For Better or Worse: GWTW Remains Critic-proof For All Time

Rating: 10/10 (22 May 2003)

It is useless to try to sum up or understand the phenomenon that is "Gone With the Wind". The film will stand as the greatest most visceral film in the collective heart for all time. It has more real humanity-with all the foibles and charms-than any other motion picture ever made. If there is a single person out there who doesn't understand Scarlett's wanting something so much and never getting it, but letting her life's fortunes be guided by her own ill-conceived hopes, I want to congratulate you on having a dream life. The chemistry of these actors and the truth in their performances is the key to getting us into this world not too far from our own: where the wrong precepts are being taken into battle and the arrogance of war and false ideals is put beyond the value of human life. One may not like all the characters, or even may feel that the actors are more stereotyped and drawn bigger than the low-key performances that are supposed to be more "real" seen on the screen today(which are usually just underexpressed and not like real life and its melodramatics at all). In that case, please think back to a time where communication between real people was par for the course and one's sense of drama could be expressed in dialogue in real life... Certainly no one handles this better than the great Vivien Leigh. Her Scarlett is true and perfect at every turn. She is the life force of the film: maddening and monstrous, but desperately yearning and, so, understandable. Gable's performance shows subtlety and timeless vulnerability that make this performance seem more accomplished with each year. DeHavilland places Stanislavsky-like center of energy in her heart like a current-day Method actress. And Leslie Howard agonizingly reaches the tortured soul of someone who is physically attracted to a woman with whom he knows he could never make a relationship work. Beyond that the force of humor and pathos that Hattie McDaniel displays are true and beautiful in their execution. Butterfly McQueen slyly adds gestures and dimensions that may not be as visible until one concentrates on her performance. People have tried to understand or attack the magnetism of this film since its release to no avail. As long as human nature wants what it doesn't have or mourns what it feels it has lost, "Gone With the Wind" will be the film that resonates with the disillusionment and hope that we all share and which moves us forward.