“Gone with the Wind” is set against the backdrop of the Civil War and translates this motif into nearly every interpersonal relationship in the film. Rivalries amongst siblings, lovers and friends are really what drive this film, especially given the lack of any true “antagonist” other than just the blanket concept of the imposing North. This aspect more than any other (besides possibly the amazing cinematography) is what gives people a real connection to “Gone with the Wind” and makes us care about the characters, whether we love them or hate them.
All of the classic symptoms of an opulent-to-the-point-of-pretentious film are present: the introductory overture presented behind a static background, a swollen orchestral arrangement and plenty of self-congratulation in the opening credits. However, in the case of this movie, all of this extravagance is oddly appropriate as it pretty much serves as a representation of the wealthy white slave owners the film revolves around. A scrolling text proclaims that essentially chivalry and civility ended when Lincoln freed the slaves, which lets us know that the events will clearly be presented from the eyes of the South.
In the very first scene of actual dialogue, two overly zealous twins attempt to court a plantation owner’s daughter, Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) by fawning over her and inviting her to a barbecue/social event where it is rumored that another socialite, Ashley Wilkes will be announcing his engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton (Olivia De Havilland). This opening sequence reveals a lot of information in a short amount of time. Given Scarlett’s despondent reaction to this news it is clear that she harbors feelings for Ashley. The creepy concept of two brothers trying to get on the same woman makes it clear that Scarlett is a very sought-after bachelorette. The concept that people really do marry their cousins in Georgia is reinforced. The introduction of the “workers” at the O’Hara residence are our first indication that they are slave owners (though this isn’t really a shocking revelation) and the first mention that the plantation is referred to as Tara reminds us all that rednecks were assigning names to inanimate objects long before cars.
Though she is depicted as spoiled and kind of bitchy, the first interactions between Scarlett and her father make it hard to place all the blame on her for the way she would eventually turn out later in the film. While discussing male suitors, Scarlett’s father belabors the point that accumulation of land and owning property are basically the only real measures of success and happiness. Her father also refers to another local girl he views as inferior as “the white-trash Slattery girl” while her sisters complain about how their dresses aren’t extravagant enough, so it is clear that the genetic deck is clearly stacked against Scarlett.
While preparing for the barbecue at the Wilkes plantation, we see the first significant back-and-forth between Scarlett and the O’Hara “housemaid” (aka slave) Mammy (Hattie McDaniel). While not quite as offensive as the blackface characters uses in “The Birth of a Nation,” the minstrel-show-esque portrayal of Mammy still not only plays off the stereotype of the overbearing, sassy “house-nigger” who is treated by her owner as if she is one of their own chill’ens, but also completely downplays the fact that she is still A FUCKING SLAVE! To the film’s credit as well as McDaniel’s, it is commendable that they chose an actual black person to play a black role- and she does play the role incredibly well, but come on.
At the Wilkes’ party, several important events occur, but none more significant than the first meeting between Scarlett and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). Despite the undercurrent of sexual tension that seems to exist between them almost immediately, it is also very evident that the two are completely incompatible. Though all of the characters’ thoughts and intentions are implied and open for debate, all the classic symptoms of a creeper are evident in Rhett right away. Kicked out of the military- check. Slicked-back guido hair- check. Pencil-thin douchebag mustache- check. Stalker-like staredown with Scarlett- check. Stories of him “damaging” other girls and bailing- check. Seriously, all that is missing with this guy is the #7 Steelers Jersey and a bottle of roofies.
The other important occurrence at the party is Scarlett’s admission of her love for Ashley. Though he rejects her, he does so in such a meek and spineless way that it is no wonder she continues to hold onto hope of a future with him well after he is married. In fact being wishy-washy will wind up being Ashley’s most well-defined trait as the film progresses. Rhett sneakily overhears their conversation by hiding behind a loveseat and uses Scarlett’s humiliation as a means of embarrassing her in some sophomoric attempt at flirting, despite the fact that she has clearly just had her heart broken. Had Rhett not been present for the dialogue between Ashley and Scarlett, I think it would drastically alter the way I perceive his character. Knowing the depth of her feelings for Ashley, Rhett cannot pretend that he is unaware of why she is emotionally unavailable later in life.
