GONE WITH THE WIND

In the previous post, I’d written about Vivien Leigh, her life, and her works. One of the most famous movies, if perhaps, not the MOST famous movie she has starred in is Gone with the Wind. In the following post, I’m going to analyze parts of Gone with the Wind, such as the setting and characters, and put the movie into context.

Also, I’m not going to give too much away, so if you want to know more, go see the movie!

Above is the movie poster for Gone with the Wind. The fire in the background represents the passion shared between the two main characters.

Trailer & Clips

The trailer above should provide somewhat of a summary! 

Setting & Context

Gone with the Wind takes place before, during, and after the Civil War. The story is told from the point of view of a young woman named Scarlett O’Hara. Scarlett was born privileged during the Antebellum South. The Antebellum South translates into the Pre-war South, how life was before the Civil War. Scarlett O’Hara’s character faces the challenge of dealing with the change of an old way of life into a new one.

In the movie, the Old South is depicted in a very positive way. The slaves on the plantations are shown to be happy, the plantation owners are shown to be kind, and the Yankees are shown to be cruel and savage. Real life, especially in regards to the life of the slave, was nothing like the sketched-life in Gone with the Wind.

In the movie, the idea of the Old South is met with nostalgia. Life during this time is portrayed as noble, fancy, abundant, and lavish. This may have been partly true, but real life was harsh and cruel. In order to understand the setting in Gone with the Wind, it’s important to know some key points in regards to the Antebellum South.

The Antebellum South

Above is a picture of a richer plantation house.

The economy is the Old South was primarily based on agriculture. An abundant amount of crops were grown in the South, but the main crop was cotton. Cotton was exported to New England (the north), England, and other parts of the country. In order to harvest this cotton, and feed the demand for the material, labor was required. This labor was slave labor. The South used slave labor because it was cheap, and the slaves were considered to be expendable. As you can imagine, this power dynamic of master and slave led numerous abuses and human rights violations.

The overplanting of crops began to deplete the land. What determined wealth, which determined class, was a number of slaves a master owned. Slaves were objectified and became legal property in the South. Many times they were ripped from their families and sold at auction. They were forced to work long hours, in the sticky humid air, and succumbed to sickness. Gone with the Wind doesn’t show this face of the Old South. Neither does the movie mention how the women were all too often attacked and raped by slave owners.

Gone with the Wind does show a division of status among the slaves. In the movie, there are those who work in the fields and those that work in the home. Those who worked in the home were called “domestics” and did various housekeeping duties. They were under the constant watch of their masters and had hardly any privacy. The domestic slaves usually bonded with the children, and this is shown in the movie with Scarlett’s  close relationship with her ‘mammy’.

The takeaway is that Gone with the Wind is fiction, especially in regards to the depiction of the Old South. Even though there were ‘kind’ masters, there was still an uneven power dynamic which led to many waves of abuse on human beings. The depiction of the Old South in Gone with the Wind is fictional and portrays a mythical image of the Old South that never existed in reality.

The Characters

There are the main characters and there are the supporting characters. The protagonist of the story is the high-spirited Scarlett O’Hara. The whole plot of the story revolves around her love for Ashley Wilkes, and her relationship with Rhett Butler.

Minor characters include Melanie Wilkes, mammy, and the sisters and the protagonist’s former cousins. However, the main story is formed around the dynamic between the three characters in the diagram.

 Scarlett O’Hara is a vivacious individual. She grew up privileged and was spoiled by her parents. She had a close relationship with her father, whom she was the most similar character-wise.

Above is a screen of Scarlett O’Hara looking up at Rhett Butler.

Before meeting Rhett Butler, she was already in love with the noble Ashley Wilkes, who was going to be married to his cousin Melanie Wilkes. She was very young when the movie began, and thus very naive. During the film, her mind is entirely occupied with Ashley despite the many suitors who are vying for her attention.

Her fixation on Ashley Wilkes is a naive crush. She doesn’t actually love Ashley but the fictionalized image of him that she concocted in her mind. This spells disaster for her relationship with Rhett Butler.

Rhett Butler is an interesting character. At the beginning of the movie, he is framed as a flirtatious playboy who only cares for profit. Although this isn’t entirely false, he ends up revealing a kinder and nobler side of his personality as the film progresses.

