Amazing in nearly every way--with an insidiously racist undertone...

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2013)

Gone with the Wind (1939)
What to say after thousands of other reviews?
First, see it. See it big. It has so many different kinds of scenes, such terrific color and photography, and is dripping with so much history come alive it is a thrill and a joy. It's just a really really well made movie.
The acting is superb. You might not think about this since it's such an "old" film and it might automatically be old-fashioned. But it is not, not with the two leads above all. Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh are justifiably revered for what they did here. Leigh in particular works her butt off making scene after scene come alive, with horror and frivolousness and charm and passion.
The story is great by itself (based on the book which was the best selling novel two years in a row). It's not about the Civil War and its aftermath, even though that's prominent (and vividly, memorably). It's about a woman who is so self-absorbed in her infatuation for another man she misses out on true love.
Some of the side characters are amazing.
So yes, a great movie--but one that bothered me all the way through for its handling of African Americans. I may have noticed this years ago but I don't remember being so disturbed by the constant stereotyping. The slaves are naturally uneducated, so I try to overlook that as simple truth. And the black actors who play the three or four main parts are astonishing, all of them. Hattie McDaniel won the Oscar that year for best supporting actress.
The problem comes more from what all the white people say, or don't say, and what they don't do, over and over. There is no sense of shame, or apology, or perspective on their position as land owners and slave owners. Not before and not after the war. All of them, except Gable most of the time (he's a worldly and modern Southerner), mourn the loss of a great civilization, one built on slavery. They are so unabashed about this, and so many people say it, from Scarlett herself to the man she is infatuated with (the admirable Ashleigh) to all kinds of older and younger folks. Even the blacks are shown not in rebellion or joy at their release, but as slaves eager to fight for the South.
The more I think about it the more it's disgusting. Now the answer to my complaint is probably that this is from the point of view of the South and so it's true to their perspective. And I think that might brush over some of the attitudes some of the time. But where are the slaves dying to be free? Where is a single voice of dissent among all the huge cast? Where are the Northerners with dignity and higher morality? (On this last point, when the Northerners appear after the burning of Atlanta, they too are shown only from a bitter Southern point of view--all of them, black and white, are opportunists and arrogant, selfish, "un-civilized" sorts.)
I teach a beginning history of cinema class and so see a lot of movies from the whole century of the art. And it's painfully weird that the two lionized, epic, breakthrough films about the Civil War are both from the Southern point of view. I'm talking "Birth of a Nation" and "Gone with the Wind." And both are insidiously unfair to Blacks, one more subtly than the other but true.
I'll end more cheerfully. Knowing the movie has this quality doesn't prevent you from enjoying it for a million other reasons. I laughed (it's very funny) and I cried (it's very moving). And I was endlessly impressed. Taken in perspective it's still a fabulous fabulous film.