The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Gone With the Wind (1939/USA/dir. Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood) appeared at #74 on my original list.
What it is • Gone with the Wind doesn't need much introduction (but I'll provide one anyway). Seventy-seven years after its release, with virtually the entire cast, crew, and even most of the original audience long "gone with the wind" themselves (except for the game Olivia De Havilland, who will turn 100 this year), the film remains an infamous example of classic Hollywood romanticism. Ironically, despite its status as the archetypal product of the Golden Age, this isn't exactly a product of the studio system assembly line, owing its existence to David O. Selznick, an independent producer with a vision. Based on Margaret Mitchell's bestseller, the film mixes an epic historical scope with intimate melodrama, albeit not entirely evenly (the former dominates the first half, the latter the second). Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) begins the story as a bratty teenage belle, living in splendor and luxury that she takes entirely for granted. When the tale closes four hours later, she is a thrice-married woman of the world who has experienced war, hunger, and poverty, who has worked a field and run a business, while watching many of her friends and family die off. She is not particularly admirable, wooing two lovers whom she doesn't love away from other women (including her own sister), trying to steal her loyal friend's husband, ruthlessly exploiting and manipulating strangers and friends alike to earn a living, and generally refusing to feel shame for her improprieties. She's also the best thing about the movie, rivaled only by the roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) for similar reasons: both of them cut through the intoxicating but disingenuous air of Hollywood pomposity and Old South sentimentality. The film has many big setpieces but I think the cornerstone of its greatness is lain by this dynamic human element.
Why I like it •