He has a lot in common with Scarlett, and he knows this. This is one of the reasons why he is intrigued with her because the both of them are similar. He is “no gentleman”, and is unlike the rest of his southern peers. Like Scarlett, he has a magnetic personality, and the opposite sex is drawn to him. However, unlike Scarlett, he is worldly and far wiser.  The war has a profound effect on him. He becomes caring, and empathetic, especially with the birth of his child Bonnie Blue Butler.

His relationship with Scarlett is a passionate one. Although he has many affairs and is able to charm many women, he stays loyal to Scarlett until tragedy tears the two apart.

Ashley Wilkes is Scarlett’s primary love interest. This is established in the first scene of the movie where she is getting ready for the barbeque. Her mind is constantly occupied with this character, even when he is married to his cousin Melanie Wilkes (cousins married, ew). Ashley is a noble, and quiet man. He is framed to be honorable, and kind. He is very much the opposite of Rhett Butler, who is rebellious and vivacious. Ashely’s character is very different from Scarlett’s. Ashely is the ideal Southern gentleman, and Rhett Butler is not. 

Ashley certainly thinks that Scarlett is attractive, and is tempted by her several times. However, he doesn’t actually love her like he loves Melanie. Scarlett carries the false belief that deep down, Ashley is in love with her. She realizes the truth about his feelings when it’s too late.

Melanie Wilkes, or Melanie Hamilton, is Scarlett’s main rival for Ashley Wilke’s affections. She is Ashley’s cousin (NASTY!) and decides to marry him when he asks for her hand. Melanie and Ashely have very similar personalities, much like Scarlett and Rhett are two of a kind. Melanie contrasts with Scarlett O’Hara’s personality in many respects. Melanie is unselfish and forgiving. Scarlett is very selfish due to her privileged upbringing.

Ashely remains loyal to Melanie throughout the entirety of the movie, and this fuels Scarlett’s jealousy towards the girl. Melanie gets the man that Scarlett has lusted yearned for. Melanie remains oblivious to Scarlett’s affections for a long time and assumes that Scarlett’s concern over Ashley’s wellbeing is harmless.

Melanie considers Scarlett to be a friend and remains her friend until the end of the movie.

>The minor characters are not going to be talked about in this blog post.

 

Final Thoughts

Gone with the Wind is a difficult movie to examine because it has so many layers. There is a lot more write about, and I might do so in later posts!

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Sources for Info in Regards to the Antebellum South:

“Conditions of Antebellum Slavery .” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html.

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Vivien Leigh 🎥

I watched Gone with the Wind this past weekend for the nth time, and I’ve decided to write a brief tribute to the actress Vivien Leigh.

A Brief Biography of Vivien Leigh

Vivien Leigh as a young woman. 

One thing is for sure, Vivien Leigh lived an interesting life. Although she grew up with plenty of wealth, loving parents, and access to stellar education, her life was riddled with problems. Some of the facts I discovered about the actress, especially in regards to her mental health, were quite surprising.

Vivien Leigh was born with another name (like many stars are) as Vivian Mary Hartley. She grew up privileged in Darjeeling India during the British occupation. So certainly, her life wasn’t hard, to begin with, she had many resources at her disposal.

Her parents were loving and quite blessed to have such a beautiful young girl for a daughter. Vivien received plenty attention from her mother, which is very important for a young child. However, she was soon sent to a Convent School of the Sacred Heart, which enforced a strict and orderly education. Even so, Vivien still thrived and became close with the nuns who coddled her and adored her. This was no less due to her beauty. In fact, she was known to be the most attractive girl in school according to her peers.

Vivian was an intelligent girl who had many interests. She tried many things, and always was eager to learn and improve herself. Furthermore, what set her apart was her intensity. She was incredibly ambitious for a woman so young, and when she set her mind on something, she usually got it. What inspired her to want to become an actress was watching Eleonora Duse (1858-1924) and Elisabeth Bergner (1897-1986) perform on stage. From then on, her main goal in life was to become a renowned actress.

“I am going to be a great actress.” -Vivien Leigh

Vivien was well learned and cultured. She traveled and attended convent schools in Italy, France, and Germany. Soon afterward, she began pursuing her dream by attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She fell in love with a lawyer, Leigh Holman, who was 32. She was 19 years old at the time. Soon, she gave birth to her one and only child, Suzanne Farrington.

