Gone with the Wind (Four-Disc Collector's Edition)
by Victor Fleming
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barbara O'Neil, Clark Gable, Evelyn Keyes, Thomas Mitchell, Vivien LeighDirector: Victor Fleming
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 238 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-11-09
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Gone with the Wind (Four-Disc Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: Far different from the book, but a classic on its own terms
Summary: 5 Stars
For the Gone With The Wind movie completist, this loaded set is a must-have. The extras are about as comprehensive as one could want.
It's a great movie pretty much across the board in terms of casting, spectacle, compelling storyline, cinematography and production values. Its few drawbacks don't detract from the overall result - and it's amazing that this 1939 movie remains so compulsively entertaining - but it suffers a bit from credibility in some of the casting, and by the presentation. It is a pretty realistic depiction of the Civil War, but it is 30s style entertainment. There is a lot of badly placed bits of humor that don't originate in the novel, as if to keep the public charmed (Margaret Mitchell's narrative style - unflinching, hard-hitting - was superb; the juxtaposition of the historical with a complex story is one of the best examples of the historical novel I've ever read) . This was of course, the style of the day, but it does not reflect the novel's tone. For example, Scarlett herself in the novel was a hardheaded, unsentimental, ruthless woman who had not an ounce of humor within her; in the film, she gets to throw off a lot of flippy, quippy lines that don't accord with her character. I recall reading in the book Mitchell's description of Scarlett - that her personality was "lusty with life," of an almost "frightening vitality," and despite the "practiced" ladylike values instilled into her, that her own, independent spirit was far more attractive than any guise she might adopt.
Vivien Leigh always had a tendency to soften her characters somewhat; that might account for her Scarlett being a bit petulant and pouty, a characteristic that didn't originate in the book. Otherwise, Leigh is ideally cast, and gives a magnificent portrayal on its own terms. She looks the part to a T, and was especially brilliant in the use of facial expressions to reveal her inner thoughts; Leigh had a way of internalizing her emotions to register with the audience.
However, this is Gable's film all the way. No other actor was such a suitable match to a novel's character. Tough, tender, sensual, magnetic, masculine and larger-than-life as a dashing blockade runner, Gable's Rhett Butler is one of film's most perfectly realized creations.
Hattie MacDaniel's Mammy is also a likewise acted portrayal: she is *exactly* as presented in the novel, shrewd, dignified, razor-sharp and with none of that kow-towing, tee-hee-heeing, subservience usually accorded black characters of the time. Mammy, in the book, was portrayed as Scarlett's voice of conscience, and as a proud, blunt, outspoken woman.
The two dubious bits of casting is that of Ashley, and to a much lesser extent, Melanie. Why Selznick thought that Leslie Howard was an appropriate Ashley is beyond me. The crucial framing story is Scarlett's obsession with Ashley, which continues right up to near the end of the novel. In the book, Ashley was presented as a beautiful Apollonian stud-type of character, a young, tall, blond god and of a Byronesque elegance. He was a young girl's - Scarlett's - sexual fantasy of a romantic suitor. But what to make of Leslie Howard in the role? He's not only on the geeky side, but he's far too old. Worse, though, Howard appears bored to the gills, and has no dash or pizzazz. We can't then understand Scarlett's obsession with Ashley, when there is Gable's magnetic Rhett, and this is the fundamental motivational flaw of the movie. We can't fathom how Scarlett can pant over the pallid dullard of Ashley when there is the infinitely more interesting Rhett Butler.
Melanie is undoubtedly the most difficult role of all. In the book, Melanie was chronically sick, whose physical frailty eventually overtook her. But she was one of genuine nobility and towering strength of character, whose inner goodness and sterling qualities remained uncorrupted by the war; all the other characters turned to her for guidance and emotional support. Olivia de Havilland tries hard to embody this aspect of Melanie, but does not quite succeed. Not yet the accomplished actress of the later, superb, "The Heiress," de Havilland is too self-conscious in her determination to be a paragon of sterling goodness; the underlying sweetness - which threatens to border into smarminess - is instead ponderous, a little precious, not quite believable. Granted, it is extremely difficult to portray a "great soul" type of character, but a greater actress is actually needed than one for Scarlett. De Havilland's finest moment occurs during the Shantytown raid, whereby Melanie tries to read David Copperfield; here the character is, finally, allowed to be the voice of reason during a tense evening. Melanie's death scene falls a bit flat; the massive irony doesn't register, because De Havilland lacked the skills to suggest a catharsis, and because the complexities of the relationships in the novel between all the characters isn't fully fleshed out. Though she would have been too old at the time, there is only one actress I can think of who has this gift for portraying physical frailty allied with an unsullied inner strength: Lillian Gish. No other actress ever portrayed this kind of feminine, tragic and delicate type of woman so deftly, and only someone of Gish's talents could have made logic and natural sense of such a role as Melanie.
If one can ignore the differences between Margaret Mitchell's versus David Selznick's - the former a complex, grim story, the later a romance epic - then both, on their own terms, are classics of their kind.
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