The definition of a classic

Rating: 10/10 (8 March 2019)

Over the weekend I was given the opportunity to see Gone With The Wind in theaters with my parents for its 80th anniversary. It's kind of embarrassing to me that I, a self-professed lover (and at this point addict) of cinema, hadn't yet seen a movie that is universally considered one of, if not THE best American movie ever made. Part of me had always been turned off by its 4 hour runtime, as I am in college and don't often have the time to sit down and watch a movie in a single 4-hour sitting. But another part of me had shied away from Gone due to all the blatant racism in it that I had been warned of. I had wasted my time watching D.W. Griffith's epic The Birth of a Nation and did not want to sit through another slog of a film that is great technically but ruined by its subtext. So when I sat down in the theater I was hesitant but excited. And yes, Gone With The Wind is undoubtedly racist, but it is also so much more, and the fact that it can be both great while having all of its apparent flaws is the very reason why it is undoubtedly a classic.
The first thing that struck me about the movie was just how gorgeous it was. The painted backgrounds, the costumes, the set designs, all of it was just so intricate and colorful. Even now thinking back on it Gone might be one of the top 10 or so best looking movies I have ever seen. I especially love the mind boggling scale of the sets of Atlanta, especially that long sweeping shot that moves back to seemingly show endless miles of soldiers laying wounded on the ground. The juxtaposition of the bloodied soldiers mixed with our main character wearing a beautiful dress is poignant, and it is definitely one of the greatest images in any movie ever made. From a technical standpoint, the only thing I really dislike about this film is two or three scenes with really bad looking rear screen projection, which is honestly more a of a nitpick seeing as just about every movie back in the day used rear screen projection or something of the sort. I guess those few moments just stick out worse when everything else is such an unblemished visual delight.
What really blew me away though, and what makes this movie a true classic that will remain "ageless" is the strength of the writing. This movie was so dark that I could not believe it was made in 1939. How it managed to sneak in things like rape and on-screen child death through the censors of the time shocked me, and I'm sure was even more shocking for the audiences at the time. Besides dark moments, the story as a whole hinges on a very psychologically unhealthy romance between two characters that are just plain bad people, and are never really painted or made out to be anything else. Our main character, Scarlett O'Hara, is surprisingly deep and nuanced. Being a woman in a "man's world" she uses all the tools at her disposal to get what she wants. She seduces men she has no feelings for and uses them and their wealth to get what she wants. She is cruel and uncaring; she doesn't shed a tear for her two husbands that die and uses unwilling prisoners that she allows to be abused as essential slave labor to run her business (though the movie makes sure to point out that they, of course, treated slaves so much better than these men and their slaves just loved being slaves so much). Through all of this though, she remains likeable and I found myself time and time again routing for her. Her vow at the end of the first half of the movie to "never be hungry again" is one of my favorite movie monologues. She starts out as a bratty and selfish little girl, and ends the movie is a strong and unbreakable woman. Her love interest and eventual husband, Rhett Butler, is an equally complex and flawed character who grows throughout the film. He's a womanizer who routinely is found at a brothel, and overall is just sort of an a-hole, although he's quite the charismatic a-hole. At his lowest point, he accidentally pushes pregnant Scarlett down a set of stairs and inadvertently kills their unborn child. After this he becomes a bitter man who, fueled by jealousy and depression, turns into an alcoholic before finally leaving Scarlett. Throughout all this he time and time again shows himself to be a redeemable and somewhat chivalrous character, as hypocritical as that may seem. He goes to fight a battle for the South just because he sees it as his duty and nothing more. He saves the man who Scarlett loves more than him just because it is the right thing to do. Overall the interactions and broken romance between him and Scarlett makes up the crux of the story, and these interactions are about as complex as the characters themselves are. They are both also played wonderfully by actress Vivien Leigh and actor Clark Gable who, while not reinventing acting like Brando, are both amazing in their own rights, especially for the time.
However, like I said this film is undoubtedly racist. The "maid" in the film, who is simply a house slave in the vein of Samuel L. Jackson's character in Django Unchained, is essentially a racial stereotype (like every black character in this film) who speaks in "jive" and is played for comic relief. Still, her character is legitimately funny and her actress Hattie McDaniel truly plays her well and gives her a deep emotional range that makes her a better character than she seems to have any right to be (McDaniel ended up being the first African American to win an Oscar for acting for her role in this film). Other scenes allude to some of the major characters being part of the KKK and going on raids to "clean up" areas of lawless criminals AKA poor black people. The second half of the film is even a tirade against Northerners and Democrats o as Gone sees them as: carpetbaggers. Throughout the film every aspect of the Deep South is romanticized to the extreme. Yet, none of this could detract from the overall film too much to me. Just like McDaniel's character "Mammy" is likeable even though she's inherently flawed in the way she is written, so is this film. I can't ignore this film's ignorance, but I also won't let it damper this masterpiece for me.
Some of my other flaws in this film that don't really have to do with racism are as follows: Prissy is the most obnoxious character I have ever seen. Besides a few comical moments that somehow work, she's beyond annoying and her loud voice constantly sounds like nails on a chalkboard for the few scenes she's in. Sometimes the pacing also isn't great, and a couple of times before the intermission I found myself a little board. That's honestly about it. Sure the acting isn't great from lots of characters, but that's just a product of the way acting was done at the time. Now, what else do I love that I haven't mentioned? I love the score. It's just simply fantastic and bombastic. I love the poster and want my sugar daddies out there to buy it for me. I love the complexity and ambiguity of the ending. Heck I even love this movie's love triangle. I love really everything about this movie. My gut reaction was to give it a 9 out of 10, but in the process of writing this I'm probably going to move it to a 10/10. There's nothing I can say about Gone With The Wind that has not been said millions of times before by people much more qualified than I, but I don't think it hurts for people to keep writing about this movie. Classics like this deserve to be written about and gushed over.