hanna260
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2015
- Location
- Just Around the Riverbend
Came across this: thought it had some interesting points- though I don't necessarily agree with all of it.
"Ultimately, the only man responsible for making Gone with the Wind look and talk like Gone with the Wind is Selznick himself; and if the film is a pure nightmare for us auteurists, at least you can plainly tell that it has a guiding mentality, even if his guidance was largely a matter of "make moments as over-the-top glitzy as you can". Even its most emotionally true moments are stunningly overwrought: the shot of Scarlett, in a a tawdry, gorgeous red dress (insisted upon by Fleming), standing in fiery isolation as cross-cut with the gaggle of plain "proper" women who like to gossip about her; or the repeating motif of Scarlett in silhouette, standing with her back to us, looking into the sunset (the only argument you'll ever need to prove that Technicolor is the best thing in the history of motion pictures); or the film's crowning moment, a truly unfathomable crane shot over the bodies of hundreds of extras, a dead field that stars in a medium shot of Scarlett and tracks back and back and up and up until we can just barely pick her out among the casualties, before she finally disappears behind a tattered Confederate flag (this magnificent shot was proposed by Val Lewton, later the famous producer of RKO's brilliant horror movie B-unit in the 1940s). The only thing that Gone with the Wind ever needs to do, it does: present imagery that is gorgeous, and present it with conviction. The mere fact that Fleming and Wood weren't terribly gifted directors can't stand in the way of Selznick's money."
http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2010/01/1939-tomorrow-is-another-day.html
And here's some discussion of the best shot and the clip he's talking about.
http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2014/08/best-shot-gone-with-wind-first-half.html
Thoughts? This is a terribly important and popular movie, and I know @kepi posted a thread on this movie too recently- but hey, can never have too much discussion, right?
"Ultimately, the only man responsible for making Gone with the Wind look and talk like Gone with the Wind is Selznick himself; and if the film is a pure nightmare for us auteurists, at least you can plainly tell that it has a guiding mentality, even if his guidance was largely a matter of "make moments as over-the-top glitzy as you can". Even its most emotionally true moments are stunningly overwrought: the shot of Scarlett, in a a tawdry, gorgeous red dress (insisted upon by Fleming), standing in fiery isolation as cross-cut with the gaggle of plain "proper" women who like to gossip about her; or the repeating motif of Scarlett in silhouette, standing with her back to us, looking into the sunset (the only argument you'll ever need to prove that Technicolor is the best thing in the history of motion pictures); or the film's crowning moment, a truly unfathomable crane shot over the bodies of hundreds of extras, a dead field that stars in a medium shot of Scarlett and tracks back and back and up and up until we can just barely pick her out among the casualties, before she finally disappears behind a tattered Confederate flag (this magnificent shot was proposed by Val Lewton, later the famous producer of RKO's brilliant horror movie B-unit in the 1940s). The only thing that Gone with the Wind ever needs to do, it does: present imagery that is gorgeous, and present it with conviction. The mere fact that Fleming and Wood weren't terribly gifted directors can't stand in the way of Selznick's money."
http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2010/01/1939-tomorrow-is-another-day.html
And here's some discussion of the best shot and the clip he's talking about.
http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2014/08/best-shot-gone-with-wind-first-half.html
Thoughts? This is a terribly important and popular movie, and I know @kepi posted a thread on this movie too recently- but hey, can never have too much discussion, right?