Gone With The Wind
1939
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara (Hamilton Kennedy Butler)
Clark Gable as Rhett Butler
Hattie McDaniel as Mammy
Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton Wilkes
Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes
Butterfly McQueen as Prissy
WATCHED: 2006-2007
Favorite Quotes
Field Hand: Quittin time! Quittin’ time!
Big Sam: Who says it’s quittin’ time?
Field Hand: I says it’s quittin’ time!
Big Sam: I’s the foreman! I’s the one who says when it’s quittin’ time at Tara!...Quittin’ time!
Gerald O’Hara: Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts.
Mammy: I ain't aimin' for you to go to Mr. John Wilkes’ and eat like a field hand and gobble like a hog!
Scarlett: Fiddle-dee-dee ! Ashley told me he likes to see a girl with a healthy appetite!
Mammy: What gentlemen says and what they thinks is two different things, and I ain’t noticed Mr. Ashley askin’ for to marry you!
Scarlett: Great balls of fire!
Scarlett: Why does a girl have to be so silly to catch a husband?
Scarlett: Why don't you just say it, you coward? You're afraid to marry me. You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't open her mouth except to say yesand no and raise a passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her!
Rhett: And you, Miss, are no lady….Don’t think I hold that against you—ladies have never held any appeal for me.
Mammy: Savannah would be better for you—you’ll just get in trouble in Atlanta.
Scarlett: What kind of trouble are you talking about?
Mammy: You know what kind of trouble I’s talkin’ about. I’s talkin’ about Mr. Ashley Wilkes. He’ll be comin’ to Atlanta when he gets his leave, and you’ll be sittin’ there waitin’ for him just like a spider…
Rhett: No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, and badly. That’s what’s wrong with you: You should be kissed and often—and by someone who knows how.
Scarlett: Aren’t you tired, Melanie?
Melanie: No, I’m not tired, Scarlett. This might be…Ashley—and only strangers here to comfort him. No, I’m not tired, Scarlett. They could all be…Ashley.
Scarlett: OH, if I just wasn’t a lady, what wouldn’t I tell that varmint!
Dr. Meade: She will not consider it, sir.
Scarlett: Oh yes I will!
Rhett: With enough courage you can do without a reputation.
Dr. Meade: She shouldn’t even be having a baby. She may have a difficult time….Now you’ve got to listen to me—you must stay here!
Aunt Pitty: Without a chaperone, Dr. Meade? It simply isn’t done.
Dr. Meade: Good heavens, woman! This is war, not a garden party!
Prissy: I don’t know nothing bout birthin’ babies! I don’t know how come I tells such a lie!
Rhett: Take a good look my dear. It’s an historic moment you can tell your grandchildren about: How you watched the Old South fall one night.
Rhett: I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'll never understand or forgive myself. And if a bullet gets me, so help me, I'll laugh at myself for being an idiot. There's one thing I do know... and that is that I Love you, Scarlett. In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. Because we're alike—bad lots, both of us. Selfish and shrewd, but able to look things in the eyes as we call them by their right names.
Scarlett: Go on! I want you to go! I hope a cannonball lands slap on you! I hope your blown into a million pieces! I—
Rhett: Never mind the rest—I follow your general idea.
Scarlett: As God is my witness…as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.
Scarlett: Well we’ve got to raise it, that’s all.
Pork: Yes ma’am….How?
Scarlett: I’ll go ask Mr. Ashley.
Pork: Oh, he ain’t got no $300, Miss Scarlett.
Scarlett: Well I can ask him if I want to, can’t I?
Pork: Askin’ ain’t gettin’.
Scarlett: I won’t let Tara go—I can’t let it go while there’s a breath in my body!
Scarlett: And you here in this horrid jail—and not even a human jail, Rhett, a horse jail!
Mammy: Who dat? I ain’t never seen hair that color before in my life!
Scarlett: I’ll think about that tomorrow.
Mammy: I told him you was prostrate with grief!
Mammy: She’s a comin’. I don’t know why she’s a comin, but she’s a comin’.
Rhett: You’re like the thief who isn’t the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he’s going to jail.
Rhett: Now that you’ve got the lumber mill and Frank’s money, you won’t come to me as you did at the jail. So I see that I shall have to marry you.
Scarlett: I never heard of such bad taste!
Rhett: … I can’t spend all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.
Rhett: Did you ever think of marrying just for fun?
Scarlett: Marriage fun? Fiddle-dee-dee! Fun for men, you mean.
Rhett: You’re fond of me?
Scarlett: If I said I was madly in love with you you’d know I was lying!
Rhett: You’re right. I’m no more in love with you than you are with me.
Mammy: It ain’t fittin’—it jus’ ain’t fittin’!
Scarlett: Where shall I go? What shall I do?
Rhett: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!
Scarlett: After all, tomorrow is another day
Brief Plot Summary
Set in Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstructionist Georgia, Gone With the Wind tells the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, a spoiled plantation girl who is forced deal with a world that does not always yield itself to her will. Among other things, it chronicles her relationships with her successive husbands (the wonderstruck and ill-fated Charles Hamilton, the manipulated but noble Frank Kennedy, and the one man she can never keep under her thumb—Rhett Butler); her relationship with her ever-encouraging, ever-forgiving, ever-loving sister-in-law, Melanie Wilkes; her assumption of duties generally preserved for men—sometimes by choice, often as a result of forces beyond her control; her creative—and often questionable—methods for dealing with Yankees, carpetbaggers, scallywags, prostitutes, and tax men; and, of course, her constant scheming to get the one man she can never have—Ashley Wilkes.
