A golden age of cinema masterpiece

Rating: 7/10 (27 June 2005)

There is nothing more wonderful than a sweeping romance from the 30's or 40's. Better still in Southern Belle costumes and fakey Southern accents. Some people find fault that Clarke Gable fails to deliver his Southern drawl, and that Vivien Leigh's is decidedly English (her native country) but I find it unimportant. This is a movie that today people sneer at, think it's cheesy and fake and overblown but in the end, if you let yourself get carried into the emotion, you're in for a treat that's seldom experienced. There's nothing I like better than the soaring music, full-scale orchestra like all old films, and the dramatic lighting changes. Olivia de Havilland's acting never ceases to amaze me and I study every flicker in her face and eyes. She is an incredible actress, and is still radiant today. Vivien Leigh overtakes Scarlett, takes Mitchell's character, portrays her well, and gives us more to Scarlett than an empty head, greed and flirtatious airs. Leigh makes Scarlett human, and viewers identify with not only the protagonist, but the three supporting roles as well. We see bits of ourselves in Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie, and Ashley and at the same time love and hate them for it. The same goes for the movie. There are mistakes surely, which we correct in our mind, but it adds to the charm of this classic, that it's flawed and loved because of it, just like its heroine, and just like humanity, which Mitchell and Selznick so well portray, and we still embody today.