Forget all the plug about honest love and gallantry . The movie fit with the Wind is about the end of the globe and what comes after .
Today , it ’s remembered mainly for its fabulous costumes and the angsty beloved triangle of Scarlett O’Hara , Rhett Butler , and Ashley Wilkes . The sentimentalization of the antebellum South has not aged well . But take another look at that name , which offers a radically unlike way to think about the story .
Gone with the lead is such a renowned film that it ’s heavy to hear the statute title as a descriptive set phrase . But here ’s the scrolling debut :
“ There was a soil of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South … Here in this pretty world Gallantry take its last bow . Here was the last ever to be see of Knights and the Ladies Fair , of Master and of Slave . Look for it now only in book , for it is no more than a dreaming recall . A Civilization gone with the wind . ”
That ’s right on : go with the Wind is about the Revelation of Saint John the Divine .
Here ’s what got brush away
The apocalypse need some exposition if it ’s die to carry a punch . Even Planet of the Apes , which does n’t bung its hand until the last moments of the film , has Chuck Heston speculating about Earth into his space dictaphone . And so the first 30 minutes of the movie is vestal moonlight - and - magnolia sentimentality , meant to bring up a hermetically sealed world that might as well be the intact macrocosm as far as its inhabitants are concerned . Gone with the breaking wind open up on Scarlett O’Hara holding court on her parent ’ jasmine - covered porch , stringing along the Tarleton Gemini . All she knows are ball , ballgowns , wooer , and slavery .
A pair of things are immediately obvious : Scarlett is self - sure-footed to the spot of dress down egomania , and she ’s never known a minute of want in her entire biography . ( This one - two punch will deform her into the Mad Max of Reconstruction - era Georgia . ) The scenes that follow provide a tour of the prewar South , by way of Tara and Twelve Oaks . This idyllic landscape go along in a fuzz of fluffy dresses and barbecues and frock pelage , laying the groundwork for depicting the War as an all - consuming firestorm .
For 1939 , they do n’t skimp on the slaughter
What ’s the end of the world without some gore , some sign of the zodiac that thing are not right and start worse ? The Late Unpleasantness arrive , but it ’s not until Gettysburg that the dancing catch and the movie takes a dark turn . Like the first zombie sighting or exotic laser beam , the lists of local boy killed in action sign their existence is start to crumble . Then the Battle of Atlanta brings the death and misery to center stagecoach . Once Sherman ’s forces begin blast the metropolis , it ’s one frightening set while after another . First we see Scarlett volunteer as a nurse , helping treat wounded fresh from the front . Men are shout out , everyone ’s sweating in the summertime heat , and someone wants her to help with an amputation . There ’s no trichloromethane , much less handwashing . Later , when Melanie goes into labor , Scarlett tries to bring the doctor and sees hundreds of men pose out side by side on the street , groaning and dying in the spicy sunlight .
find out the world burn
I do n’t care what Roland Emmerich blows up in his next destructoporn epic . It will never top David O. Selznick ’s torching of the MGM backlot to recreate the burning of Atlanta . The Technicolor fire eat up the integral screen and the ordinarily orotund - than - life protagonist are reduce to ant - like proportion . It ’s even the same colouring as every molecule - bomb calorimeter test TV they show in story class . Once they ’ve escaped the city , Rhett abandons Scarlett to get Melanie , Prissy , and the child past two ragged United States Army . And then the tale hand its absolute low-water mark : Scarlett , who just wants to get home , make it at Tara to find her mother dead and her father crazy . There ’s no intellectual nourishment and the intact woodlet is suddenly her responsibility . Her world is goner , and it ’s never come back .
Scraping by and surviving the fallout
All the pretty dresses and the wartime angst were just a setup for the heart of Gone With the Wind which , like many a post - apocalyptical classic , is watching the protagonist claw her way back from the brink and piece the world back together again . It ’s never quite the same , but that ’s going to intercept Scarlett . First , she savvy up those carrot and promise that she ’s not going hungry again , not even if she has to consist , cheat , steal , or kill . Next , she starts picking cotton wool . She shoot a minacious drifter and buries the body . She unashamedly steals her sister Sue Ellen ’s fiancee , saves Tara with his money , takes over his general computer memory , and begins building an empire in postwar Atlanta .
When the going gets sick …
Here ’s the distinguished satire of Gone With the Wind : the story encourages us to see the warfare as a tragedy that leach Scarlett of her youthfulness and turns her into something difficult and dreadful . But Rhett Butler pinpoint it in the library at Twelve Oaks when he says , “ And you , miss , are no ma’am . ” He ’s not the only one who ’s gravel her number . The whole reason Ashley Wilkes , supposedly the enceinte love of her life , does n’t marry her is that she is n’t a frail Southern blossom like Melanie . ( His sister thinks she ’s an straight-out hussy . ) In a society obsessed with aping the gallant man of Ivanhoe , she is a outrage hold off to happen . In fact , the warfare transubstantiate her from spoiled holy terror probably destined to “ deflower ” herself to a rugged , New South businesswoman . It ’s a character arc consistent with any identification number of post - apocalyptic tale : The misfit and the loony are best equipped to deal with a universe expire mad .
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