The wind might be gone, but it still steals the thunder

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2012)

They don't make pictures like this anymore. There, I've said it. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. The artistic techniques to put a four hour seminal epic like "Gone with the Wind" on screen were quite different and limited back in the days, however the inventiveness to tell a great story and choose the right means was disproportionately higher - and it shows.
The brainchild of powerful producer David O. Selznick, the filmed version of Margaret Mitchell's best seller does nothing that hasn't been done before, but everything with utmost perfection and teems with high production values every way you look at it. The list of what "Gone with the Wind" lifts high above other films just goes on and on: There's of course that great story of the Old South dealing with a generation entangled in the throes of the American Civil War. This however is only the backdrop of one of the greatest romances of all time, which is not presented as sugar-coated, tear-jerking escapism, but as a wild clash of sexes through strong personalities, driven by egotism and vanity, mirroring the downfall of a whole civilization. The narration is shown in lush Technicolor cinematography, at key points composite storybook images are used with layers upon layers of painted images added to the shots in order to exude the required sense of drama and give it a fairy-tale, almost dreamlike quality. Hundreds of costumed extras fight and litter the street of dying men the heroine Scarlett walks through to give just one shining example, Max Steiner's score is grand and epic, and the cast headed by Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable is legendary as their sensual tension is deep and intensely felt by the viewer. In short: "Gone with the Wind" is a marvel of cinematic brilliance, and more. And to everyone who thinks otherwise: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.