a scoundrel blockade runner (sounds like something out of Star Wars) named Brett Butler or something.
The movie goes on fairly well, impressing me with its simplicity and its strict sticking to the plot of Scarlett and Brett trying to stick together while their society crumbles as the Union starts to win and invade the South.
Then comes the climax, when Brett is finally reunited with Scarlett, and the most disastrous turn in movie history happens... in the midst of their crumbling society, with the Confederacy pushed down to the brink, the Union swarming over their town, and fires blazing in the background... Brett decides to join the Confederacy. After YEARS of avoiding service. Scarlett asks him what we're all asking the screen: "WHY?!" "WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!WHY?!" And do you know what his response is?!?!: "I've always been a sucker for lost causes" That killed the movie right there. I stopped watching after that. I know there was another 30 minute interlude scene of a painting of a dusk sky and a symphony warming up. Then it goes on with Scarlett living in the burnt out shell of her house, growing food, killing Union soldiers come to rape her or some cliché thing like that, and helping one of her slaves give birth, while waiting for Brett to come home.
Worst movie ever.