Sunday, December 30, 2007

"Great balls of fire - *hic!* - it's Rhett Butler!

Oh. Wow. I had no idea.

At the age of 48 I have just sat through an entire viewing of Gone With The Wind for the very first time, and I'm blown away. I really had no idea it was that good. It was amazing.

Just last night I figured out how to download and play torrents. I don't know what it was that inspired me to search for GWTW as my first download, but that's what I did, and I found it in two parts. Watched the first part this morning, and just finished watching the rest a few moments ago. I'm amazed. I knew it was an Academy Award winner. I knew it was one of the best-loved movies of all time - a classic. I knew all that stuff, and yet, having only ever watched bits and pieces of it here and there, and apparently having missed entire sections of it, I had never really appreciated how truly great it really is.

Back in 1939 - the year my mother was born - when GWTW was released, movies had a certain style, and acting had a very different flavour than it does today. As much as I love old movies, that old-style filmmaking and the melodramatic, over-done acting usually keeps me from really falling for old movies the way I do for contemporary ones. But there's something about GWTW that overcame that, and I fell into the film just as deeply as I'm sure audiences did when it first came out. Even with the over-blown acting - especially from Vivian Leigh - it swept me away and had me laughing and crying and loving the characters like they were my own family.

At the end, I spoke the final works along with Scarlett - "For tomorrow is another day." Hope. That's the theme of Gone with the Wind. In the face of impossible adversity and terrible pain, there is always hope - there's always another day. I loved the way the movie seemed to end on a tragic note, but then was saved by the final line - just like real life often does become bright again after a long stretch of darkness. It made you hope that there really is a future for Rhett and Scarlett together, that they'll have another baby and be happy for real this time.

There were a few scenes that really stood out for me. Being the visual person that I am, they were mostly scenes with Scarlett looking amazing. The dress she wore when she was caught holding Ashley at the mill. The incredibly statuesque picture she posed when she showed up at Ashley's surprise party in her gaudy red dress. Melanie comforting Rhett after Scarlett rejected him. Mammy's scene with Rhett in the parlor when he discovered she was wearing the red petticoat. All the gorgeous, gorgeous costumes (sometimes I think I should have been a costume designer for period pieces, they attract me so).

While it took Scarlett till the very last moments of that epic-length film to see sense, you still couldn't help but admire her strength and single-mindedness throughout the entire movie. She got what she wanted, that one - even though in the end it wasn't what she really wanted - and she did what she had to do to get it. For the most part, she was a shallow, grasping, self-centred, selfish little bitch. Not a very likeable character. But that's what good stories are all about - characters changing, evolving, learning and growing. And Scarlett's shortcomings are made up for by almost every other character in the film - except maybe prissy. Simpering little twit. Even Rhett - "varmint" that he was - had his own special brand of honour and was a very likable chap in spite of being a mercenary and almost as shallow and vain as Scarlett. I can't say I liked Ashley much either. Leading Scarlett on all those years, kissing her in spite of loving Melanie. If he'd been strong right from the start, things would have turned out very differently. But then...we wouldn't have had the story we have! I'd have to say Ashley is the fulcrum on which the whole story spins.

I think someone made a sequel to GWTW back in the 80s or early 90s. If I recall correctly, it wasn't very successful and people didn't like it much. Of course, without even having seen it, I can predict that it was watered-down gruel compared to the rich, delightful stew that was the original production.

Even so, now that I know how to find and download torrents, I think I may see if I can find the sequel and give it a go. I want to find out if Scarlett gets Rhett back!

*Subject line of this post comes from the scene where Scarlett gets drunk on branding after one of her husbands dies.

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