Mustache Marathon 2: Gone with the Wind (1939)

Sometimes a revisit to a movie helps you to notice that you missed a lot about what made a movie great.  This happened to me when I watched Gone with the Wind.  I watched it once before, when I was in high school.  That puts it at about four or five years ago, depending on when I watched it in high school.  I was not a fan of the movie in any way.  This second viewing may have changed that opinion.

Gone with the Wind is a movie from 1939 about a woman and her self-centered ways.  It takes place during the Civil War.  Most of the movie involves relationship drama.  What better way to describe this movie is there?

It would be wrong for me to hold off on the one thing that keeps me from falling in love with the movie.  Scarlett O’Hara, or whatever her last name was at whatever point in the movie it was, is a horrible person.  She only cares about herself and will do anything to stop anyone who gets in the way of what she wants.  Vivien Leigh is a great actress in the role, but the character is so deplorable in my eyes (did I just use the word deplorable?) that I cannot connect to her in any way, whatsoever.  It lessens the emotional impact that Gone with the Wind could have.

The performance that Vivien Leigh gives is not the only good performance in the movie.  In fact, it would be difficult for me to come up with a bad acting performance from Gone with the Wind.  Every character gets the performance that they deserve.  I might argue that it would be difficult to find a movie from that time that people remember and adore that doesn’t have solid performances throughout.

Another great aspect of the movie is the set design.  I’m a big fan of using sets instead of pre-existing structures.  It adds another layer to a movie when you can see the craftsmanship of the sets.  The stylistic additions that are made through the sets give the movie a tone that it wouldn’t have by using location shots.  The houses and streets in Gone with the Wind look like they could exist in the real world but there is an elaborate touch that wouldn’t have been the same using real locations.  Underneath the realism, there are deliberate touches to make the sets look the way they do.  Gone with the Wind makes great use of the false realism to provide aesthetically pleasing sets.

The final thing I noticed this time that I find to be a necessary mention is the great shots throughout the movie.  The locations in which the cameras were placed were perfect choices to give a scope to what would be Georgian farmland.  Wide landscape shots allowed the viewer to take in the beauty of Georgia.  The wide indoor shots let the viewer take in the size of the homes.  It all added up to show how large everything was.  Call that bullshit if you want.  There were a lot of beautiful wide shots.

I’ve really said nothing that you wouldn’t know if you’ve seen the movie.  And I’ve said some stuff that doesn’t even quite make sense to me.  It’s out there now and we all know that the internet is written in ink, not in pencil.

Next up is Tombstone.  That’s a mustache extravaganza.  So many mustaches to see in that one.  Kurt Russell with a mustache.  Bill Paxton with a mustache.  Val Kilmer with a mustache.  Sam Elliott with a mustache! There are so many mustaches! And that’s all I have to say about that.