Gone With the Wind

I remember in 1980 when I was nine years old and living in The Galaxy Condominiums and attending Klien Elementary school, my mother sat me down in the living room in front of our television. She looked at me and said, "Shanon, I want you to watch my all-time favorite movie with me. I love this movie." So I put away my dolls, my piano lessons, my homework, and playing with the other kids and sat down with my mother to watch for the first time "Gone With the Wind" - her all-time favorite movie. I wanted to know why she loved the movie so much. At nine years old, my favorite movies were "Grease" and "The Jungle Book" but I didn't know much at nine years old. So I sat there and watched the masterpiece of film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's novel about the south and the civil war and slavery and survival. Why was this movie so important to my mother? I was sure if I paid attention, I would understand.

It's a long movie. So long that the director installed an intermission at the half-way point complete with the unforgettable orchestration of music that is synonymous with the film. I sat down in front of our television in the living room of the condo on the 32nd floor overlooking the Hudson River, and I watched my mother's favorite movie.

It opens up with the protagonist: Katie Scarlet O'Hara played by actress Vivien Leigh. Some reports state that this role was so taxing for Leigh that she began to show symptoms of mental illness during and after the filming. That is not what the opening scene depicts. The film opens with Katie dressed in a beautiful southern belle dress looking as radiant as a Florida flower with a big smile of joy and happiness on her face. She is coming-of-age and she has been raised in a happy home filled with love, family, comfort, and security. She sits under the cypress trees in all her radiance and beauty surrounded by a large group of admirers, handsome southern beaus who wish to court her, who wish to be the "one" she chooses for her husband. (Flash forward to her father saying: "What difference does it make as long as he's a southerner and thinks like you?") Katie doesn't favor any of the beaus there with her. For some reason, she has a crush on Ashley Wilkes. What is it about Ashley that makes him "special" to her? Does he remind her of her father, Mr. O'Hara?

Katie soon discovers that her hopes about marrying Ashley are all in vain, as he is engaged and promised to Melanie, his cousin. In the meantime, everyone is talking about the War - the great Civil War --- that is going to determine whether the South gets to be an independent nation or if the North and Abraham Lincoln are right when they say that plantations and slavery should be "Gone With the Wind".

Katie doesn't want to talk about war. She wants to talk about why Melanie is better than her. Why can't she have Ashley? Why does she have to marry someone that she doesn't really want? Knowing she doesn't have much choice, she agrees to marry Melanie's brother Charles Hamilton. They are married before he goes off to war. He dies and does not return from the war. She is a widow before she's a mother. But she feels nothing about it except depressed that she is being forced to wear "black" for the proper morning period. It seems to me that although Katie loves her mother and father with every breath, her best friend is Mammy, the loyal, faithful servant who is like a mother, not a slave. Katie has two sisters, and although she cares about them, she thinks they are annoying and she doesn't want to live with them anymore.

She met Rhett at the Wilkes barbeque right before the war started and right before she was married to Charles. Rhett knows all about her love confession for Ashley. She despises him for knowing her secret. Rhett sees himself in Scarlet. Rhett is from Charleston, a southerner with a tainted reputation. To him, she is him before he "had to do, what he had to do". He can't help but love her. It's more than vanity or narcissism. It's that innocence within us and the passion that begs for that innocence to survive.

I've watched this film more times than I can recall the count, and every time there is a piece of the film that makes me cry. The love between Rhett and Katie Scarlet makes me cry. A love that didn't get to shine because of the war that was all around them, from the past, into the future, all the while sacrificing the present that was them: The Butlers. Rhett and Scarlet Butler. The couple that wasn't afraid to be honest about the way things were.

While Katie is in Atlanta helping as a nurse for all the dying and lame soldiers of the war, Melanie is pregnant with Ashley's baby and still trying to help. The war is getting closer and closer and the bombs and the fires and the fear are all around. The fearful and weak are running or dying. The sick and lame are crying in pain. Katie wants to run away also, but Melanie is in bed and going into labor. The doctor tells Katie, "We owe Ashley this child." She can't run away. She can't save herself because she loves Ashley, and even though she's only Melanie's sister through marriage, her love of family is where her honor is. She has to stay with Melanie and help keep the baby alive. She has never delivered a baby. Yet the baby comes and the baby lives and so does Melanie. The war is closing in on them. They have to get out of there! What was the point of Melanie and Scarlet going through all that if they die under a bomb? They have to run. Scarlet asks Rhett for help, and in true chivalrous form he finds a carriage and gets Scarlet, Melanie, Prissy, and the baby out of the falling apart city of Atlanta.

