My love affair with GONE WITH THE WIND
Dame Olivia de Havilland passed away today at the venerable age of 104. Her loss marks the quickening erosion of our deities of old Hollywood; to many of us, however, she will live forever as Melanie Wilkes, the character she so memorably portrayed in the 1939 classic GONE WITH THE WIND.
I was ten years old and living in southern Spain during the final years of Franco’s dictatorship when our local cinema screened GONE WITH THE WIND in its entirety, including intermission and entre’ acte. This by itself wasn’t surprising; it might have been the 1970s, but in Spain at that time, artistic censorship was in full effect, so I grew up watching films in the theater from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, which bred in me a lifelong love for the so-called golden age of movies. And my very first viewing on the big screen of GONE WITH THE WIND left a lasting impression that I’ve never shaken.
I’m much older now. I’ve re-watched the movie many times — it’s a sentimental favorite — and understand the objections to the film’s magnolia portrayal of the African American experience and erasure of the grim realities of slavery. The focus on a bygone era of aristocratic grace and plenty, torn asunder by the industrialized Yankees, has not aged well. The movie is a product of the era in which it was made; while it can’t be touted as an example of racial equality in film, it still can be admired for its epic scope, compelling plot, and, most of all, for its deeply troubled lead characters —none of whom fit the saccharine mold of happily-ever-after. In some ways, the leads are practically subversive.
To start, GONE WITH THE WIND features a female anti-hero in a time when a tyrannical studio system held sway and most actresses weren’t given a say in the roles they were assigned. Scarlett O’Hara, personified with such fiery vigor by the incomparable Vivian Leigh, is the pampered daughter of a slave-owning society who rounds up beaus like cattle, but can’t ever manage to hoodwink her childhood Mammy, played with authoritative sass by Oscar-winning Hattie McDaniel. What’s more, she eschews the deluded mores of her genteel society after the South falls, embarking on a zealous quest to rebuild her ravaged existence with the grit of a crusader. She’s her own worst enemy in her battle to overcome the odds, a scarred survivor who ultimately can’t see past her pride to reconciliation — an unwitting message about the Civil War’s aftermath that still resounds today. Though the movie undoubtedly falters in its racial sensitivity, Scarlett’s unexpected encounter of her plantation’s black foreman, Big Sam, as she flees across besieged Atlanta, with her physically demonstrative elation to see him and other slaves drafted into the Confederate cause, is telling. She’s already shedding the racist privilege of her world for the rapacity that will rise from its ashes, where money alone will define the winners. Indeed, she becomes a ferocious capitalist, conducting business with the invader and hiring chained convicts to churn her lumber mill because freed slaves cost too much. Not a pleasant business approach, but Scarlett O’Hara is neither pleasant nor sympathetic for the most part; she does whatever she feels she must to get ahead and she makes no apologies for it.
Rhett Butler, the male lead, is an opportunist who admits he blockade-runs for profit even as the South, where he was born and lives, crumbles; he might be the quintessentially dashing rogue who enlists when all is lost, but he’s also profoundly self-centered, a man with no cause save his own who falls for the one woman incapable of loving him in return — and he knows it from the start. Yet he goes ahead anyway, with a testosterone bravado that’s breathtaking in its myopia. Of course, it leads to devastation. His classic goodbye line — “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” — is actually not a champion moment, but his terrible epitaph to epic failure. It’s anguishing to watch his marriage to Scarlett careen into ruin, until there’s nothing left but sharp fragments. GONE WITH THE WIND isn’t a love story. It’s a cautionary tale of how we undermine our own happiness.
Other characters are equally complex. Ashley Wilkes, the sad-eyed object of Scarlett’s romantic fantasies, is a weakling byproduct of the world she rejects: entrenched in a lost ideal that never existed, it makes him very depressed, and depressing, for the entire film. When Scarlett finally realizes who he really is, it’s too late for her, but she has one of those oh-shit-I-really-misread-this-dude epiphanies we can all relate to. Melanie, Ashley’s stalwart wife, is perhaps the movie’s sole redeeming character, in that her selfless empathy makes her an anchor of stability for the damaged people around her. However, it also blinds her to her husband’s emotional infidelity. Make of that what you will.
As a writer, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve heard an editor tell me my lead character isn’t “sympathetic enough.” There seems to be an obsession among editors who acquire the kind of fiction I write for “nice people.” GONE WITH THE WIND always comes to my mind in these instances. With the exception of Melanie, none of the lead characters can be described as nice. They’re angry and vindictive, greedy and fueled by vengeance; when Scarlett tumbles down a staircase, losing her unborn child, it’s because she takes a swing at Rhett after he deliberately taunts her just moments upon his return from a lengthy absence abroad. This is not sympathetic. It is not nice. It is, however, how real people often behave.
GONE WITH THE WIND had a tumultuous gestation and production schedule before it burst into lavish success, with the cast and director suffering nervous exhaustion in the grueling race to finish the film. Even before its debut, black community leaders were calling for box-office boycotts, based on the novel’s tone-deaf racism. This might explain the pockets of cliches and cringe-worthy scenes that seeped into the final cut, especially the deceitful hysteria of Prissy, the house slave played with gusto by Butterfly McQueen, who alternately shrieks or croons to herself as Atlanta burns, and bold-faced lies about her experience “birthin’ babies.” All the black characters, including formidable Mammy, fall prey to a pigeonhole racism that reduces them to stereotypes, despite Rhett’s declaration that Mammy is one of the few people whose respect he’d like to earn — a startling statement from a Southern white man in the 1800s. It’s worth noting that David O. Selznick, the rebel producer who acquired the rights to the bestselling novel and spent years wrangling financial support to make the movie, expressed concern over how the black characters would be portrayed. There’s an extant memo in which he states as much. In 1939, WWII was looming; as he watched in horror how fellow Jews were targeted in Europe, he equated it to the “Negro suffering” in the U.S. and hired a black historian to consult on the film. This consultant had every instance of the N-word deleted from the voluminous script. Selznick’s best intentions in this regard don’t pass muster today, but at least he had them.
And despite its myriad flaws, the movie still holds up to the test of the time in the emotional volatility of its lead characters, who refuse to behave as they should and sow chaos in their wake. This is why I return to it, again and again. Because much like Scarlett and Rhett, in life we usually act first and only later learn to regret our mistakes.
