Gone with the Wind (1939)

#4 on Original, #6 on Anniversary, #43 on Cheers, #4 on 10 Top 10: Epics, #2 on Passions

Any of the movies in the “10 Top 10: Epic” category are going to be a commitment.  You are committing time, and emotions to watch one movie, one story, for hours. In the case of Gone with the Wind, it is a 4 hour long commitment. Sometimes the movies marked as Epics feel like they take days to experience.  Luckily, with GWTW the time flies. 

But watching Gone with the Wind always makes me so conflicted. I can view it so many ways.  I can get lost in the romance of it all (big sweeping house, Clark Gable taking Vivien Leigh into his arms, etc). Or I can get turned off by the way certain groups of people are portrayed, and what a brat Scarlett O'Hara can be.  And sometimes she is being a brat because she is doing what has to be done to save her families property, and sometimes she is just being a brat because she can. 

Clark Gable gets one of the prettiest entrance shots in any movie, ever.  Standing at the bottom of the grand staircase, camera zooming in to his handsome face. Just a classic movie moment. Hattie McDaniel ties the story together for me, with her portrayal of Mammy. Mammy is an almost constant presence in the film, except when Scarlett goes to Atlanta. Olivia de Havilland as Melanie was great at playing sweet, with out venturing into saccharine. The character of Melanie really was considered to be almost a saint by everyone, so it would have been easy to go overboard, and almost mock the character, but de Havilland was able to walk that line with out going over. 

It is interesting to see history interwoven into Scarlett's story. Make no mistake, this is not a film about the Civil War. It is a film about Scarlett O’Hara; the war just happened to coincide with her life. 

Overall, GWTW really is a story of survival. Life will always have ups and downs and hardships. But no matter what happens, you have to get up and keep on living, one day at a time. Or as Scarlett says "After all, tomorrow is another day."

Favorite Quote:

Scarlett: Sir, you are no gentleman.
Rhett Butler: And you, Miss, are no lady.  Don't think I hold that against you. Ladies have never held any appeal for me.

Stats post: The best year in film?

It has often been argued that 1939 is the best year in film.  Such gems as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, Wuthering Heights (with Laurence Olivier), Ninotchka, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Gunga Din, and so many  more were released that year.   So it would seem to be good reason to assume that 1939 would be a year that was well represented on the list, and at 9 films it is;.  But.  1942, and 1982 both top the list for most films at 11 each.

Does this make those 2 years the greatest?  I'm not sure, but it does mean they have a lot of films that appeal to a lot of people.

Here are the films for each year on the list:

1939	1942	1982
Dark Victory	Bambi	An Officer and a Gentleman
Gone With the Wind	Casablanca	Blade Runner
Gunga Din	Mrs. Miniver	Diner
Hunchback of Notre Dame	Now, Voyager	E.T.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	The Palm Beach Story	Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Ninotchka	Pride of the Yankees	Gandhi
Stagecoach	Random Harvest	Poltergeist
Wizard of Oz	Road to Morocco	Sophie’s Choice
Wuthering Heights	To Be or Not To Be	Tootsie
	Woman of the Year	The Verdict
	Yankee Doodle Dandy	Victor/Victoria

Of those 31 films, so far I've seen 15 of them, and they were all pretty fabulous.

I think trying to decide what the best year in film was is too hard of a task. There were so many good films released in the last 100 years, with so much talent.  And these particular films cover such a variety of genres and audiences, from animated, to romance, to comedies, and action adventure fantasy films.  How could you possibly say one year was the absolute best?

So, in conclusion, I need to watch more films from the list and blog more often.  Please accept this post as an apology, and you are hopefully sticking with me as I'm slow to post things :-)