Gone With The Wind. That is one beautifully shot movie.
I've seen it dozens of times. The movie actually made me really curious about the original book, and then while reading the book I was also reading a bio on Margaret Mitchell --- between these two books and the movie, I came across so much good stuff I wanted to hash over!
I'm sure, given the iconic rep this book has, that I'm probably going to upset the mass majority here, but truthfully now ... I wasn't overly blown away by this book. There. I said it, hate mail be damned. I did not fall madly in love with Mitchell's opus here. But hear me out -- that's not to say that I failed to find anything good in this massive book, there were elements I really liked. I just ended up feeling like the book could have used some serious editing {btw, after reading the Mitchell bio, I found out that the book DID go through massive edits but sorry, to me it felt like some parts in there could have still been whittled down without damaging the story}. I'm surprised this is considered such an epic romance -- there were a good deal of unrequited feelings back and forth but not much lovey stuff that stayed with me. Big man Rhett doesn't even show up 'til Chapter 6. Much between Ashley and Scarlett seemed more on Scarlett's end. I'm not sure Ashley really knew wth he wanted. Seemed like he was just playing a game of Marry, Screw, Kill in his head, but just with Scarlett and Melanie. Too much the gentleman to kill anyone, he marries Melanie and at least thinks about EH HEMing Scarlett.
author Margaret Mitchell
I think part of what drove me crazy, other than Scarlett's mind-blowing self-centeredness (gets tedious reading about THAT much pouting and plotting!), was the horrible communication skills of virtually everyone in this book. If there were a few hash-it-out powwows in there, might have made a world of difference for these people. But then I guess where would the plot tension be, huh? Rhett thought Ashley was a pompous wimp, Ashley called Rhett "an arrogant devil" who "looked like a Borgia". Melanie adored Scarlett but Scarlett thought Melanie was too sweet and mild, too weak natured. Scarlett found Rhett's constant way of laughing at any situation aggravating while Rhett thought Scarlett was pretty and strong-willed but essentially had the maturity of a child, again something he always seemed to smirk at. How was anyone suppose to find solid common ground here? But I did find some romanticism in the way Mitchell described the South of Scarlett's parents. Scarlett's mother , Ellen, marries at the age of 15 to Scarlett's father, 28 yr old native of Ireland, Gerald. Gerald was Ellen's #2 choice after she was denied the choice of making a union with her first love... which happened to be her cousin. Scarlett (her first name actually being Katie) is the 1st of six children for the pair, who do, over time, seem to develop a genuine deep affection for each other. I did feel though that Ellen had a distance to her, never seeming to get over the loss of her first love.
He {Gerald O'Hara} found poker the most useful of all Southern customs, poker and a steady head for whiskey; and it was his natural aptitude for cards and amber liquor that brought Gerald two of his three most prized posessions, his valet and his plantation. The other was his wife, and he could only attribute her to the mysterious kindness of God.
AWWW :-D Too bad that kind of appreciation for spouses didn't rub off on Scarlett! That girl went through husbands like handbags. And fertile, that girl! Finding the men that could hit it first time every time and result in pregnancy... DANG. And I haven't read about it anywhere else, but I got the sneaking suspicion that Mitchell hinted at Scarlett suffering from postpartum depression with the first baby. Gotta say though, I cracked up at single girl Scarlett's frustration at dating protocol:
"I wish to Heaven I was married. I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird and saying I feel faint after a waltz when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got one-half the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it."
Man, do I remember that feeling! Thankfully, I married a man who prefers women to act naturally and has never voiced objection to having a wife with something more than feed corn in her head :-P.
The characters that really drove me to keep reading were Melanie Wilkes and Rhett Butler. I liked Melanie's kindness, quiet wisdom, and almost saintly patience with Scarlett's brattiness, though I wondered if she really didn't see the way Scarlett felt about her or she just set herself to push past it and love her anyway. Rhett was entertaining as the self-aware, light-hearted rogue with an easy laugh who seemed to have a tender hearted side that slipped out from time to time. When he opened up, he was wide open, like many men I'd imagine, though they might not show it. He quietly loved Scarlett while letting her believe he felt nothing more than a humorous flirtation or a determination to "have her". Not sure why he let her think so crassly of him when he actually felt more deeply about her but again, plot tension I guess. I couldn't figure how a worldly guy like Rhett could be so enamored with such a close-minded, set in her ways girl but I could appreciate his attempts to enlighten and educate her, such as:
My dear girl, the Yankees aren't fiends. They haven't horns and hoofs, as you seem to think. They are pretty much like Southerners -- except with worse manners, of course, and terrible accents.BTW, one reason Scarlett vocalizes for hating the Yankees was that the Civil War kept her from having real coffee with sugar and cream (as if it was completely the Yankees fault that there was a fight at all... ). In her defense though, I get pretty grumbly myself if I do not have access to real coffee with cream and sugar when I get a hankerin' for it ;-) I will say that there are scenes in the middle where you see glimpses of Scarlett outgrowing her pampered, spoiled ways but they come and go like the tides. She really makes some headway in finding maturity towards the end but then you're left thinking "Lotta good it does you now!" My optimistic side closed the book indulgently thinking such a girl would have found the answer she wanted. If nothing else, she was good at getting what she wanted.
