Windbags

Rating: Null/10 (25 June 2002)

Spoilers herein.
Layers of institutions are referenced and simultaneously demolished.
The film is ostensibly about the South: its empty untenable institutions collapsing, but then reinventing themselves into a new prosperity. This is a pessimistic world where damaged goods never go away, they just keep coming back in new forms. Easy to see in the arrogant South (where everyone is portrayed as a nitwit to boot). Easy to see in Scarlet herself.
Only a little harder to see in the other target of the book: Catholicism. Melanie as Madonna. The Klan was anti Jew and Black, but moreso anti Catholic. And especially Irish Catholic as a remnant of English bigotry. That's glossed over more here than in the book but the institution of the Church is metaphorically overlain on that of the South: A huge, arrogant institution, highly socialized, economically strong, conservative, arrogant, subjects millions and so on. Such institutions always collapse locally but have the remarkable ability to reinvent themselves.
So we have Scarlet, the South, the Church and an addition, unintentional layer: Hollywood. This film redefined Hollywood by borrowing the same qualities noted in the film: if you reach critical mass, you can invent your own reality -- if you get that reality wrong (a certainty) then you'll have the collaborative mechanisms required to make it right. In other words, if you have a good hook, and grand enough scope, you will succeed in creating a world. The South, The Church, Hollywood.
And one can see this here. This project is not good, and by no stretch can it be judged -- on its merits -- the most successful movie of all time in terms of both dollars and viewings. Selznick was a genius: he realized that if you make a big enough fuss and made no huge errors, a film becomes an event. That event redefines film. So, for example people will flock to see `Spiderman' because several hundred million dollars was spent on promotion. They will `use' this film and reinvent their memory to recall it as `good.' Same as the Church.
And the same, incidentally, as Microsoft. Their products follow the same world-creation event model. Take no changes with the product, just avoid known errors. Tout it loudly enough (Microsoft's promotion to development ratio is precisely that of Hollywood's and uses the same firms), and people will adjust their reality to one you create. Or recreate because you got it wrong the first time.
Gone with the Wind is actually not about going, but sticking around. Which brings us to the second interesting element: Leigh. She's a sleight actress here -- projects like this don't work if the actor is truly gifted. But then she went on to be in the landmark `Streetcar.' These two projects are essentially the whole of her life. But by Streetcar, she had taken the jumble of damaged components that compose her and learned to wear them outside, so we can see. It is a remarkable transformation that Brando exploits. It makes her life worth living (pain and all) and Hollywood worth tolerating (event films and all).