After a perilous journey through fires and riots, Rhett gets Scarlet and the women close enough to "home" and has a change of heart in regards to his stance about the war. He can't deny that he is a Southerner and he doesn't want the war to end without standing among the Southern soldiers. He tells Scarlet he's going to go join the military and at first she thinks he's joking. When she realizes he's serious, she thinks he's insane because the south is already losing the war. Regardless of her own self-interests at that moment, he steals a kiss and goes off to take his place in the final battles. Scarlet finds the strength and courage to drive the carraige further and sees the remnants of Twelve Oaks, the Wilkes plantation. It is in ruins and Scarlet is fearful that she will find her home (Tara) in the same condition. Melanie looks up over the carriage to see that Ashley's father is dead and buried and her face goes pale. Scarlet tells Prissy to tie up the cow who is the only survivor left at Twelve Oaks and they proceed toward Tara. After beating the exhausted horse to death, they arrive close enough to Tara and Scarlet sees that the house is still standing. She runs with hope and excitement to the door, and her ghostlike father opens the door at her knock. She realizes something is not quite right with Mr. O'Hara and soon Mammy comes to greet her and update her on the events that transpired while she was away. Scarlet realizes that her mother died and her father went insane and she faints at the horror. We are led to believe by the following scenes that Mammy went to assist Prissy and Melanie and the baby and got them settled inside the house while Scarlet was passed out.

At this point of the film, I already have some opinions about the characters that Mitchell's story and the film director have depicted. Katie Scarlet seems like a snobby spoiled brat, but in truth she's just a good daughter who loves her family and wants to love her husband the way her mother loved her father. She wants to be just like her mother. Her sisters are a lot like her, but we see them as "annoying" or "spoiled" because Scarlet is portrayed as the "strong heroine" who will step up and do what is necessary instead of crying and waiting around for someone else to. Rhett is depicted as the "bad boy" who "ruins" ladies reputations and isn't "received" by the other southern gents, yet he seems to be much more honest, courageous, and chivalrous than the bragging southern brigade. Mr. and Mrs. O'Hara seem like a lovely married couple who do their best to take care of their three daughters and the "slaves" on their plantation are not whipped or beaten but considered like family. Mammy spends more time with Scarlet than Mrs. O'Hara who is often depicted going around helping others in the social circles. Mr. O'Hara is a sweet kind noble man who loves his wife and the old south so much, that when he loses both, he loses his mind. He is undone, with no identity, no reason for his existence and can not pull himself together in this "new world" to help his three surviving daughters. Mammy and Scarlet take over at Tara. Melanie is the witness who sees the strength and does not resent it like Scarlet's other sisters who complain about having to pick cotton. Melanie wants to be useful and help Scarlet, but Scarlet won't let her because she doesn't want Melanie "to never be useful again" which some might think is a cold reply, but Melanie understands it. As they try to rebuild Tara and keep themselves fed, they are informed that "the taxes on Tara are sky high" at a whopping price of $300. They are all terrified of what will become of them when the taxes are not paid. No one has any idea what to do, but Scarlet thinks good ol Rhett might be able to help. Mammy sews up a lovely dress and escorts Scarlet to the horse jail where they are keeping Rhett as a prisoner of war rumored to have made a lot of money. Scarlet begs Rhett for help, but he mocks her and embarrasses her explaining that he can not touch his money while he's imprisoned. She doesn't give up. She sees Mr. Kennedy (her sister's fiance) in town and sees that he is becoming a successful businessman. In order to save Tara (and all the people there like her crazy father, Mammy, Prissy, Melanie, the baby, the other survivors, and her other sister) she convinces Mr. Kennedy to marry her. She uses his money to pay the taxes on Tara and the sister who was supposed to marry Mr. Kennedy hates Scarlet forever because she stole her Mr. Kennedy.

