Gone With The Wind – Two-Disc 70th
Anniversary Edition (1939/Warner
Bros. DVD)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B-
I never thought I would see it happen, but after being
considered one of the greatest films of all time, Gone With The Wind (1939) has lost some of its invincibility and
luster. This is not just because of
politically correctness or its implied racism or because it is an older film,
but because Hollywood’s
obsession with blockbusters that are loud, fast and dumb have eclipsed doing an
epic with a narrative. But the situation
with GWTW is a little more
complicated than that, we’ll look at the film in several ways.
First, we’ll get the down side out of the way. When it was being conceived, the NAACP
protested the film and demanded that it not feature the ugly, explicit
stereotypes Hollywood films were featuring
since the silent era and especially since D.W. Griffith’s Birth Of A Nation (1915) featured an all white cast where the black
characters were white actors in blackface.
By the end of that film, the Klu Klux Klan had risen again (the film
revived the actual organization!) and defeated the killer enemy that happened
to be its false brand of African Americans.
Another epic that bemoaned the fall of the Old South would offer the
same opportunity again.
This time however, it would not be an epic propaganda film
by Griffith but
a more visionary work by David O. Selznick based on the best-selling book by
Margaret Mitchell. Selznick was on a
role as one of Hollywood’s
first independent producers and he believed he had the vision to bring a
sizable book like this one to life in a way that had never been done
before. He would make it a long film, do
it in color and that would require a big budget; one he did not have. MGM stepped in and funded the rest of it, but
Selznick retained creative control, went through several directors and was
going to make this film if it was his last act on earth.
Sidney Howard (Dodsworth,
Prisoner Of Zenda) adapted the novel
(though some others added ideas uncredited) but sadly died before he got to see
the film’s massive success. Huge amounts
of film had been shot and when all was said and done, Selznick was left to edit
all of it by himself because he knew what he wanted. Victor Fleming directed the film, though some
work had been done by George Cukor (who al the women trusted in particular) and
Sam Wood (A Night At The Opera, A Day At The Races), but it was what
Selznick saw in the book and when all was said and done, he pulled it off.
It is not only amazing that he did this without the recent
innovation do digital non-linear editing, but that he had a vision to do so and
set a new high for what Hollywood was capable of bringing to the screen in the
year that is considered Classic Hollywood’s peak of 1939. Though MGM funded it (followed by some other
sources), it looks much more like a product from his company than theirs and
the irony is that they kept it, which kept them alive in leaner years before
several mergers and acquisitions did to the studio what The Civil War did to
The South.
The casting is some of the best in film history, with
Vivien Leigh delivering one of the great female performances as Scarlet O’Hara
and Clark Gable (in a role everyone wanted him to do) and Olivia de Havilland
in the almost campy role of the angelic Melanie who is as naïve as she is lucky
to keep dodging total tragedy. The more comic moments are among the features
that date it, along with said stereotypes.
The NAACP got their way (including no mention of the KKK), but instead
of dignified characters, the film inadvertently created new black stereotypes
to replace the old ones refreshing negative portraits into the 1980s.
However, the film is a serio-comic love story with The
Civil War in its background and all these years later, it holds up better than
expected visually. However, there are
some odd choices in all this and when we switch from rear projection to large
set pieces that cost serious money of the same shot, it is odd. It almost creates an unintended dream-like
sense of place, which might have helped the film all these years. Add the matte painting work and three-strip
Technicolor cinematography and it is a film with a one-of-a-kind look due to
its unique production circumstances.
Then there are some darker scenes few people have
discussed at length which give the film its weight. After so many bright scenes early on showing
the happy, vibrant high living that was The South, the visual look slowly turns
darker and foreboding in subtle ways, than explicitly so. It also represents death in The Burning of
Atlanta sequence (where Selznick burned down al the sets at his studio to save
money), Melanie’s near miscarriage and the search for and return to Tara. The racial
controversy and pop culture absorption (all the way to The Carol Burnett Show) has often eclipsed the more powerful
cinematic elements that can be seen with much more clarity and effectiveness in
this restored edition.
