Well Crafted Ugliness

Rating: 6/10 (28 September 2018)

As a piece of cinema this is a deeply engaging film. The colors, art direction and Fleming's technical composition and staging craft a film that has a storybook and deeply romantic quality. You get lost in the images as you are you get swept up in the storytelling. Each episode of the film has a unique feel to it and there's a ton of artful touches throughout. I especially liked the shadow work in the hospital and birth sequences. It certainly captures the genteel world of the Old South in rose colored glasses.
Likewise, the story of a head strong amorous woman doing her best to survive and thrive is deeply engaging and in some ways very forward looking for time. The messed up relationship between Scarlet and Rhett that is the heart of this film is still fascinating, complex and all to human. It grounds the epic actions in a intimate relationship. It helps that Leigh and Gable are at the top of their form along with technical aspects of the film. It is a long movie but story and characters are always vivid and alive.
Yet for all that this film is white supremacist to its core. It glorifies and bemoans the destruction of the Confederacy that was fighting for the preservation of slavery. It equates white prisoner's exploitation unfavorable to the chattel slavery of black people. It is insidiously pro-Jim Crow and Pro-KKK. (Through weirdly it whitewashes the hate group as a "political meeting.")
This is duel characteristic of the film, well crafted ugliness, is most apparent in the character of Mammy. She is given agency and dignity by the screenplay; there is no ill treatment of her directly and more to the point Scarlett and Rhett both seek and follow her advice (abet in minor ways). And in McDaniel's hands the character is vividly fleshed out and very real. (She did the Oscar after all). And yet Mammy is a gross racial stereotype, she is still a slave and she is still not treated as an equal human being to the white characters.
This film is messed up. It should not be classic.