Gone With the Wind: An Enthralling Epic

It runs nearly 4 hours long. It never fails to capture the viewer’s attention. It’s unforgettable.

Gone With the Wind is a masterpiece of story, visuals and performance that’s more of an experience than a viewing.

Based on Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, it’s a historical romance that follows the journey of a spoiled southern belle through the Civil War and Reconstruction. It took 16 screenwriters to turn the 1,500-page book into a viable-length film.

Further, it took almost two years to cast the film, with screen tests for the lead Scarlett O’Hara being the most extensive in motion picture history. MGM shot over 160,000 feet of film, interviewed 1,400 actresses, and had 400 of them read for the part, including Katharine Hepburn, Loretta Young, Helen Hays, Lana Turner, and Lucille Ball. But Director David O. Selznick decided to go with relatively unknown English beauty Vivien Leigh—a supreme stroke of genius.

Leigh was cast after filming began with little screen experience. Primarily a stage actress, she almost lost the part after her first test read because she didn’t change her English accent.

Gone With the Wind is Leigh’s movie and Scarlett’s story. She evolves from a flirty, flighty teenager to an empowered woman. One who survives great heights of harrowing hardships and resolutely works everything she has to get where she wants to be. Although Clark Gable is outstanding as Rhett, the man hopelessly in love with Scarlett, his character is an accessory to the story.

This monumental coming of age story takes place during the mid 1800s, but Scarlett is a woman much ahead of her time. One of the strongest female characters in cinema history, she’s a fierce symbol of determination. Although she’s manipulative and selfish, she has an indescribable charm that’s as infectious as her vivacious spirit. Women can learn a lot of life lessons through her mistakes and successes.

Scarlett’s self confidence was vital to her achievements. She wholeheartedly believed in herself, a feeling she emitted to everyone around her. She also had a strong will, and you know what they say—where there’s a will, there’s a way. She didn’t wait to for things to happen, she made them happen.

Although Scarlett survived devastation after the war and became a shrewd businesswoman, sometimes at other people’s expense, she missed out on some of the more important things in life, like love. She was caught up in a fantasy—she couldn’t recognize that her reality was much more fulfilling. She had a man that loved everything about her, including her many faults, but she chose to be obssessed with her infatuation for another man.

You need to realize what you have, while you have it. Scarlett didn’t appreciate Rhett. And as the ending proves, someone can be gone like the wind if you don’t show your affection for them. Relationships are about give and take, and if you take all the time, you’ll be left with nothing. Instead of learning from her personal mistakes, she kept repeating them. Mistakes are more enlightening than you may think. And sometimes we realize that when it’s too late.

Gone With the Wind has endured and deepened with the passing of time because the story, like Scarlett and Rhett, is as modern as its ending.

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