This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry.
Gone with the Wind
"The most talked about movie ever made"
"The most magnificent picture ever"
and other hyperbolic taglines.
I kind of expected this from the start, but this was a mediocre film experience for me. Whenever something is THIS big with so many people talking about, and when the production itself is so big and the story is so epic, I generally have a bias to not like it already. But maybe it's that when something has such a broad appeal that it probably lacks and individuality.
Certainly there are movies that are almost universally loved by real film lovers. But you usually don't see Gone with the Wind high on the "greatest movies" lists made by any real film critics. The movie has broad blockbuster appear. It was a sensation and still feels like one. But I'm not interested in sensations like that.
Maybe the movie is the best for what it is, but I personally don't like what it is. That is I'm generally not a fan of epic movies. I'd prefer something more focused. The world is too big for me to comprehend most of the time anyways. I listen to a story to hear something particular and specific. Sometimes I can enjoy epics if they have humor, but this movie mostly lacks it. I don't think all movies need to have a sense of humor, but there needs to be a real reason if it doesn't. This movie could have really used some humor if it wanted to affect me much.
And how contrived are these cuts from people falling off horses to shots of their graves? This is pretty overblown melodrama with so many tragedies occurring more and more rapidly as the movie comes close to the end.
But it's hard not to be drawn in somewhat by many of the spectacular elements. And by the end the melodrama has drained you so much, that it's hard not to feel as weary as some of the main characters to feel their emotions along with them at least a bit.
Rating: 6/10