************** SMALL SPOILER IN THE QUOTE BELOW**************
"My pet, the world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business."
~ Rhett Butler
"You grow up and be a brave man like your father, Wade. Try to be just like him, for he was a hero and don't let anyone tell you differently. He married your mother, didn't he?
Well, that's proof enough of heroism." ~~ ;-)
Rhett to Scarlett's son Wade (Wade's father was Scarlett's 1st husband and Melanie Wilkes' brother, Charles Hamilton, who gets killed in the Civil War).
My one other tiny gripe with this story is, as a redhead myself, I gotta ask yet again, WHY OH WHY does every redhead in books and movies gotta be a stripper, drug addict, homewrecker, witch or "lady of the evening", to put it nicely?? I myself have never been ANY of those things but lord, do we reddies get a bad rep! Rhett's favorite lady companion, when he's not with Scarlett, just happens to be the red haired madam around town, Belle Wattling.
This book was worth a read, and it is a commitment to read to the end (and I did), with the 1000 something pages. There's a good deal of historical content here. Mitchell definitely did her research, which doesn't surprise me being that she was a journalist prior to writing the book. Fact checking was surely in her blood. This one just didn't make my personal mental list of epic, not to be missed works. Give it a go though, my fellow history buffs. Scarlett might rub you wrong but Rhett will help you laugh it off and Melanie will be the best girl friend you wish you had in your circle.
SOME FUN TRIVIA ABOUT THE BOOK:
When thinking about the title of the book, Margaret Mitchell threw around a few ideas, one of those being to call it "Tote The Weary Load", a line from the Stephen Foster song, "My Old Kentucky Home". Didn't have quite the ring to it that she was looking for but in one part of the novel, Scarlett, while feeling pretty low, keeps thinking of the line, trying to remember the name of the song she used to sing with Rhett. Finally, Mitchell writes to her editor and says:
"The more I think of it, the more I incline to "Gone With The Wind". Taken completely away from its context, it has movement, it could either refer to times that are gone with the snows of yesteryear, of the things that passed with the wind of the war or to a person who went with the wind rather than standing against it."
As Scarlett said, "After all, tomorrow is another day."
- The last chapter of GWTW was written 1st! The first chapter wasn't finished until the book had found a publisher, proving there's no one right way to write a book!
- Scarlett's mother's, Ellen O'Hara, was originally named Eleanor D'Antignac (bit of a cumbersome name to read). Katie Scarlett, for the longest time, was written with the name "Pansy". Mitchell really thought Pansy identified well with the character (to me, seems like such a cutesy name for such a $%*& lol). Publishers weren't really feeling Pansy either but the name was not changed to Katie Scarlett until 6 months prior to the book's release.
- While writing GWTW, Mitchell was reading an English translation of Frigidity In Woman In Relation To Her Love Life by the German doctor, Wilhelm Stekel. This book may have influenced some of the character traits written into Scarlett.
- Editing GWTW proved to be a painful process for Mitchell -- She ended up cutting out a whole 2 chapters (one chapter equaling 30 pages) from the manuscript. The ideas from those pages -- Rhett loaning money to Hetty Tarelton for horses; Sherman's army invading Atlanta; Mammy leaving Scarlett in Atlanta and going back to Tara alone; Miss Pitty's property being run over by carpetbaggers, as well as the post-war life history details of many minor characters -- these ideas were left in, just condensed considerably
- The character Frank Kennedy nearly died of pneumonia -- not in the book we've read but in the author's mind. Mitchell debated back and forth about having the KKK element in the novel and thought maybe Frank should just go quietly from pneumonia, but in the end decided to leave his fate as is to illustrate the dark post-war realities of the time.
- Mitchell flat out DID NOT want a happy, tidy ending. She always intended the opening to be left open to the reader's interpretation. With pressure from the publisher about the ending possibly being TOO vague, too open, Mitchell did some minor tweaking on the last lines to hint at the suggestion of a resolution / reconciliation.
one of my favorite lines in the movie:
"Miss Scarlett, you done had a baby. You ain't never gonna be no 18 (as in waist inches) again."