It should be noted that at the time, the Technicolor Company
(and especially Natalie Kalmus) only wanted their format only be used on
upbeat, happy and fantasy sequences to keep it distinctive and in a class by
itself versus so many other color formats at the time. This was the first film where the format was
used in any kind of darker way. That
there is no digital work suddenly gives the film another distinction that makes
it more effective than anyone could have imagined when it was first released.
But the better parts of the story, the casting, the better
writing and the actors are the reason to see the film. Leslie Howard, Ann Rutherford, Evelyn Keyes,
Thomas Mitchell, Victor Jory, Fred Crane, George Reeves, Ward Bond, Cliff
Edwards, and others did some of the best work of their career here. Considering what they had to work with,
Hattie McDaniel, Butterfly McQueen and Everett Brown managed to deliver
distinct performances as remembered as the rest of the cast.
No, the film has not always aged well and to me was always
a little uneven for all of its commercial and critical success, but it is still
a classic with all of that and increasingly reminds us of how much more
ambitious Hollywood once was. Here was a
film about something that was one of the biggest hits in history, still is and
is not dumbed-down with junky tie-ins.
In that respect, it deserves new credit.
The 1.33 X 1 image is a little soft and some shots do not
look as good as others beyond the obvious use of rear-projection with its lower
definition. Under Ted Turner’s
ownership, the film received top rate attention for restoration, yet there is
footage here that does not look as good as it should. In 1998, Warner issued the film in
three-strip Technicolor prints for the first time in decades and the film had
been looking more and more faded in its reissues. While the color was fixed, a bad decision was
made to stick the 1.33 X 1 frame in the middle of a 2.35 X 1 anamorphic print
and the results were very disappointing and on the level of 16mm prints.
Color is consistent, but in this case, not always as good
as it should be. The Burning of Atlanta
looks like the fire has been tamed for whatever reason, some shots look a bit
darker than they should and others look a little more muted than it should be. That is better than faded, but we’ll have to
see the Blu-ray to see how good this really is, but this is fine for DVD. Director of Photography Ernest Haller (Jezebel, Dark Victory, Rebel Without
A Cause) did pull off some amazing shots he does not always get credit for,
but Lee Garmes (Portrait Of Jennie, The Paradine Case, Lady In A Cage) did additional cinematography and the great visual
effects innovator and cinematographer/director in his own right, William
Cameron Menzies also designed the film for Technicolor. Selznick invented the term Production
Designer for him and his work here. When
later catching up with the Blu-ray (unreviewed), the transfer was a mix of
great shots and some that did not look as good, specifically matte work and
transitions that both need more work. It
shares all the same good and bad aspects of the DVD as it is the same
print/transfer, but the DVD cannot compete with the sharpest shots on the
Blu-ray. Also, was the film this dark or
is it one f-stop darker here than intended?
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is included along with Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono and the two are not that much different, but I liked the 5.1 a
little more, though the 5.1 might sound better in a lossless format so we’ll
see if it does with the Blu-ray. The
sound has been cleaned well, but shows its age and the score by Max Steiner (King Kong (1933), A Star Is Born (1937), Penguin
Pool Murders, Casablanca, Of Human Bondage) created an effective
score with one of the most famous instrumental themes of all time, yet it too
is uneven because it veers between serving the book-like needs of the
production and other more effective moments that really deliver the film. There is some debate about the music and
unfortunately, Warner did not add an isolated music track. Catching up with the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix on
the Blu-ray later, it was not much of an improvement, though better than CD
soundtracks of the original recording, including a sampler of one in the
Limited Edition box set.
The only extra in this basic edition is a very detailed
feature length audio commentary by Rudy Behlmer, though the deluxe editions
have (and repeat) extras from the previous special editions.
- Nicholas Sheffo
