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Gone with the Wind
Sep. 8th, 2018 08:04 pmWe went to see Gone with the Wind at the Artcraft yesterday, which meant that we didn’t get home till 1:30, and then I had to wake up at 7 for work… but fortunately I’m working at the library today, so I don’t need to be quite as perky as I do at Starbucks. It seems wrong that Starbucks should demand so much more energy and pay three dollars less… but there seems to be an inverse ratio between how much you work and how much you get paid for it.
This seems like an appropriate musing in the context of Gone with the Wind, with the rich planters who do nothing but dance and the poor slaves who do nothing but hoe.
Even though I’m drooping like an overwatered flower, I’m glad that I saw Gone with the Wind on the big screen, though - and in an old theater that undoubtedly showed the movie the first time it came out, nearly eighty years ago. There’s a sort of time travel about that, isn’t there?
I have sometimes considered reading the book but I’m just not sure that I could take Scarlett O’Hara in such high concentration. She’s impressive in the movie because she’s such a force of nature, but she’s a completely selfish person, and in the book we’d get not only her words and actions but also insight into her thoughts - and that just can’t be pleasant.
Her friendship with Melanie Wilkes really pains me, because Melanie loves her so much and has such faith in her that the Scarlett O’Hara in her head is essentially a different person than Scarlett O’Hara as she is - and Scarlett is one of her closest friends, the heart sister (and sister-in-law) whom she calls to her deathbed to ask her to look after Mellie’s husband Ashley. And all the while Scarlett is resenting Melanie for being Ashley’s wife and scheming to get Ashley for herself - which is just what Melanie is too kind and honorable to believe!
You would think that Scarlett, who is such a decisive character herself, would get tired of Ashley after these repeated scenes where he nearly succumbs to her blandishments before feebly turning her away - either succumb or turn her away decisively, man! - but I guess love is truly blind.
Actually I found Ashley less aggravating on this rewatch, but there’s no denying that he could have saved himself and everybody else a lot of trouble if he had turned Scarlett down cold in the parlor at Twelve Oaks.
Although given how she reacted to his mealy-mouthed rejection, I suppose it might have been hard to speak more firmly. She slapped him in the face as it was; if he had told her, “I don’t love you, I will never love you,” she might have scratched his eyes out.
This seems like an appropriate musing in the context of Gone with the Wind, with the rich planters who do nothing but dance and the poor slaves who do nothing but hoe.
Even though I’m drooping like an overwatered flower, I’m glad that I saw Gone with the Wind on the big screen, though - and in an old theater that undoubtedly showed the movie the first time it came out, nearly eighty years ago. There’s a sort of time travel about that, isn’t there?
I have sometimes considered reading the book but I’m just not sure that I could take Scarlett O’Hara in such high concentration. She’s impressive in the movie because she’s such a force of nature, but she’s a completely selfish person, and in the book we’d get not only her words and actions but also insight into her thoughts - and that just can’t be pleasant.
Her friendship with Melanie Wilkes really pains me, because Melanie loves her so much and has such faith in her that the Scarlett O’Hara in her head is essentially a different person than Scarlett O’Hara as she is - and Scarlett is one of her closest friends, the heart sister (and sister-in-law) whom she calls to her deathbed to ask her to look after Mellie’s husband Ashley. And all the while Scarlett is resenting Melanie for being Ashley’s wife and scheming to get Ashley for herself - which is just what Melanie is too kind and honorable to believe!
You would think that Scarlett, who is such a decisive character herself, would get tired of Ashley after these repeated scenes where he nearly succumbs to her blandishments before feebly turning her away - either succumb or turn her away decisively, man! - but I guess love is truly blind.
Actually I found Ashley less aggravating on this rewatch, but there’s no denying that he could have saved himself and everybody else a lot of trouble if he had turned Scarlett down cold in the parlor at Twelve Oaks.
Although given how she reacted to his mealy-mouthed rejection, I suppose it might have been hard to speak more firmly. She slapped him in the face as it was; if he had told her, “I don’t love you, I will never love you,” she might have scratched his eyes out.
