Eccentric Flower:199807/only southerners respect scarlett
From Eccentric Flower
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seven july ninety eight one a m only southerners respect scarlett Back from seeing Gone With The Wind. Restored print. Original aspect ratio (it's square). Four hours with intermission. It was a long night, but a good one. Truth is, I hardly notice that GWTW is that long while I'm watching it, and that's maybe the best tribute I can pay it. It's undeniably a cheesy movie - every time I see it, the accents sound worse and worse, the acting looks more like pathos (except Gable, who seems to be laughing to himself about the whole thing), and Melanie gets a little harder to bear. But it's also a genuine Epic Film, with a little bit of everything, and a sweep so large it's hard to even say what the film's about. And you don't notice the four hours. That having been said, I watched this film tonight in Harvard Square, the only Southerner in a theatre full of Northerners, and I realized that there are some things that these Northerners will never understand. No, I'm not talking about slavery, although I hardly see GWTW as glorifying it, and some of the audience members apparently thought it did. I'm talking about Scarlett O'Hara. Do you have to have been born in the Deep South to have any respect for Scarlett whatsoever? I'm beginning to think maybe. Look - Scarlett is mega-passive-aggressive, and perhaps more than a little psycho. After the midpoint of the movie, she's also not an especially nice person. She does some things that make me wince. But what's missed is that this woman, who prior to the devastation had never worked a day in her life, pulls herself back up to prosperity by sheer stubbornness - she may do some nasty things, but she does what she feels she has to do, and she does it well. She cries and wails - then immediately picks herself up and does what has to be done. She has no fear of anything except starvation. I dunno. I don't mourn the Old South the way some Northerners think all Southerners still do, but I also don't understand - and I speak as a relatively ardent supporter of female superiority here - why more people don't respect Scarlett O'Hara. Oh, well. I'm rehashing old ground. The very first Circular Cruise talked about this, and said it better. At any rate, the movie was very enjoyable, even if I did want to kick the people in the front row who giggled through the whole thing. © columbine |
