CNN: 'Gone with the Wind' still raises fuss after 70 years

[rudyfan]

And "being in the same room" while a film is playing, is not the same thing as sitting down and watching it. You haven't watched Rocky Horror from start to finish 200 times.

Jim

Only because I was one of the idiots in costume mimicking the action of the film in front of the screen.

Take a jump to the left...

Were you Brad, Dr. Frankenfurther or Rocky?

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Throughout the 1930s there was a certain critical faction, especially in New York, that felt that the art of the cinema died with the arrival of talkies-- that movies got visually dull and politically timid in dealing with the important issues of the time (remember that the whole debate about whether Hollywood should make social problem/message movies like The Grapes of Wrath would have just happened when Kane was made).

And, while an overly simplistic boiling down of 1930s Hollywood output, that's not entirely untrue.

Film did rebound during the high Pre-Code and early Code era (say, mid-1931 to mid-1936) but due to a variety of issues (Bren's increasing power, the death of Thalberg, the takeover of Universal, etc.) film in the later half of the decade did de-volve. When Hollywood got its mojo back in 1939, the output, as noted elsewhere in this thread, seemed even better - perhaps even better than it actually was.

I certianly don't contend that GWTW is the greatest film ever made, or that it's high art. But, like OZ and Casablanca, it's one of those complicated, troubled productions that came out amazingly well and struck a powerful chord with its initial audience - and still touches us today.

I do, however, feel that, perhaps more than any other sound film of the studio era, GWTW is the ultimate example of what the studios could accomplish at that time.

Like Intollerance 25 years before, GWTW was a real community project with studio loans (mostly from MGM) and (then) state-of-the-art production knowhow (Technicolor, matt shots, etc.)

For such a long film, it's edited within an inch of its life. There's not a wasted frame to be found.

Yes, even when you move past the race issues, there's a lot of silliness (Gable's lack of a southern accent, bad age makeup for Oscar Polk, wiggling porch posts, boom shots, perfect makeup, continually blinded windows to avoid additional cost in masking, etc.) but the film just barrels through its weaknesses and takes you along for the ride.

It's a soap opera. It's a bodice ripper. It's an isolationist screed. It's a popcorn movie. It's damn near everyting.

If one *must* point to one film as the culmination of what the studio system could accomplish during its heyday, GWTW is about as good an example as you will find.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Take a jump to the left...

Were you Brad, Dr. Frankenfurther or Rocky?

Brad, mostly.

But I take great pride in the fact that, at one point or another, I played every character (although I was only allowed to play Columbia once - and I had to strong-arm everyone to allow me to do it.)

For the record, Magenta, Riff Raff and Frank were a lot of fun.

[Scoundrel]

You're lucky, he's lucky, I'm lucky, we're all lucky!

[Mike Gebert]

And, while an overly simplistic boiling down of 1930s Hollywood output, that's not entirely untrue.

No, but one of the things that amazes, and somewhat depresses, me about critics of that time is that they seem so uninterested in the things we find delightful and touching about movies of that time, constantly wishing that the movies we love so were something else entirely. Perhaps it's ever thus, and someday people will swoon over Matthew McConnaughy and Reese Witherspoon rom-coms, but I am really kind of sad to read Graham Greene or Manny Farber or whomever and see them repeatedly miss the charms that are the movies' complete raison d'etre to me. Looking at Top Hat and wishing it were more like The Last Laugh is, to me, pretty damning, even if I understand that a lot of what now looks like charm was once cheapness and cliche to those who lived through it.

[Jack Theakston]

No, but one of the things that amazes, and somewhat depresses, me about critics of that time is that they seem so uninterested in the things we find delightful and touching about movies of that time, constantly wishing that the movies we love so were something else entirely.

Correct. It always has been, always will be. Critical opinion never meets popular opinion, which is hardly ever studied by historians because it is incorrectly deemed valueless.

MGM pictures were always lauded by Variety and The NY Times. But read exhibitor trade reviews from that era and you will see that they only went over well in select big cities. The "stix" (a pretty condescending term) avoided them like the plague.

Conversely, horror films from that era were frowned upon as throw-away material by many critics. Popular opinion was different, and proven by the string of Universal Horror films made throughout the '30s and '40s. And popular opinion still hasn't changed, because people still like those films.

Looking at Top Hat and wishing it were more like The Last Laugh is, to me, pretty damning, even if I understand that a lot of what now looks like charm was once cheapness and cliche to those who lived through it.

I don't know who wrote that, but it certainly wasn't the popular opinion, even by critics at the time. While Variety's review (among others) pointed out that TOP HAT was simply a veiled remake of GAY DIVORCEE, a fairly flimsy plot to begin with, it raved about how much the formula had been improved in-between films.

And it should be pointed out, of course, that remakes and "type" pictures (not so much sequels) were the bane of yesteryear as much as they are today. I'm pretty sure that was the main criticism of the time.

[Mike Gebert]

I exaggerate about Top Hat and The Last Laugh, but only slightly-- I once saw a Communist film magazine from the 30s which slammed everything from Hollywood (eg decrying the revanchist attutudes on display in The Scarlet Pimpernel) but loved the Soviet tank-crew movie Tchapayef, go figure. And I'm sure I could find examples nearly as bad in Graham Greene's writings, for instance. Really, it's hard to overestimate the degree to which highbrow critics of that time dismissed commercial filmmaking and rolled over for anything foreign and arty (which almost always meant either German Expressionist in form or leftist in content).

[Jack Theakston]

You can't take period high-brow criticism (or modern high-brow criticism, for that matter) too seriously. Soviet filmmaking from that era is SO entrenched with American culture that the writings of certain far left-leaning critics from that era read like satire. The recently-released MISS MEND is a perfect example of a Bolshevik statement undermined by its completely American mise-en-scene (much as I hate to use that BS term).

There are good foreign films to be found simply because they're good films, not because they're foreign.

Which brings us full circle— GWTW is hailed as one of the masterpieces of American cinema because it's such a great film. As it was eloquently stated previously, there isn't a frame in the picture that doesn't motivate the plot.

Comparatively, and I'm going to play Mr. High-Brow and take a knock at one of my favorite genres (Universal Horror), SON OF FRANKENSTEIN from the same year is a wasted opportunity; a production that is so obviously slapdash (shooting as they were writing the script, for example) that it's antisynergic.