Title
Gone with the Wind
Creator
David O. Selznick
Description
Gone With the Wind (1939) follows the life of Scarlett O’Hara, a young woman living on Tara Plantation in Georgia during the Civil War and Reconstruction. The film depicts its main character as a young, vivacious woman who frantically tries to maintain her economic and social standing in the midst of conflict. The Civil War had a devastating impact on the Georgia, with Union General William Sherman capturing the cities of Atlanta and Savannah in rapid succession and leaving a path of destruction in his wake. During Reconstruction, plantation owners found much of the infrastructure upon which they had previously relied, such as railways necessary to carry goods to market, destroyed by Union troops. The damages, together with the abolition of slavery, left the South profoundly changed. White Southerners struggled to rebuild and fashion a regional identity in the post-bellum world. Gone With the Wind tells this story from a white Southern woman’s perspective.
Gone With the Wind was released during Jim Crow segregation in the South. Its producer, David O. Selznick, based the film upon Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same name, published in 1936. The story romanticizes the antebellum South with sweeping scenes of prosperous plantation life, wealthy women and men attending fancy balls in stylish clothing, and docile enslaved people. The film masterfully counterpoints this pastoral image against a devastated post-war South, working desperately to rebuild. The film faced little criticism from contemporary white audiences as it silently reaffirmed their notions of superiority. The picture won eight out of the thirteen Academy Awards for which it was nominated: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration, and Best Editing. During production, however, African Americans had to urge the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, to substitute the word “darkie” for Mitchell’s use of the word “nigger.”
Scholars remark that Gone with the Wind, despite its many historical inaccuracies, still “forms the basis of American popular memory of the Old South.” Perhaps most memorable of all is the film’s attention to white Southern women. Following the example of “plantation literature,” which featured white Southern women in important positions on Southern plantations in the 1830’s to 1850’s, the film features a strong-willed and determined cast of white female characters. Despite this step forward for white women, however, black characters remain “decidedly one-dimensional,” as indicated by the film’s stereotypical depiction of the characters of Mamie and Prissy.
Gone With the Wind was released during Jim Crow segregation in the South. Its producer, David O. Selznick, based the film upon Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same name, published in 1936. The story romanticizes the antebellum South with sweeping scenes of prosperous plantation life, wealthy women and men attending fancy balls in stylish clothing, and docile enslaved people. The film masterfully counterpoints this pastoral image against a devastated post-war South, working desperately to rebuild. The film faced little criticism from contemporary white audiences as it silently reaffirmed their notions of superiority. The picture won eight out of the thirteen Academy Awards for which it was nominated: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration, and Best Editing. During production, however, African Americans had to urge the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, to substitute the word “darkie” for Mitchell’s use of the word “nigger.”
Scholars remark that Gone with the Wind, despite its many historical inaccuracies, still “forms the basis of American popular memory of the Old South.” Perhaps most memorable of all is the film’s attention to white Southern women. Following the example of “plantation literature,” which featured white Southern women in important positions on Southern plantations in the 1830’s to 1850’s, the film features a strong-willed and determined cast of white female characters. Despite this step forward for white women, however, black characters remain “decidedly one-dimensional,” as indicated by the film’s stereotypical depiction of the characters of Mamie and Prissy.
Date
1939
Producer
David O. Selznick
Director
Victor Fleming