On Sunday Ginny and I went to the Burns Center for a big screen viewing of what has been one of her longtime favorites, Gone With the Wind. I had seen the film the view times, and it was never one of my favorites. But the critic and historian Molly Haskell (pictured at right, with critic Janet Maslin)introduced the picture Sunday, and some of her comments helped me appreciate what was going on, and I liked it very much. Haskell called Scarlett O’Hara a teen rebel, and I guess I never before really thought of her that way–as someone very young and very immature and equipped with a very age-specific set of social tools. I guess I had always thought of her as a grown woman, and as such, someone whose character flaws really made her an unpleasant person. Also, I never really considered what the film was “about”, but this time, Rhett Butler‘s comments about southern self-delusion made their subsequent travails seem like self-inflicted wounds, and not the result of Yankee belligerence; during these days when our self-delusions about war and greed have come so painfully home to roost, this idea seemed very pertinent. And despite all the verbiage about cavaliers and chivalry, the film’s point of view is not terribly 
sympathetic to the south’s sufferings. Some other thoughts: Vivian Leigh was really beautiful and really an incredibly good actress; I wish she had done more film work. Clark Gable really was a limited actor; Haskell made a good point, though, about how he had to play against type, because in most films he easily gets the girl, and here he can’t get the girl no matter how hard he campaigns. Also, did Bernie Mac steal his act from Hattie McDaniel? Almost, almost. And overall, the first half is a really terrific movie; the second half, when it draws inward and concerns itself merely with the tangled feelings of Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley and Melanie, is really less interesting. It’s hard to care, ultimately, about these people who just can’t get out of their own way and accept some kind of happiness.
