The V

Poll based on Gone With The Wind, one of my all-time favorite films (which TCM aired tonight, along with a documentary on the making of said film).

I've yet to see the film, but I'm white and  find the novel racist.

I chose crappy movie. I think it's racist, but the crapness permeates the whole film, whereas it's only occasionally racist.

It's so dull. ridiculously overlong and the characters aren't that interesting. The acting is strong and the production values are truly astounding, but it's just a soap. It's a big old soap opera with not much of interest to say. Scarlett falls in love with various people, then breaks up with them. Eventually she and Rhett... well I'll not spoil it, but bleh.

A lot of film geeks talk about the great script, but that's balls. It's not even as good as the screwballl comedies of that period, never mind one of the best ever. There's a few memorable lines, but if you have the most successful film of all time and you don't manage a few catchy lines in four hours then you've no business making movies.

Apart from the look of the thing, what's actually good about it?

Eoin

It is racist. But I'm pretty sure nobody deliberately pitched it as "lets make an epic movie and denigrate black people".  They were just stupid people in stupid times.  Unlike, say, the makers of Transformers 2.  That aside, I voted that I liked it.  It's no Casablanca though.

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LiveJournal

"It is racist. But I'm pretty sure nobody deliberately pitched it as "lets make an epic movie and denigrate black people"."

Wasn't that just because that was a given?

(X) Refuse to vote in poorly design polls

There are some really good scenes, and some good acting, and some great dialogue. And there are some boring scenes, and a whole lotta shit no one cares about, and some terrible dialogue as well. But you don't have an option for, "Eh, it's all right, I guess."

-J

<< It's so dull. ridiculously overlong and the characters aren't that interesting. The acting is strong and the production values are truly astounding, but it's just a soap. It's a big old soap opera with not much of interest to say. Scarlett falls in love with various people, then breaks up with them. Eventually she and Rhett... well I'll not spoil it, but bleh. >>

And eventually Rhett decides that what Scarlett needs is a good old-fashioned spousal raping.

And the scary thing is the way Mitchell has it written Rhett may not be entirely wrong.

I've never been a big fan of the movie myself, but I understand why it's so revered. I got a chance to see a rare print of it once. A print retrieved from the vaults and unfaded by the years. It was a better quality than what had ever at the time been reproduced for TV or video, and boy was it beautiful. The cinematography was incredible in that film, and the overall production quality was ground breaking. The staging, the pacing, the sets and costumes were all masterpieces of the craft.

The color palate used at the end of the film when Tarra is burning is so rich and dramatic in the original prints that it's hard find anything as impressive today. The TV versions I've seen have the saturation of the fire/sunset behind their big kiss turned down about 80% compared with the original film.

The story, however, really never did anything for me. No way to generate sympathy in me for some bitchy southern bell loosing her cushy lifestyle due to the civil war. In my mind, that's why we fought the civil war, to strip people like that of their easy lifestyles based on slavery.

The fact that the director was pretty much commuting back and forth between that and "The Wizard of Oz" makes it all the more amazing. (Okay, it's a lot more complicated than that, given the revolving door of Oz directors, but it still stands that Victor Fleming sure hit the one of filmmaking's grand slams.)

It's not rape if the attacker looks as good as Clark Gable.

Eoin

"And the scary thing is the way Mitchell has it written Rhett may not be entirely wrong."

You can take the "may" out of it.

To clarify, Mitchell absolutely writes the novel as if that's what Scarlett really wanted/needed, it's not subtext.

There was a really good article in the New Yorker earlier this year on Fleming, "The Real Rhett Butler."

I love how the thread title is "Gone With the Wind (2)"

It made me think "Well, at least it's not a remake."

Eoin

Rhett's back. And this time he DOES give a damn.

Gone With The Wind 2? That's just crazy talk.