The Epic Gone with the Wind

In my humble opinion, there are three types of historical movies: Time Capsule, Nostalgic, and Epic. Time Capsule movies are made at the exact time in history when something is happening that the movie is about. For example, Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta is a movie about the Brooklyn disco scene of the 1970’s and it was made in 1978 at the height of the disco scene throughout New York City. Another example is Reality Bites starring Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder because it is about a group of friends in the early 1990’s portraying things that were happening in the early 1990’s like MTV, HIV and buying Domino’s pizza with a check. Watching these movies later on appear to be very dated, often showing up in the props that are used such as a cell phone or a clothing fad. The second type of history movie I call Nostalgic because the movie is made approximately twenty years following the events that the movie is about. For example, Grease, also starring Travolta, was made in the 1970’s but is about a high school in the 1950’s. Another example of a Nostalgic movie is Dirty Dancing, starring another great dancer Patrick Swayze, because it takes place in 1963 but was made in 1987. Nostalgic films often take on the appearance of shredding a good light on the events taking place, often the case with a war movie. They aim to tap into the “feel good” emotions of the viewer who chances are lived through similar situations. These movies are often filled with great musical soundtracks of past hits from that era. Finally, I call the third type of history movie Epics. They are usually made fifty or more years following the events taking place and tend to be long – somewhere in the range of 3 hours at least. Titanic and Schindler’s List are both excellent examples of Epic movies. There is one Epic movie, however, that in my opinion continues to stand the test of time and is the best history movie ever made. Gone with the Wind, developed from Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same name, came out in 1939. This movie about the deep South around the time of the Civil War was made about 70 years following the actual events of the Civil War. This, along with the 4-hour length, puts it automatically in the Epic category. There are other reasons why this movie continues to be rated in the top ten of the best movies ever made. The fact that Gone with the Wind won ten of the thirteen Academy Awards it was nominated for was a triumph at that time. Amongst those winners was Hattie McDaniel, who played Scarlett’s Mammy. McDaniel was the first ever African American to win an Academy Award and in spite of controversy at the time, you cannot deny that this win advanced Black American actors at a time when their dressing rooms would have still been segregated. Butterfly McQueen, who portrayed a naïve house slave, also gave a wonderful performance. Gone with the Wind also is a triumph of cinematography. It used Technicolor at a time when color film was first being used (side note- 1939 was the same year the Wizard of Oz came out with its ingenious use of color when Dorothy touches down in Munchkin Land). In order to save money, the director of Gone with the Wind, Victor Fleming, uses black and white film and the use of shadows. There are several examples of his use of shadow such as the Atlanta scene when Melanie gives birth and Scarlett is holding up a lamp. Also for dramatic reasons shadow is used in the final scene of the first half when Scarlett is promising into the sunset at Tara that “with God as my witness I shall never go hungry again.” Two other modern techniques were used when filming Gone with the Wind. The first was matte painting directly onto the film strips. For example, as the carriages arrive at Twelve Oaks Plantation for the barbecue, the carriages sort of melt into the driveway as they drive up the main house. The horses and carriages were filmed but the house and the foreground of the trees and gate were painted into the scenes. It really creates a ghostly effect but the scene is so short that most people would not notice it. A second interesting technique is Gone with the Wind’s handling of extras. There were only 1500 wounded Confederate soldiers laying at the Atlanta train depot instead of the original 2500 extras that were ordered. An actor was placed in between two dummies and string was attached to legs or hands so that when the actor moved, the dummies next to them moved. It created the look of a massive number of wounded soldiers for Scarlett to walk through as the camera panned out on the scene. One of the very first Epic movies ever created, I never tire of watching it over and over again, thinking to myself the amazing cinema technology the director used for that time. I will end this blog entry with one last incredible fact- the first scene of Gone with the Wind filmed was the Burning of Atlanta scene, actually filmed prior to Vivian Leigh even securing her part as Scarlett. What was burning was not Atlanta but the sets from another movie whose filming on MGM’s back lot had recently wrapped up- King Kong. The King Kong sets were destroyed in order to make room for the Gone with the Wind sets.

This DVD still photograph shows the ghostly appearance of the carriages arriving at the Twelve Oaks Plantation for the barbecue. They seem to disappear half way up the driveway, melting into the mansion house. This effect occurs because both the background and the foreground has been painted onto the film strip itself and only the horses and carriages were live action filmed.