Gone with the Wind

[osprey_archer]

We 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.

Comments

[sovay]

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.

A friend of mine read Gone with the Wind for the first time this spring after loving the movie since childhood and had basically pretty much that reaction to Scarlett and Rhett both. On the screen, they were elemental romantic archetypes. On the page, she started to contemplate literary homicide.

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.

I will always find it weirdly endearing how much Leslie Howard really did not want to play Ashley.

[osprey_archer]

Playing Ashley is an incredibly unrewarding task and I do not blame Leslie Howard one bit for wanting to get out of it. Who wants to play the guy that absolutely no one wants to end up with the leading lady, even though the leading lady spends most of the movie relentlessly pursuing him? He could probably see the "Why would anyone choose Leslie Howard when Clark Gable was a possibility???" coming from space and wanted to duck.

[evelyn_b]

Haha, I already love Leslie Howard based on his foptacular performance in The Scarlet Pimpernel and I also find this endearing.

[sovay]

his foptacular performance

I approve of this description. (I was also introduced to Howard with The Scarlet Pimpernel.)

[ladyherenya]

I've taught several girls called Scarlett, and wondered if they were named after Scarlett O’Hara -- and if so, why?

But I haven't seen the film. I started reading the book back in high school and was not motivated to spend more time with the characters, so I never finished it.

[osprey_archer]

Oh wow, that just seems like a bad idea. Not as bad as my friend who knew someone who named their child Anakin, but still, in neither case do you want the child to live up to their namesake!

[sartorias]

It's definitely worth watching on the big screen. I saw it on the big screen after it was remastered, some time in the early seventies, and it impressed the heck out of me. At that time, certain shots like the immense dolly-shot of the wounded could still be mind boggling, though now it's just the same old.

I read the book twice, the second time purely for worldbuilding. I don't like the last third--it descends into the purplest melodrama--but overall the depiction of a way of life is next thing to fantasy, except of course only for the whites. Still, given the rosy lens, Mitchell does some interesting characterizations that don't make it to the movie. Also you get where Scarlett's survivor mentality came from.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I think the book would be fascinating to read for the world-building - because you're right, it is a sort of fantasy world, albeit one that we're supposed to believe is our own world. It's like Mitchell compressed the entire myth of the Old South into one novel.

[skygiants]

I watched the movie and read the book as a teenager, but haven't done either in so long that my impression of the film is now almost entirely shaped by the fanvid set to Beethoven's 5th Gold Digger.

[asakiyume]

That. Is excellent.

[sovay]

the fanvid set to Beethoven's 5th Gold Digger.

Okay, that was impressive enough as a song. The vid is just extra.

[osprey_archer]

i mean honestly, that's pretty much the movie in condensed form.

[asakiyume]

When, in high school, my friends fell madly in love with Gone With the Wind, I diligently read it and even managed to find things I liked about it, even though the opening scene made me loathe Scarlett.

I liked the movie when I saw it. Scarlett seemed just as detestable but she was clever, and I guess I liked that. Clever except about love.

Now... I guess I just feel happy that I have no obligation to watch the movie again or read the book again. Done. Moved on. Not interested in returning.

[osprey_archer]

What's the opening scene in the book - is she flirting with the Tarleton boys like in the movie, or doing something else? Flirting with the Tarletons doesn't seem too loathsome in the movie, but I imagine that with the right internal monologue it would be.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, it's the flirtation. It just seemed so shallow and *mean*. And yeah: in the movie you're spared her thoughts.