The festivities are broken up with the announcement that the Civil War has broken out. All the men scamper to run off and enlist, prompting a hasty marriage proposal from Charles Hamilton, Melanie’s brother. Scarlett accepts for what could be interpreted as a number of reasons, none of them good. In my view, the timing of the proposal is unfortunate due to the fact that Charles has no knowledge of the level of emotional distress she is in. In turn, her frantic state of mind could be the deciding factor in why she agrees to the marriage. However, she does agree to the wedding only after she watches Ashley kiss Melanie before riding off to join the Confederacy- which suggests either spite or a hasty realization that Ashley has made up his mind and that she should move on.
The ensuing revelation, in letter form, that Charles has died of pneumonia is done cleverly from an artistic standpoint but is really just a lazy way of lapsing time. “Taps” plays in the background as the camera focuses on a handwritten letter to Scarlett, with a lighting effect highlighting the important paragraph for the audience to read. And literally just like that, Scarlett is a widow. However unintentional, this edit job also benefits Scarlett’s character in that her detached, coldhearted (make no mistake, it callous) reaction to being a widow at such a young age. When she has only been married for a screen time of 30 seconds to a guy she doesn’t even know, it somehow seems less objectionable that she isn’t properly mourning.
One of Scarlett’s first public appearances after Charles’ death is at a Confederate fundraiser in Atlanta, where she is now staying with Melanie under the guise of looking after her, but the implication is that she wants to be there when Ashley returns from the war. She has another awkward and sexually tense encounter with Rhett, who has since become a mercenary blockade runner/war profiteer. His prior knowledge of Scarlett’s true emotional state gives him the ability to see right through her lack of genuine grief, thus the reason he feels no shame in bidding $150 (in Civil War Era money) to dance with her in an auction as part of the fundraiser. The fact that Rhett is in black formal wear and Scarlett is in dark widow attire makes the two of them stick out like a sore thumb among all the other colorfully dressed, festive revelers. This is also a very clear play on the old west “good guys wear white, bad guys wear black” concept, because let’s face it, they are both terrible people.
A few moments of sentimentality on Rhett’s part are snuck in around this point: his “is-he-serious-or-is-he-not” admission to Scarlett that he wants her to love him instead of Ashley, his refusal to let Melanie donate her wedding ring to the South’s collection plate, randomly gifting Scarlett a green silk hat from Paris. However, his sincerity can never really be taken at face value because then he turns around and says things like “I’m not a marrying man” or implies that Scarlett owes him sexual favors in return for gifts. Whether it is to appear roguish or simply to save face, Rhett is forever the king of mixed signals as he continues his pursuit of Scarlett.
The war drags on and the South’s plight is outlined in several key scenes. One in particular that stands out involves the southerners learning the fates of their loved ones after the battle of Gettysburg. When Ashley’s name does not appear as a casualty Scarlett and Melanie share what seems to be a legitimate moment of mutual closeness as they celebrate their relief. Rhett on the other hand is disgusted at the loss of life and the hopelessness of the war effort- which harkens back to his very earliest scenes in the film where he tries to convinces the overzealous warmongering young slaveholders that they would never be able to win a war against the North.
Despite the relatively intense and subject matter, “Gone with the Wind” is still pretty lighthearted up until this point- however, as Sherman begins his famous March to the Sea, the events in the film take a hard left turn into a very dark place. Scarlett is working at a nurse in a church-turned-hospital when an artillery shell blasts the stained glass windows as a priest administers Last Rites. This scene is shot so deliberately that there is no question as to the statements being made; that there are no limits to the Union’s ruthlessness and that the doctors and priests have become so desensitized to the violence that the priest doesn’t even flinch when the window explodes and the main surgeon has no hesitations about amputating a soldier’s like while he is wide awake and declares beds free as soldiers die in them. The tall, almost monstrous shadows of the doctors cutting limbs off screaming patients is reminiscent of a European horror movie in that the violence in more implied which gives it an eerie effectiveness. One of the other things I noticed in this scene especially is Director Victor Fleming’s remarkable attention to detail. As Scarlett flees in disgust, she passes through an arched doorway which bears the text “Peace be within thy walls.” Ironic of course given the carnage inside.
