Glorious movie and true classic

Rating: 10/10 (28 September 2009)

Positive: Made in 1939, this adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's novel about selfish Southern belle and American Civil War shows how badly made many modern movies are. Colours are rich and beautiful, unlike in most modern films, making costumes, sets and scenery look gorgeous. It has really epic quality and vibrancy. Vivien Leigh is perfect as heroine Scarlett - lovely to look and full of life, but rotten to the core in the same time. Negative: Morally the movie is more problematic. I am not fan of Kim Newman, but I think he said it well: He gave it 5/5 rating in Empire but said it is a movie of "selfish cow". Quite frankly, treatment of everybody outside Southern upperclass - including Northerners and poor whites - is irritating. Ku Klux Klan, who terrorized blacks and whites, is supposedly a group of chivalric knights. And the movie was actually cleansed version of the story: book is full of whiny, maudlin, glorified trash who murder and terrorize left and right and never takes responsibility of their own actions. Verdict: Glorious movie and true classic, even if it's characters ARE verminous, whiny trash.