Ashley has returned from the war and is reunited with his wife Melanie and their baby boy. He knows all the gossip and negative talk about Scarlet. They have a chat and Scarlet begs him to run away with her. He apologizes that he wasn't strong enough to get the tax money, but explains that he would not abandon Melanie and the baby. She says she will not throw herself at him again and they are welcome to stay. At that point, Scarlet begins to change. She takes the Kennedy/Wilkes business very seriously and makes money her priority. She rides her own buggy which many of the old southerners find deplorable. This is where the hypocrisy of the "honorable gentlmen" is obvious in the men with the exception of Rhett. They have no problem with Belle, the old southern "prostitute" who has a very successful business and many "clients" of reputable names. Although Belle is not invited to the "reputable" homes, she can do what she pleases without anyone raising a fuss. However, the old south continues to gossip about Scarlet running a lumber business and driving her own carriage. Rhett is impressed with Scarlet's success and courage, however on one bad day she is attacked by lawless men on the road and Big Sam rescues her and gets her home. Ashley and Mr. Kennedy and some other southern gents decide to clean up the roads on a vigilante mission. The new lawmen are alerted and begin to hunt for the vigilantes so Rhett goes to Melanie to find out how he can help. Scarlet is feeling nervous and upset because they did not inform her about any of this. Rhett is able to rescue Ashley and saves him with Belle's help. Mr. Kennedy is killed during that endeavor.

At this point of the movie, I have more opinions about the characters. Belle is easy to like. She is a lucrative business woman and doesn't mind being cast out of "society" for the sake of her business and her personal reasons. She considers her "clients" friends and is willing to help them if she can. Rhett is quite heroic for being considered the "black sheep" of the southern men. Why should he stick his neck out for Ashley or Mr. Kennedy? Melanie is shown to have a good gut instinct in trusting Rhett when the other women were advising against it. Had she listened to them, her husband would have died with Mr. Kennedy.

The death of Mr. Kennedy causes another shift in Scarlet's behavior and she begins to find comfort in alcohol. She feels guilty about Mr. Kennedy's death and knows that her sister and India hate her for having married him. Rhett comes to cheer her up and proposes marriage. He convinces her because they both share a love of money. Rhett showers her with love and money and Scarlet seems like her young self again, even happy enough to give him a baby - little Bonnie Blue Butler. She uses their wealth to restore Tara to it's perfection and insures that her family is well provided for, yet her sisters envy her and hate her for having married three times while they are "old maids" stuck at Tara.

Married life for Ashley and Melanie isn't shown, but we get the idea that they live a simple and contented life. However, the marriage of Rhett and Scarlet is quite timultuous mostly because after all this time Scarlet still fantasizes about what life would have been like if she would have married Ashley. It drives Rhett into a jealous rage. Why can't she just be happy with all they have? He often goes to visit Belle simply to put his jealousy away so that he can be a good father for his daughter Bonnie regardless of the animosity between him and his wife.

The unsettling unhappiness between Mr. and Mrs. Butler begins to transpire as one tragedy after the next. Rhett tries to take Bonnie away for awhile, but she has nightmares and misses her mother. Scarlet is pregnant again and when Rhett and Bonnie return home, an argument causes her to accidentally fall down the stairs and miscarry. Then Bonnie falls off her horse and dies sending Rhett into a psychotic episode that has even poor Mammy crying. Mammy begs Melanie for help. Melanie counsels Rhett back to sanity, but used all of her heart and energy to help in their time of tragedy. Not much time after they all mourn at Bonnie's funeral, that Melanie is on her death bed. The director focuses on Rhett's anguish over losing Bonnie, but only shows Scarlet fainting at the accident. However, when Melanie is on her death bed, we see more pain on Scarlet's face than on Rhett's face. Ashley is as distrought about losing Melanie as Rhett was about losing Bonnie.

After Melanie dies, Rhett figures that the time has come for a divorce so that Scarlet can go be with the love of her life and live happily ever after. When Scarlet sees that Ashley was truly in love with Melanie, she has an epiphany that seems to have come much, much too late. She runs to find Rhett to explain what she knows now, but Rhett doesn't want to hear it and doesn't believe anything she has to say. "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn," he tells her and leaves. She is about to fall apart and all the voices that gave her a fighting spirit and the will to survivie run through her mind as she picks herself up again and exclaims "Tara!" and "Tomorrow is another day!"

Mitchell and the director of the film do not tell us if she gets Rhett back. They leave that up to the reader or viewer to decide for themselves. A sequel was written (that I read) however, I don't like that author's take on it. It's better for the veiwer or reader to have it open in their mind about what "tomorrow" was going to be for Scarlet, Rhett, Ashley or any of the remaining characters. I like to imagine that Rhett did miss her. That maybe one of the sisters married Ashley. That more forgiveness and understanding was accomplished as they healed from the pains and tragedies.

I lost my mother in 2012. I was only 41 years old and I guess I thought I would have her in my life a lot longer than that. Gone With the Wind was my mother's favorite movie. I know why she loved this movie so much. She believed that regardless if you are a man or a woman or a Northerner or a Southerner, you should never give up on life. You should always pursue your dreams and happiness. The Butlers weren't shy about that part of themselves and neither was my mother.