I Don't Feel Sorry For You, Confederacy

Rating: 6/10 (9 August 2007)

Imagine if Schindler's List was made from the Nazis' point of view, with our sympathy being invested in them. That is my way of describing Gone With the Wind. It's a bona fide epic of absolutely magnificent film-making that, since it can hold its own shockingly well right now in 2007, must've been the holiest of holies in 1939, but it's made from the point of view of the Confederates during the Civil War. Hello. They wanted to perpetuate slavery. This film is an adaptation of a novel that works as propaganda for the wrong people. That's not excusable the way The Godfather is excusable in its glamorization of an organized crime family or Cool Hand Luke's glamorization of prisoners. This film actually makes these slaves look healthy, well-fed and treated with dignity, downplays the wrongful deaths of loyal horses, and treats the South's blind pride and nomadic, Leonine attitude towards anything nonchalantly, like we aren't supposed to analyze it.
Somehow, I find myself hopping on the band wagon anyway and finding this film to be great. Margaret Mitchell, though she is the brain behind the film's aforementioned justification of the Confederacy, writes a story with unabashed love and emotion. Eventually, we learn to love these characters as individuals, the drama is constant and affecting, and thus the film overall is a very intense experience. The film's cast is led by the tremendous performance of Vivien Leigh, whose realization of hot-headed, selfish, greedy, impetuous and aggressive Scarlett O'Hara is clearcut and realistic. Hattie McDaniel, who plays the oldest slave who is somehow able to bark orders and take charge in some situations, has riveting moments of her own, especially one near the end that has an almost contemporary feeling in its elusive steadicam shot that loses itself in her gushing monologue. Olivia De Havilland inspires the most emotion from the audience, becoming the sweetest and most compassionate character you could imagine in that particular time and place, almost like an otherworldy personality in that setting.
The cinematography, the most staggeringly beautiful thing about the film, is full of beautiful framing, rich colors, and a look as if it were made just this year. There is a scene where Leigh and De Havilland are speaking in a dimly veiled room, and we only see their silhouettes. This is breathtaking film-making for 1939. The music is wonderful and lush, the epitome of a large-canvas orchestral score.
However, I could never see this film ever again. The length is not what bothers me, because there are many favorite films of mine that I would not mind any more if they were four hours long, but if the first two hours were as hard to swallow as those of this film, I definitely would. This movie's first half panhandles for our sympathy during scenes of wounded Confederates and weeping townsfolk. It displays a society that was naive, barbaric, and lazy yet arrogant, proud, and melodramatic, two trios of adjectives that are preposterous when hand in hand. However, once the intermission is over, the second half begins, and that is when the film is truly interesting to me. It becomes a saga that could've been set in many different contexts, because the last two hours are all about the individuals themselves and the motives each of them have that tie themselves in knots. The drama then is truly felt by me.
Let me finally note that the only older film available in any of the six video stores in Gatlinburg, Tennessee is Gone With the Wind.