I've seen "Gone With the Wind" (1939) several times, but I've never enjoyed it as much as when I watched the Warner Home Video Four-Disc Collector's Edition. The picture is stunningly beautiful, the sound quality is very good, and the feature film is spread over two single-sided discs with the break at the theatrical intermission.
I like GWTW for its strong story, lavish production values, and the dazzling star power of its leads, Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. I think the tale of the self-centered, thrice-married Scarlett O'Hara (Leigh) being romantically obsessed with an unavailable man for years is a fascinating one. To me, Gable as Rhett Butler provides the film with a welcome strong masculine presence.
GWTW takes place in and around Atlanta during the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Scarlett is a spoiled white teenager living a life of privilege on a plantation called Tara when the war starts, and the film follows her for a dozen years as the social and economic order she grew up with collapses around her. While many perish, not only does the strong-willed Scarlett survive, she never even allows her spirit to be broken.
But I think the genius of GWTW is that it transmutes circumstances that in real life would be dreadful into a lushly romanticized epic world of fantasy. The result is that receptive viewers experience pure escapism.
I realize, however, that a lot of people today can't get into GWTW. One reason seems to be that Scarlett is unlikable. As for me, I would rather have an interesting, psychologically complex protagonist like Scarlett than a likable heroine who is boring.
Another reason for disliking GWTW is its offensive treatment of race-related issues. The film completely glosses over the evils of slavery, depicting that abominable institution as if it were benign. Also, the movie takes a very patronizing attitude toward its black characters. I think it's regrettable that the DVD set leaves these objections to the movie unaddressed.
The Warner Home Video DVD set provides a feature-length audio commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer, who supplies an overwhelming collection of facts related to GWTW. For example, he tells us the Twelve Oaks barbecue was shot in Pasadena on the estate of Adolphus Busch of Budweiser fame. And Behlmer notes that actor George Bessolo, who plays Stuart Tarleton, changed his last name to Reeves and played Superman on TV. Behlmer is enormously knowledgeable, and I found some of his commentary interesting. But I felt I was being bombarded with trivia when what I longed for was analysis and synthesis.
Disc 3 of the four-disc DVD set is devoted to special features about the movie. The principal offering is an excellent making-of documentary from 1988 that is over two hours long. I particularly enjoyed the screen test footage, and the making-of claims that actress Paulette Goddard came very close to getting the role of Scarlett. The documentary also shows how the burning of Atlanta was shot on the Selznick lot in Culver City, and I think it puts things in perspective when an assistant cameraman states, "There were only seven Technicolor cameras in existence at that time, and we used every one of them."
Disc 4 contains features about the GWTW cast. There's a 2004 documentary lasting 38 minutes where actress Olivia de Havilland, apparently in her 80s, looks back at her experiences in playing the saintly Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in GWTW. There's also a feature lasting over an hour about the life and career of Clark Gable that was released in 1975, fifteen years after the actor's death. A third documentary on this disc is a 46-minute one put out by Turner in 1990 about Vivien Leigh, who twice won the Best Actress Oscar, but whose frail mental and physical health led to her death at age 53. A few things caught my interest in each of these features, although I found them all rather shallow and cable TV-ish.
I would say the Warner Home Video GWTW four-disc DVD set is aimed at entertaining fans of American classic movies, and this results in a product that leaves something to be desired from the standpoint of the cinephile. The DVDs contain very little in the way of critical analysis of GWTW and no serious examination of the social and historical issues raised by the film. To my way of thinking, the movie deserves a DVD set that gives a more scholarly treatment, and I can only hope that at some future time we will get it.
On the next page, I have listed all the special features of the Warner Home Video Four-Disc Collector's Edition "Gone With the Wind" DVD set.
