’’There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...
’’
When Gone With the Wind was released in 1939, I don’t think anyone could conceive how huge and timeless it would be.
GWTW is based upon a book written by Margret Mitchell, an unheard of author at the time. It made history in every apsect, and is considered the best and most popular movie of all time!
How do you write a review on such a film? I don’t believe I can do such a marvelous film justice, but I’m going to try.
Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Leigh) is the epitome of a Southern Bell. She lives in a fairy tale world, in a time before the Civil War, where family, land, and God took priority over all else, and where it was unacceptable for a woman to ’’show her bosom before three o’clock’’!
Her father is an Irish immigrant, and tries to instill in his daughter his love of Tara, their home, and the land upon which it is build. Scarlett loves her father, but finds him a foolish old man. Later, during the ravages of war, Scarlett remembers his lessons and and finally learns from them.
Scarlett’s beauty is outweighed only by her charm, but she is passionately in love with the only man she can’t have. Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard)is betrothen to another. The film resolves around her pursuit of the love she thinks she wants, and the realization of the even deeper love she already has.
At a party, Scarlett confesses her love to Ashley and begs him to marry her, and not Melanie (Olivia deHavilland). Ashley does love Scarlett, but he also loves Melanie and refuses to break her heart. Rhett (Clark Gable) overhears their conversation and teases Scarlett unmercifully about it. Rhett is quite handsome, with a devilish glint in his eye that Scarlett tells a friend looks like ’’He knows what I look like without my shimmy!’’
Out of spite, Scarlett marries Ashley Hamilton, Melanie’s brother and a boring man whom Scarlett actually cares nothing about. When war breaks out and he is killed, Scarlett is made a reluctant widow, and is angry she must wear black while she is mourning.
Bored with her life in Tara as a widow, Scarlett visits her Aunt Pittypat and Melanie in Atlanta. She despises Melanie, for she has what she herself can never have. In addition to a change of pace, this also allows her to be nearer to Ashley, which is her real motive for going.
At a war bazaar, while still decked out in her mourning black, Scarlett can’t contain herself from dancing behind a booth. Rhett Butler boldly bids $150 in gold to dance with her, and to the shock and apallation of the rest of the people, she accepts. The attraction between them is evident as they banter back and forth, Scarlett making her dislike for him known as she teases him.
When the war hits Atlanta, Rhett is the one to come to Scarlett’s rescue. Melanie and Ashley have married, and Melanie is in labor. Scarlett wants to go home, home to her mother and father, and to Tara. Amidst the fires and cannon shots, Rhett guides them safely out of Atlanta. One they are safe, Rhett leaves them, off to join the war he so adamantly opposes. Scarlett screams her hatred for him for leaving them defenseless.
When finally reaching Tara, Scarlett is starving and distraught to find out her mother has died and her father has gone insane. The yankees have stolen everything they didn’t burn, and there is no food to eat.
Starving and exhausted, she wanders through Tara’s ravaged, barren plantation fields at sunrise. After digging up and trying to eat a radish root, she vomits, falls to the ground and weeps. In one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie, Scarlett stands, and shaking her fist, says powerfully:
’’ As God is my witness, as God is my witness, they’re not going to lick me! I’m going to live through this, and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again - no, nor any of my folks! If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill! As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!’’
True to her word, Scarlett does rise Tara back from the ashes. She marries again, this time to Frank Kennedy, her sister’s beau. Frank is killed defending Scarlett’s honor.
Desperate for money, Scarlett finally agrees to marry Rhett. They both put on a pretense that it is a marriage of convienence, as neither will admit their love for the other. They fight constantly, both too stubborn to show their need for each other. Rhett tries to show Scarlett he loves her, but Scarlett refuses to accept his love. Tragedy strikes when Bonnie Blue, their daughter, is killed. It almost destroys Rhett, and he buries his sorrow in alcohol. Melanie is also dying as a result of complications from giving birth, and in her dying words asks that Scarlett be kind to Rhett, for ’’he loves you so’’.
Scarlett finally sees that Melanie is her best friend. As she comforts Ashley, she realizes that her feelings for him are dead, if they ever truly existed. She finally tells Rhett how much she loves him, but he has been hurt too badly by her lies and manipulation, and has closed his heart to her. He treats her as cruelly as she has treated her, and this time, it is she confessing her love for him and begging him to say it back.
In perhaps what is the best known line of the movie, Rhett is walking out the door, leaving Scarlett crying, begging him to remain. ’’Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?’’
He cooly respond, ’’Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!’’
Alone, Scarlett says ’’...Tara!...Home. I’ll go home, and I’ll think of some way to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!’’
A close up of her tear-stained face slowly dissolves into an earlier shot, a long view of Scarlett standing alone under the gnarled tree with Tara in the background - a heroic silhouette not admitting defeat.
GWTW is more than a love story. It is a history story, a story about life, and loss, and lessons learned. There shall never be another movie as great as this.