"It's an historic moment you can tell your grandchildren about - how you watched the Old South fall one night."

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2008)

Producer David O. Selznick must have known in advance that 'Gone with the Wind (1939)' would become the highest-grossing motion picture ever made. He purchased the rights to Margaret Mitchell's bestselling novel for an unprecedented $50,000, heaped a truckload of money into the project and exhausted the efforts of no less than three directors  Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood and possibly a few others, including William Cameron Menzies and B. Reeves Eason. Such was Selznick's passion for the project that he is typically credited as the prime architect of the film's success, a definitive exception to the auteur theory  unless, of course, one simply considers Selznick to be the auteur. The extravagance of the production is instantly recognised in the film's elaborate costume and set design, in addition to Ernest Haller's sweeping epic cinematography. If it weren't for such lavishness, the picture might easily have vanished into the background as a stuffy, overwrought melodrama; but film-making of this magnitude leaves a considerable imprint on one's memory, and audiences have come to epitomise 'Gone with the Wind' as the embodiment of Hollywood's Golden Age.
The most exciting acts of the story, which was adapted by Sidney Howard from Mitchell's novel, take place during the Civil War, when the triumphant Yankees are marching towards Atlanta, casting an ominous shadow over the ill-fated city. The grandiose scope of the photography  the seemingly-endless sprawl of wounded soldiers, the desperate last-minute dash past the blazing munitions factory  would go unrivalled until the late 1950s, when David Lean discovered the widescreen camera. Clarke Gable was the fans' only choice for the role of the roguish but noble Rhett Butler, but it's Scarlett O'Hara whom I find most interesting, even if I disliked her more and more as the film progressed. The 1930s was very much a decade of change in how women were portrayed in cinema, with actresses such as Mae West ('I'm No Angel (1933)') and Bette Davis ('Dark Victory (1939)') achieving success as smart, independent characters, shifting away from the notion of the "damsel in distress." Scarlett, a role eventually given to unknown Vivien Leigh, was the apex of the independent woman  so independent, in fact, that she could never be happy in love with a man.
The film has a fascinatingly-ambivalent relationship with its main protagonist, Scarlett O'Hara. She is obviously a very strong female character, and her resourcefulness and enterprise in difficult times is justly-celebrated however, at what price? In order to spite the Yankees for destroying her way of life, Scarlett essentially becomes those whom she holds in such contempt, surrendering any remaining traces of honour or integrity. There's no doubt that she commits damnable atrocities, often at the expense of those who love her, but the film can't quite bring itself to hate her  the audience is left suspended in midstream, presented with a wolf in sheep's clothing, but nonetheless expected to celebrate the clothing for its practicality and expediency. Conversely, Melanie Hamilton (the lovely Olivia de Havilland) embodies kindness and selflessness, but she is inevitably doomed to a premature death, perhaps a product of her inability to adapt to this new lifestyle. In the gritty aftermath of the American Civil War, the kind and decent are condemned to an uneasy demise, whereas the crass, opportunistic Scarlett lives to greet another day.
The film should have ended with Clarke Gable's immortal parting words, a fade to black as his figure disappears forever into the mist, with our selfish and unprincipled anti-heroine having finally received her comeuppance, three times filled and running over. After stopping at nothing to obtain what she wants, Scarlett ultimately finds that she has been chasing an illusion, and, in the meantime, she has pushed away all that she still holds dear in this world, the one man who potentially offered her a lifetime of happiness. But, alas, Selznick had a lot of money riding on this picture, and it certainly would not have done to disappoint the ladies in the audience. Instead, the film concludes with Scarlett's optimistic epitaph  "after all, tomorrow is another day!"  implying that she may eventually win Rhett back, or, at least, that she'll never stop trying. Whether I want her to succeed is an entirely different matter. Scarlett is almost the female equivalent of Tim Holt's George Amberson-Minafer, arrogant and thoroughly deserving of a comeuppance, and neither deserved a happy ending, regardless of whether or not the studio provided one.