Once the movie rights to GWTW were bought, Mitchell kept up a heavy correspondence with the studio, David O. Selznick (producer) and her writer / crew member friends involved with the film to keep up to speed on everything -- what the sets looked like, who was being tested for what roles, everything. Gone With The Wind was one of the most desired acting jobs of the day, everyone and their mother in Hollywood was in on that casting call. Heavyweights like Katherine Hepburn and Joan Crawford were discussed for the role of Scarlett. Even Eleanor Roosevelt suggested her own maid for the role of Mammy! That role, as everyone knows, went to Hattie McDaniel, whose portrayal of Mammy led her to become the first African American to ever receive an Academy Award (she won Best Supporting Actress). I was surprised to read that Mitchell was not a fan of McDaniel for the choice of Mammy.
In Mitchell's own words, "...she lacks dignity, age, nobility, and so on and...
she just hasn't the right face for it.".
I thought she did just fine myself :-)
Casting directors argued over Thomas Mitchell versus William Parnum as Gerald.
Mitchell had some casting ideas of her own. She wanted Miriam Hopkins for Scarlett and Elizabeth Allen for Melanie Wilkes. She suggested Charles Boyer or Jack Holt for Rhett.
Miriam Hopkins
Charles Boyer
In the end, I'm glad they went with the principals they did.
Beautiful Olivia de Havilland
Leslie Howard
Can you believe Leslie Howard was 46 when he played young Ashley Wilkes?! When I was watching the film on TCM the other day, the film closed and Robert Osbourne did his closing notes, mentioning that Leslie Howard never got a chance to see the impact the film had on audiences everywhere. In 1943, Howard was traveling overseas when somehow a rumor got around that Winston Churchill was on the same plane he was on. Churchill, in fact, was not a passenger on that flight, but the plane was shot down by the Luftwaffe, Seventeen people were killed in the crash, one of them being Howard.
Casting was not the only cause for debate and argument during the making of this film. The script itself proved to be one of the biggest hurdles. Screenwriter Sidney Howard and producer David O. Selznick constantly debated over plot points -- what would work, what wouldn't, what needed to be cut altogether. Scarlett's children, including the miscarriage from the novel were edited out of the movie script, Selznick saying, "these infallible pregnancies at single contacts are a bit thick". All except Bonnie Blue -- Selznick believed she was an important element in bringing the faulty relationship of Rhett and Scarlett to the screen. It was also decided to edit out the heavy presence of the KKK from the film, Selznick writing to Howard:
I for one, have no desire to produce any anti-Negro film... I do hope that you will agree with me on this omission of what might come out as an unintentional advertisement for intolerant societies in these fascist-ridden times...After numerous heated arguments, Selznick decided to fire Howard as screenwriter. He brought in a slew of novelists and screenwriters to hammer out the rest of the script, at least until Howard's replacement could be found, one of the temps being none other than Mitchell's old acquaintance, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wondered if this was one of the reasons why I like the film so much, being that Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers, but then I read that much of what he contributed never made it to the FINAL final script (so it wasn't used in the film).
I was thinking that Groucho Marx, William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell would probably be on the script before this business was over. ~~ Margaret Mitchell expressing her amusement in all the ridiculous script switch ups.
 |
| During filming, there was never one official script for the actors to work from, just a collection of revisions and daily changes. When the movie wrapped, everyone was given leatherbound editions of the complete script.
August 1938, Clark Gable was the first actor to be officially contracted to the film. By New Year's of 1939, none of the other principal players had been signed on yet, not until January 13th anyway. Then the cast was pulled together. But there was still no full script for any of the actors to work from. Dialogue changed daily. Interesting thing about the cast was that most of them were not widely known by US moviegoers prior to this film. . Vivian Leigh, English actress, was mostly known for her part in A Yank At Oxford (1938) and for being the lover and later wife of legendary actor Laurence Olivier. Olivia De Havilland was known for playing Maid Marian in the Errol Flynn version of Robin Hood.
Selznick finally decided to reinstate Sidney Howard as primary screenwriter for the film. The final script, the one that you see on the screen was made up of Howard's original ideas! :-P The filming was finally able to be completed. When the movie wrapped, everyone was given leatherbound copies of the full script (had I been there, I would have felt it was a bit of a joke to finally get a full script after the film was in the can!).
Gone With The Wind the movie went on to break all kinds of box office records and to this day remains a favorite film for many. Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh were so overwhelmed with fame and accolades, they took to having retreats with friends in Blowing Rock, NC (not too far from me!) 
Blowing Rock, NC
o
|
Comments
Post a Comment