Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is a Southern belle who is much sought after by the men, whom she strings along since they find her irresistible. Let us explore further with a brief summary of the storyline. It seeks to justify the behaviour of the Confederate slaveholders, and it only portrays black characters in a sympathetic manner when they are loyal to their white owners. Then there is the most notorious complaint made against Gone with the Wind – the accusation that it is a racist movie. However a commercial Hollywood movie could hardly risk being any longer. Given the sheer length of the book, I would argue that the difficulty for Fleming’s adaptation is that it isn’t long enough for him to do full justice to the book. Notably the lukewarm critics quoted on the film’s Wikipedia page are all men. Gone with the Wind is purely an adult movie, and it has the further limitation of being seen as a woman’s movie. It can be loved by adults and children, men and women. What other objections are there to Gone with the Wind? The Wizard of Oz achieves its universal appeal by including something for everyone. Nonetheless Selznick’s approach worked well on Gone with the Wind, and enabled him to find Fleming, the best possible director for this kind of epic material Alfred Hitchcock avenged himself on the hated producer by casting Raymond Burr as the villain in Rear Window, because Burr bore a certain resemblance to Selznick. Many directors hated working with Selznick. Selznick does not have the best of reputations. I would argue that Gone with the Wind has the same power. That is also a commercial film first and an artistic movie second, and yet it grips the imagination with all the power of a work of high art. However we can say the same of The Wizard of Oz. Gone with the Wind went through several changes of director, and it was the steerage of David O Selznick that carried the movie through. What is it that causes critics to take issue with the movie? One problem is that Gone with the Wind is considered to be a film that possesses a ‘producer’s sensitivity’ rather than that of a director. Nonetheless Gone with the Wind, though still popular with audiences, has drawn mixed reactions from film critics. Nominated for 13 awards, the film secured ten Oscars, including the first ever Oscar awarded to an African-American actress, a feat that would not be repeated for decades. The film also set a record at the time by securing more Oscars than any previous movie. Adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the highest grossing movie of all time. The film set a record at both the box office and at the Academy Awards. The Wizard of Oz is a perennial favourite, still loved by people the world over, and it launched the career of Judy Garland.įleming’s other movie was Gone with the Wind, a four-hour adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s epic Civil War novel. Then there was Victor Fleming, a movie director who reached his acme in 1939 with two remarkable films, which he largely directed. William Wyler showed that Americans could do a fine job of handling works of English Literature when he adapted Wuthering Heights for the big screen. William Dieterle bested even Lon Chaney by making the finest film version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Ninotchka was less significant, but it was one of Ernst Lubitsch’s best comedies, and gave Greta Garbo one of her most human and appealing roles (“Garbo laughs!” proclaimed the posters).įrank Capra’s political comedy Mr Smith Goes to Washington did more to establish the familiar tropes of the Capra movie than any other work by the director. This was the year in which John Ford made Stagecoach, arguably the first masterpiece in the genre of westerns, and the film that made John Wayne a star. A number of significant films were made that would establish the direction of the medium for the next few decades. 1939 was an important year in American cinema history.
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