Other Titles • Gone with the Wind • Vom Winde verweht (1953)
Synopses for Gone with the Wind (1939)
1.
David O. Selznick wanted Gone with the Wind to be somehow more than a movie, a film that would broaden the very idea of what a film could be and do and look like. In many respects he got what he worked so hard to achieve in this 1939 epic (and all-time box-office champ in terms of tickets sold), and in some respects he fell far short of the goal. While the first half of this Civil War drama is taut and suspenseful and nostalgic, the second is ramshackle and arbitrary. But there's no question that the film is an enormous achievement in terms of its every resource--art direction, color, sound, cinematography--being pushed to new limits for the greater glory of telling an American story as fully as possible. Vivien Leigh is still magnificently narcissistic, Olivia de Havilland angelic and lovely, Leslie Howard reckless and aristocratic. As for Clark Gable: we're talking one of the most vital, masculine performances ever committed to film. --Tom Keogh
(25 votes)
2.
Hot-tempered, self-centered, part-Irish Southern beauty Scarlett O’Hara, played to the teeth by Vivien Leigh, loves the gentlemanly Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). Smug, rebellious, honest blockade-running profiteer Rhett Butler, portrayed gracefully and naturally by Clark Gable, loves Scarlett. Ashley, who is also in love with Scarlett, marries his genteel cousin Melanie (Olivia de Havilland) because he believes that their quiet similarities will create a better marriage than Scarlett’s passion. Meanwhile, sparks fly between Rhett and Scarlett at their first encounter and continue throughout Scarlett’s first two marriages. Scarlett and Rhett finally wed, but Scarlett continues to pine for her beloved Ashley. Set against the Civil War and Southern Reconstruction, this tragic love quadrangle offers the burning of Atlanta and fields of wounded Confederates as part of its lush scenery. Meticulous backdrops, glorious sunsets, numerous silhouettes, and the ultrasaturated Technicolor film create a hyperreal vision. The romantic score is every bit as lush and dramatic as the photography, borrowing folk melodies from the Old South to make the tragic war concrete. Heavy nostalgic tones pervade the often witty dialogue and larger-than-life charms and faults of the leads. GONE WITH THE WIND stands among the greatest epic dramas ever filmed.
(25 votes)
3.
Based on one of the best selling books of all time, Gone With The Wind stands among the greatest epic dramas ever filmed. Vivien Leigh is Scarlett to Clark Gable's Rhett in cinema's greatest epic of passion and adventure. With is immortal cast, magnificent cinematography and sweeping score, this cherished classic continues to thrill audiences today.
(25 votes)
4.
David O. Selznick's production of Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize winner Gone With The Wind is "the pinnacle of Hollywood moviemaking," Leonard Maltin of Entertainment Tonight said. And in Maltin's view, "it looks better than it has in years." This sweeping Civil War-era romance won an impressive 10 Academy Awards® (including Best Picture), and its immortal characters Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), Rhett (Clark Gable), Ashley (Leslie Howard), Melanie (Olivia de Havilland), Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) and Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) populate an epic story of enduring appeal across generations. Judged by many to be the greatest movie of all time, Gone With The Wind now comes home in its best video edition ever!
(25 votes)
5.
Gone with the Wind is a sprawling mosaic of a picture, one of the best-loved and most successful in movie history, but also one of the most frustrating. Wonderfully epic in scope, the decline and fall of the antebellum South as seen through the eyes of feisty, independent and wilful heroine Scarlett O'Hara makes the first half of the picture an absolutely riveting spectacle. From the aristocratic old world of Tara to the horrors of Atlanta under siege, Gone with the Wind features any number of indelible scenes and images: the genteel girls taking an enforced siesta during the Twelve Oaks barbecue, a horrified Scarlett walking through the wounded, the flight from burning Atlanta, and Scarlett's moving pledge against a burnished sunset set to Max Steiner's glorious music score. But the second half shifts gear, the melodramatic quotient is upped yet further as tragedy piles upon tragedy, and despite its unwieldy length everything feels rushed. Add to that the central problem that the audience never really understands, why Scarlett could ever fall for weak-chinned Ashley in the first place, and the picture begins to unravel unsatisfactorily. Behind the scenes problems doubtless contributed, with directors coming and going, Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable apparently barely able to stand the sight of each other, and producer David O Selznick's endless rewrites and interference. Nonetheless, this 1939 box-office smash remains one of Hollywood's finest achievements, an irresistible spectacle chock-full of the finest stars in the filmic firmament striking sparks off one another. They really don't make 'em like this anymore.
On the DVD: No extra features on this DVD, which is a pity given the amount of material that must be available, but it has to be admitted this disc is worth the asking price simply to drink in the astonishing quality of the picture, sumptuously presented in its original 1.33:1 "Academy" ratio. The mono sound is vivid, too, showcasing Max Steiner's headily romantic score. --Mark Walker
(25 votes)
6.
First off, if you're a GwtW fanatic, you must buy this four-disc collection. But then again, you probably don't need to read this to make that decision. For the rest of us, know that the kitchen-sink approach has been established here with two full discs of extras. The film's restoration under Warner's brilliant Ultra-Resolution process is the major contribution to the set. However, the bare-bones version released years ago isn't bad and the film still doesn't pop off the screen as do films from the headier days of Technicolor (like the earlier Ultra-Resolution DVD release of Meet Me in St. Louis). That said, the set is worthy of the most popular movie ever made. Rudy Behlmer's feature-length commentary is dry but an exhaustive reference guide to the entire history of the film. Need more? There's the excellent full-length documentary The Making of a Legend (1989) narrated by Christopher Plummer, plus two hour-long older biographies on the two main stars. There are many new vignettes on the rest of the cast, all narrated by Plummer (a nice touch to tie everything together). The new 30-minute interview/reminisce with Oliva de Havilland will be interesting to older fans, but tiresome for the younger set. The usual sort of trailers and premiere footage is here along with a curious short ("The Old South", directed by Fred Zinnemann) that was produced to help introduce the world to the history of the South. --Doug Thomas
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