Despite running away in terror, this is actually an embryonic stage of a transformation in Scarlett where she becomes, if not more independent, at least stronger willed. While rushing back to Melanie’s side, Rhett sweeps her up in a carriage and they have yet another of their typical conversations. Rhett professes love for her- still condescendingly and still always rubbing her unrequited feelings for Ashley in her face and telling her she “wasn’t meant for sick men.” Their conversation ends with Scarlett, for the umpteenth time, telling Rhett that she hates him and him laughing it off for the equally umpteenth time.
Scarlett’s transition continues in what I can only describe as one of the greatest scenes ever shot in any movie I’ve seen. Melanie, pregnant with Ashley’s baby, goes into labor and needs a doctor. Scarlett asks one of Melanie’s slaves, Prissy, to help with the birthing but she refuses and also refuses to go find the town doctor (again, an offensively inaccurate portrayal of the slave/white folk relationship). Scarlett braves the streets of the war-torn city and comes across a stunningly grisly scene: the streets of Atlanta lined with dead and half-dead Rebel soldiers.
At first, she steps in between a couple lying horizontally next to each other- however, as the camera pans back we see that there are hundreds if not more of them, all lining the streets for as far as the eye can see. The camera just keeps pulling back and the body count keeps increasing; for a second time, “Taps” is played, this time a more orchestral version. When the point of view has swept back far and high enough, it stops atop a pole bearing a destroyed Confederate flag, of course symbolizing the state of disrepair the entire South is in. The reactionary shot of Vivien Leigh’s face immediately before all the bodies are revealed harkens back to the masterful expressive acting of the silent movie era.
Scarlett is immediately dismissed by the doctor, who has thousands of more severe cases on his hands. Diligently, and probably more for Ashley’s sake than Melanie’s or the baby’s, she rolls up her sleeves and trudges back to deliver the baby herself. Afterwards, she dispatches Prissy to the local whorehouse where Rhett can assuredly be found, in hopes that he will transport them all out of Atlanta and safely back to Tara. The fact that he does is one of Rhett’s more stand-up moments and his first act of any real substance in proving he really might have feelings for Scarlett- and her taking advantage of his feelings for self-serving purposes shows us that, while Scarlett has matured and toughened, she is still a manipulative diva.
“I believe in Rhett Butler. He’s the only cause I know” (Rhett Butler, “Gone with the Wind”)
While fleeing the burning city, Scarlett and Rhett pass by a group of retreating soldiers. Both have distinctly but equally mature changes of heart. Rhett feels shamed that he chose to profit off the war on the backs of dying, naïve men and Scarlett realizes that the war was not as glamorous as it was depicted at its onset and laments at how the soldiers how basically been conned into joining such a hopeless cause. Scarlett is forced to pilot the wagon herself after Rhett leaves, promising to join the Confederacy. Her character transformation during this montage is depicted very realistically. She is courageous and selfless, at one point even standing in a river under a bridge to guard the wagon during a massive rainstorm in order to ensure the soldiers passing above don’t capture them. Yet at other times is still very much her old self- particularly after passing through Ashley’s family’s destroyed plantation, she only pauses briefly to grieve before concerning herself more with whether or not her own home is still standing.
