Movie Review: Gone with the Wind

Last night Lisa and I finally got around to watching that old classic, Gone With the Wind.

Reaction:

When the movie finished, I was angry.  What a dissatisfying ending!  It felt like the movie makers just ran out of minutes and weren’t able to tell the second half of the story.  The ending was abrupt and kind of weird.  The movie lasted through all kinds of horrible events, then stopped short when Rhett walked out.

Characters:

I really fell in love with Rhett, that roguish, good-looking, inexplicably rich leading man.  In fact, he’s probably the arch-typical leading man.  I don’t think I’ve even seen anyone stronger in that role.

Scarlett was reprehensible, inspiring true disgust.  Somehow, at the end she turned from the very definition of a bitch into a hope-possessing angel bent on following the true love she’s just discovered she always had.  This change of character was so complete as to be unbelievable.

I kept waiting for the movie to parallel Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. That never happened, at least not completely.  Scarlett, the shrew, was only tamed after Petruchio, Rhett, gave up and turned away from her.

A few technical notes:

  • It might have been our jank-tastic home theater system (or lack thereof), but we had a tough time understanding the dialogue for the first half of the movie.  Subtitles helped, but made us feel like we were watching a foreign film.
  • The special effects were pretty cool to see.  I’ve heard that a lot of the movie is actually illustrated, and that would explain the rich contrast and great coloring.