“Take a good look my dear. It's an historic moment you can tell your grandchildren about - how you watched the Old South fall one night.”
On multiple levels, Gone with the Wind represents a triumph of American excess. Begin with the Old South, a culture so decadent that its weekend barbecue rituals required a midday nap. Throw in a crushing defeat in the Civil War that burns the society to the ground. Create protagonist Scarlett O’Hara, a vortex of vanity from which no one can escape. Add romantic hero Rhett Butler, the captain of cool; and the Wilkeses, the pinnacle of gentility. Combine those elements into Margaret Mitchell’s thousand-page, Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel. Hand the story over to producer David O’Selznick, who spared no expense in tracking down the perfect cast, multiple screen-writers and directors, hundreds of crew members, and thousands of extras. Shoot over a half a million feet of film with every Technicolor camera in Hollywood, and then trim it to a four-hour epic. Watch it become the biggest box-office success of all-time, and then set records at the Academy Awards in a legendary field of competitors. Everything about this film is larger than life, especially the melodrama. Although the film’s racial politics are regressive and the sexual politics are progressive, there is no grand message behind it all. The life of the main character is compelling, even though she never becomes sympathetic. To borrow a phrase Sunset Blvd., it is “just a story,” but it would be foolish to dismiss it for that reason. The result still equals the sum of its parts.
No comments:
Post a Comment