Though she manages to get everyone safely to Tara, the situation there is no better. Her mother is dead of typhoid, her sisters are both bed-ridden, her father is in the latter stages of a massive nervous breakdown and Tara has been picked clean by Union soldiers. Desperate for any kind of sustenance, Scarlett even attempts to eat an inedible radish she pulls from the ground. Despite the fact that she has, for all intents and purposes, hit rock bottom, she angrily and defiantly vows to survive no matter what it takes. In the now ridiculously famous “With God as my witness…” scene, the recurring effect of silhouetting against a bright orange background is used to its greatest effectiveness here. Despite this directorial tool having been applied twice before (a scene with her father early in the film and again after Scarlett delivers Melanie’s baby) it is not at all stale or played out at this point, but rather dramatic and inspiring.
Are you fucking kidding me? This is only the first half??
Scarlett sets to work restoring Tara back to its old glory. Her and her sisters work as field hands along with the two slaves that remain while Melanie is convalescing and Scarlett’s father is batshit crazy. The level of desperation everyone has sunk to is revealed in a particularly disturbing scene where a Union deserter arrives to burgle the house and (implied) rape Scarlett. She shoots him point-blank in the face with a pistol but the most telling aspect of this scene is the fact that Melanie is waiting just a few feet away with a sword. Implying that they both realize they may be forced to kill somebody and are more than willing to do it. Their level of desperation is amplified even more when Melanie suggests that they rob the dead Northerner before they dispose of his body.
Ashley finally returns home from the war and, in addition to still being wishy-washy, he is now bogged down with self pity. He and Scarlett have another encounter similar to the one they had before the war where she revealed her feelings for him. This time he reciprocates by kissing her and telling her that he loves her, but still affirming that he can’t leave Melanie. In this scene Scarlett is the villain when you consider how much her and Melanie have been through together yet she is still willing to steal Ashley away from her, but Scarlett does grow up in the sense that she finally understands that they will never be together. Rather than spitefully throwing Ashley and Melanie out, she reiterates that they can stay with her family at Tara.
As is the case with every Civil War era movie told from the Southern point of view, the Reconstruction period is pretty much rock bottom for the primary characters. Old Man O’Hara is killed in a freak horse tossing accident, Scarlett is so impoverished she is forced to make garments out of her mother’s drapes and she is faced with the realization that she will have to resort to almost full-blown whoredom in order to keep the plantation in the family. First, she attempts to negotiate money from Rhett, whose heroic transformation as a noble soldier has fallen flat and he is jailed for returning to war profiteering. Since he has no access to his assets he is essentially useless to Scarlett. Her Plan-B involves marring a successful wood/hardware merchant Frank Kennedy.
Scarlett’s second marriage plays out surprisingly similarly to her first; just like that she is married and almost just as soon she is widowed again. I mentioned before how “Gone with the Wind” avoids being as offensive as “The Birth of a Nation” but there is one sequence in particular that is as bad if not worse. Freed slaves are depicted as white-women hungry rape folk and attempt to gangbang Scarlett as she passes through a shantytown. When she arrives back home and tells the men what happened, they heroically ride off to avenge Scarlett’s honor (yeah, it’s totally a KKK type thing). The tension, as well as the passage of time are illustrated nicely in a montage focusing on the wives sewing with images of a clock transposed over their hands and faces.
Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on Scarlett’s conveniently timed single-ness, Rhett proposes to her after Frank’s funeral, finally getting the answer he wants. Needless to say Rhett is incredulous when he realizes that the woman who has carried a torch for the same man for her entire adult life can’t magically turn her feelings off for him just because Rhett throws some money at her. Their marriage only deteriorates further after the birth of their daughter Bonnie, culminating with Rhett announcing that he still plans to sleep with hookers when Scarlett begins holing up in her own bedroom. The true sign that their marriage is dead comes when Rhett symbolically throws a glass at a life-size painting of Scarlett.
Rhett’s insecurity reaches a crescendo when he hears about Scarlett hugging Ashley at the lumber mill where she gave him a job during her marriage to Frank Kennedy. The conversation was the first between the two where Scarlett does not throw herself at him; quite the contrary in fact, as Ashley seems to imply regret that he married Melanie rather than her but Scarlett assures him that he has to let the past go. For once, Scarlett does right by Melanie and her marriage, but Rhett is so consumed with rage that he insists the hug meant more than it did and begins to openly call her a whore.
