Gone With The Wind. George Cukor, Victor Fleming, Sam Wood. 1939.
So we’re now in December 1939, and I have only three movies to go in this blog series. This one is … big. Long? Long.
Ooops. I had forgotten that this movie is so long that is has an overture.
So it starts seven minutes in.
So southern!
I haven’t seen this movie since the… mid 80s? So what I’m wondering is, of course: How racist is this gonna be?
Well, it’s got Black actors, at least. That’s gotta count for something.
Oh, wow. This movie is made… er… by the same directing team as The Wizard of Oz?
Hm… Victor Fleming is the credited director on both, so I’m not sure what’s up with that. Anyway, that’s a pretty astounding feat: Directing these two huge movies the same year.
Mm-hm!
OK, I’ve never understood Clark Gable’s supposed charms. He’s just kinda a sleazeball?
The director(s) do a lot of this shot with varying participants. It’s a good shot, though.
I like this movie! It’s really taking its time, but the pacing feels so natural; not dragged out like in modern “epic” movies. It’s got a good flow.
But it really leans in to the tragedy of Southern soldiers being killed, and the tragedy of those waiting at home… very effectively at that. But then you think about the monstrous thing they died fighting for and it’s… it’s…
I guess you could make a moving movie about the brave German soldiers (and their long-suffering wives) that died defending Buchenwald from shadowy, never-seen on screen American soldiers?
NOW SOMEBODY”S GONNA MAKE THAT MOVIE SORRY
Oh my god. The portrayal of Prissy…
I guess this movie asks the question: Will Scarlett ever stop being such an asshole? (I’m guessing that it’s gonna go “no” at the end.)
This really is quite racist. I mean, beyond the call for a movie from 1939.
Scarlett in Scarlet.
The plot really doesn’t make that much sense. I mean, beyond “women be stupid and evil”. Why didn’t she just let that guy marry her sister and then bilk him out of $300 instead of marrying him herself?
OK, she had higher ambitions than just $300…
I think the misogyny of this movie has been undercommunicated. I mean, the bit about Scarlett causing her husband’s death because she was breaking Sharia law I mean, driving her carriage without a man…
Unfortunately, condoms weren’t invented in 186… 7?
Oops!
The hooker with a heart of gold.
Hattie McDaniel got an Oscar for this role, and it’s well deserved. The oldifying makeup and dye they’re using on her is kinda eeeh, though.
I’m gonna build those stairs in this apartment.
Ah, yes, that post-rape glow.
Yeah yeah.
I liked the first fourteen hours, but the last hour was kinda a drag.
This blog post is part of the 1939
series.