Review of Gone With The Wind

I have seen this film countless times. Across the US there is a revival of the film. It is being screened in theaters on the commemoration of it's 75th anniversay. I went to see it for the second time in a theater in Syracuse, NY. which is about an hour north of where I live. The theater it was screened in was grande old building that had seen better days. It was a special events theater, yet I didn't see any adds for art house movies which, on reflection, was too bad. I'm not sure if Syracuse has an art house theater. I know they have student films and such, but I haven't found an art house theater in syracuse
Anyway the film was shown in 35 mm which was not bad. There were a few really bad spots, but the film kept going. I could see the grainyness of the film stock and the colors had a filmic quality which brought me back to the pre-digital era.

The film was great. I really enjoyed the first part. It sweeps up the grandeur of the South and the onset of the Civil War. The pageantry, chivalrusnous, and loyalty of the Southern gentlemen is very well portrayed. I was caught up in the dichotomy between the characters of Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler. I thought they were two opposites that really brought the story and conflict into life. It is through them that we see that futility and nobility of the South, in Ashley, and the acceptance into that society which Rhett craves so badly, but never is accepted by the class which Ashley and Scarlett call there own.

I found myself asking myself, who would you rather be? Rhett or Ashley? And I kept saying that I would rather be Rhett. He is smarter, richer, and more willing to take a chance than Ashley. Ashley is too stiff, too moral, too chivalrous. Perhaps it because I'm a yankee that I like Rhett better. Maybe I just don't understand Ashley and the tradition of the South well enough. I couldn't understand why Scarlett is so obsessed with Ashley? What does he have that she should so desperately want? Class? Acceptance? Chivalric values? Furthermore, although it wasn't mentioned in the film I think Scarlett wanted to be with Ashley because she craved desperately to be part of the white protestant elite which Ashley was a member of. This was to get over her own upbringing as an Irish Catholic, something that she found objectionable.

The political theme of the film also becomes obvious on multiple viewings of the film. The War was horrible, why did we fight it in the first place? Reconstruction was a mistake, why did we do it? The South wasn't so bad before the war. The romanticizing of the South is well played. And led to the acceptance of Jim Crow which allowed Roosevelt to get the New Deal through. The film veers into propoganda with these statements about the Old South and Reconstruction for the Democratic party of the 30's which held sway over National politics of the time.

The second part of the film doesn't deal with politics so much as the relationship between Rhett and Scarlett and the future of the South. When there daughter dies in the horse riding accident it is not just the last straw in their marriage, it is also the next generation of Southerners who is dead too. Their marraige is gone, their daughter is dead, and the future of the South is in peril. Yet, Scarlet will see another day.

This is a great film. It really captures the ideas of the times about the Civil War, Reconstructon, and Segregation.