In what could be the most misogynistic scene ever in the history of cinema, Rhett, drowning in a sea of brandy and self pity, reminds Scarlett of his physical dominance over her, threatening to crush her head like a vice then subsequently raping her. Despite the fact that Scarlett is shown the next morning having perversely enjoyed the events of the night before, make no mistake, the way she struggles as Rhett drags her to the bedroom, the ominous music and the fact that the scenery changes from a lush red carpet to a dark shadow, there is no other way to describe what transpired besides conjugal rape.
The icing on the scumbag cake comes when Scarlett reveals that the rape has yielded a child. Rhett mocks her, insinuating that someone else is the father (despite the fact that Scarlett has never physically cheated on Rhett but he is open about his whoring with his longtime favorite hooker Belle Watling). Rhett snidely wishes a miscarriage on her and when Scarlett swings at him in response, he doesn’t take the hit, he doesn’t block it, instead he sidesteps her knowing it will fling her down a long flight of stairs- thus causing the do-it-yourself abortion Rhett prophesized.
When it rains, it pours. Almost immediately after the miscarriage, Bonnie is killed in a horse riding accident almost identical to the one that killed Scarlett’s father. And, in many ways the most crushing blow Scarlett is forced to suffer, Melanie dies from unspecified complications while pregnant for a second time, much the same way Scarlett was. In a clichéd but still effective deathbed scene, Melanie seems to imply that she knows Scarlett loves Ashley but loved Melanie more by taking care of her for so long. Scarlett finally realizes that in a very platonic way, Melanie, not Rhett or even Ashley, was the person she loved most in the world. As viewers, we are struck with the realization that Melanie is the only truly “good” person in the entire film, which makes her death a very bitter pill to swallow.
For reasons that are left up for interpretation, Scarlett seems to have some awakening that she really has loved Rhett all along. Maybe it’s because she suddenly feels so alone after Melanie’s death, maybe it’s because she sees how hard Ashley takes the loss, maybe it’s because she really does have some kind of emotional awakening- but whatever the reason, Scarlett finally professes her love for Rhett but it is too little too late. He leaves her despite her pleas and walks symbolically into a dense fog; causing him to visually vanish from her life just as he figuratively is.
While the ending is tailor-made to be Rhett’s shining moment, finally gathering the strength to walk away from Scarlett- it actually becomes Scarlett’s. With everyone cut out of her life, she has the choice to either fall to pieces or press on. She decides to return to Tara, literally picks herself off the ground and is shown in the last shot of the film in that almost overused silhouette effect. This time though, she is not the spoiled girl, the loyal friend or the desperate, vulnerable girl. She is as much of a self-made woman as the time period allowed for, her outline is tall and upright and looming over the entire horizon of Tara in a symbolic display of dominance. The final of the four orange background/Scarlett’s silhouette shots almost ties the other together like some sort of “Evolution of Man” chart; we see her go from a girl with no life experience the first time, a girl forced to be independent for the first time after delivering Melanie’s baby, to a resourceful woman vowing to “never be hungry again” to finally a woman who has been put through the ringer but still has the ability to stand tall. Yeah, it is very forced symbolism, but well done nonetheless.
There are many flaws with “Gone with the Wind.” Maybe not flaws so much as nitpicks; I don’t like the way slave life is depicted, I think they skip ahead through several details but focus on other for excruciatingly long bouts, there is really no clearly defined “protagonist” and the viewer’s own way of interpreting the world is what defines the characters and as I have said before, each main character has enough flaws that you could easily be put off by them. But on the other hand, you would be hard-pressed to find a movie with more realistic characters, I can never accuse anyone of being unnaturally likeable and to be honest, it is one of the most compelling studies in feminism you will find. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, like every male character in the movie, I might have found myself falling in love with Scarlett O’Hara just a little bit.