My Reaction
I remember vividly the first time I saw this Movie. I’d talked about watching it in the past, and I’d often heard my mother speak to her uselessness as a birthing assistant, using the unique speech pattern of (although I didn’t know it at the time) Butterfly McQueen’s Prissy. However, I had never actually clapped eyes on the three hours and fifty-five-ish minutes of footage that comprise the film.
The day I watched it for the first time was a Saturday, a fact which I recall because on Saturdays, at the time, I watched a movie with my beloved mother. She always let me choose the movie because I’m a choosy kind of gal. But this night, she said she was choosing—that she had a surprise. Apprehensive yet intrigued, I sat down in front of the television. Then I saw the DVD in her hand. I knew I had smelled a rat. I began protesting before our DVD player even had time to register its latest submission: It was one thing to mandate a film in which I had no interest—I did that to her all the time. But I had never subjected her to almost FOUR HOURS of unwanted footage. I told her as much, but, unfortunately, my mom’s really smart, and she knows how to get my goat.
“Let’s just watch the first fifteen minutes—just the first fifteen. Then, if you don’t like it, we’ll watch something else, I promise. You should at least give it a try….” There it was: I should give it a try, and I knew it. So, being the utterly enlightened person I am, I gave it a try.
My suspiciousness—which had peaked during the overture (an overture for a non-musical, pfft)—had completely flown out the window by the time the O’Haras left for Twelve Oaks and the big barbecue. And, some four hours and a small fit of disbelief at having to TURN OVER the DVD later, I got up and hugged my mom, thanking her for forcing me to watch Gone With the Wind. I have seen this movie over twenty-seven times since (that’s roughly 108 hours, or 4.5 days, of my life), and I have read the Margaret Mitchell novel on two separate occasions. I think it’s safe to say it’s a favorite.
There’s so many things to love about this movie, and so many things that make it significant. Every time I watch Gone With the Wind I take something new from it, and there are so many different ways to watch it. There’s the obvious, of course: As a treatise on how the Civil War changed the south and race relations, or as an incredibly involved love story. Blah, blah, blah—I’m tired of having discussions about this film with people who can only see it in its most basic terms. Even worse are the people who refuse to be part of it because of these simplistic interpretations: The literary snobs who won’t condescend to a movie made from a low lit love story, or, even better, the perfectly innocent people who say—as a friend of mine from school did—“But isn’t that movie, like, really, really racist?” Why yes, yes it is. Accurate depictions of the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction South tend to be quite racist. That’s how things were—get over it.
But there are so many other awesome ways to interpret Gone With the Wind. I was given the opportunity at school to write an essay on any of a selection of movies for a gender and women’s studies course. I was practically foaming at the mouth at the prospect of exploring feminism and gender relations in Gone With the Wind. The essay prompt forced me to focus on only the female characters, but the wealth of diverse women in Gone With the Wind hardly made this a challenge. Who should I focus on? There was the obvious, Scarlett: a woman before her time, willing to stop at positively nothing to get what she wants, ruthlessly manipulating those in her life to meet her ends, and shamelessly and repeatedly defying the prescribed social codes for women (opening her own businesses, driving her own carriage, dancing in her widowhood). Or perhaps Melanie, the sweet, demure, and proper southern belle who, despite her blindness where Scarlett is concerned, is still strong enough to raise a child on her own and consort with the honorable prostitute Belle Watling. Then there’s Belle herself, arguably one of the most powerful women in Atlanta, but looked down on by all those whose husbands she rules over.
I could wax on about the dozen ways to view this film, but I just got a glimpse of my word count: My inclination toward brevity in blog posts tells me I should conclude soon.
A final thought must obviously give a nod to what makes this movie Registry-worthy. First of all, there’s the film’s awards. Gone With the Wind was the first film to garner more than five Oscars. In fact, it garnered 10, and was nominated for 13. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh) Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Color Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction. It was also nominated for Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Supporting Actress (Olivia de Havilland), Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Recording. Furthermore, the nature of one of the awards is significant: Hattie McDaniel was the first Black person to win an Academy Award. First person, not first woman. If you’ve seen this movie, you know why.
The film has also made a slew of AFI lists:
· 100 Movies (#4)
· 100 Movies 10th Anniversary (#6)
· 100 Passions (#2)
· 100 Cheers (#43)
· Top 10 Epic Films (#4)
· 100 Quotes
o “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” (#1)
o “After all, tomorrow is another day!” (#31)
o “As god as my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” (#59)
· 100 Years of Film Scores (#2)
There’s also the famous debate of who has the highest ticket sales of all time, this film or Avatar (hint: the true record holder does not contain any blue characters or Sigourney Weaver).
And, finally, one of my favorite tests of significance: It has been immortalized by Carol Burnett in her fabulously funny “Went With the Wind” sketch.*
I can list my opinion of this movie and its accomplishments, and I have, but the truth is that it is impossible to capture the legacy of Gone With the Wind in a blog post. You have to see it. Now—go right now and watch it.
* You can watch this in two parts here and here.
This post first appeared on Take 575: Watching The National Film Registry, please read the originial post: here
