A "Woman's Picture" and a Dated Curio

Rating: 7/10 (20 September 1999)

We know that much of GWTW was great: sets; performances; music; the epic scope; etc. But I will not say the plot was a standout, and here's why.
After the war was over, GWTW devolved into a tedious over-drawn soap; I really squirmed with some of those scenes in the mansion. It had been a "woman's picture" all along, and the last half of the movie was really a drag. Besides that, the appeal of Scarlett for Ashley - and Rhett for Scarlett - has long been a mystery to me. Scarlett herself was a conniving, selfish, self-centered, manipulative little witch with no discernible redeeming values. And Melanie and Ashley were bores, while Rhett was a smug egomaniac. No, I did not like the characters! Hattie McDaniel's "Mammy" did deserve the Oscar she got, though.
Besides the problems with the plot, "GWTW" is historically a tired old curio rife with distortions, although nowhere near as bad as the vicious "Birth of a Nation". The stereotypical scenes were all there: the "happy darkies" so pleased to be slaves; the malicious "Yankee overlord"; the "evil Carpetbaggers" after the war; the "poor oppresed South" during Reconstruction; and so on. It was all a lie. The slaves were not happy to be slaves; the overlords were either Southerners or often slaves themselves; and Reconstruction was too easy on the racist South with it's Ku Klux Klan and other white racist gangs working to restore the status quo ante-bellum by terrorism.
If you like women's movies and know the History presented is nonsense, you can surely enjoy the grandeur of "GWTW" and the great performances of its huge stars.