Her relationship with her daughter wasn’t the best, although she certainly loved her daughter as most parents would. Soon after she was married, she met Laurence Olivier, who was also an aspiring actor at the same time. They began dating. Laurence Olivier was also married, whose wife was expecting a child. Thus, they began a scandalous affair. However, in those days it wasn’t unusual for a married man to have a mistress. In this case, Vivien also had a man on the side.

Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh divorced their former spouses and were married in 1940. They divorced in 1960 due to marital issues. 

Vivien soon changed her name from Vivian Mary Hartley to the name everyone knows her by, Vivien Leigh.

Hence, Vivien Leigh was beginning to form an image of herself, one that would soon lift her to stardom.

Gone with the Wind (1939)

One can’t mention Vivien Leigh without mentioning Gone with the Wind. It was the highest grossing film of its time, and it was filmed in color, which was a novelty back then. After the film was released to the public, Vivien became a sensation.

Gone with the Wind was based on the romance epic of the same name. The novel was insanely popular during its time and still is. The protagonist of the novel and the movie was Scarlett O’Hara who was ambitious and fiery to a fault (a lot like the actress who played her).

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara 

Vivien Leigh was determined to score the part but had a problem. The main problem was that she wasn’t American. The plot takes place in the Old South during the Civil War. The director intended to get an American actress to play the role of the spirited southern belle. Having a British actress play the role would be controversial, especially since many people felt an emotional connection with the book.

“Most of us have compromised with life. Those who fight for what they want will always thrill us.”-Vivien Leigh

Many actresses auditioned for the role. Many big names such as Bette Davis auditioned and were expected to get the part. The auditions were long and brutal. Retakes happened over and over, and many actresses were cut. Vivien was really the last option, and she fit the role perfectly. Her appearance and her personality fit the character to a T.

Gone with the Wind premiered on December 15, 1939. Vivien Leigh won an Academy Award for Best Actress at the young age of twenty-six.

Here’s a trailer for Gone with the Wind (if you haven’t already seen it):

Based off the book of the same name, Gone with the Wind is a romantic epic of the old south, and how that way of life was “gone with the wind” after the Civil War. 

However, all this hard-work was beginning to take a toll on both her bodily and mental health. Despite her strength of character and spirit, her health wasn’t the best.

 “I’m a Scorpio, and Scorpios eat themselves out and burn themselves up like me.” -Vivien Leigh

 She was known to have bipolar disorder; she smoked (this was the norm); she had issues with nerves; insomnia (which can contribute to depression), and a respiratory ailment which eventually led to tuberculosis. Yet, she still worked extremely hard, picking up role after role after role.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

“Stelllllaaaaaaaaaaa!” – Stanely Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire

The first time I saw A Streetcar Named Desire was middle-school. I liked the movie and was rather shocked by Marlon Brando’s appearance.

Marlon Brando in A StreetCar Named Desire (1951) and The Godfather (1972)

Vivien won another Oscar for Best Actress for her role in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She played the troubled Blanche DuBois, who uses her gentle nature and genteel manners to hide her troubled psyche from others. Vivien Leigh, just like with Scarlett O’Hara, also had a lot in common with the protagonist in this movie. The character was mentally troubled, just like she was, and the character also hid behind a facade, a lot like Vivien did.

Here’s a trailer for A Streetcar Named Desire: 

End of Life & Death

Following a Streetcar Named Desire, Vivien Leigh starred in several successful theater productions, which contributed to her renown as a talented actress. However, she ended up having a miscarriage in 1953 and divorced Laurence Olivier in 1960 due to marital issues. Even so, she still picked up roles in various productions.  In 1963, she earned a Tony for her role in the musical Tovarich and won a third Oscar for Ship of Fools in 1965.

While preparing for another role, she was hospitalized and died due to tuberculosis on June 8, 1967 at the age of 53.

Photograph of an older Vivien taken by Roloff Beny, 1958 

Vivien Leigh b. November 5, 1913

 

Sources:

“Vivien Leigh 2000 Biography.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 June 2017, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeaPhgKxVqQ.

“Vivien Leigh.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017.

 

 

Gene Kelly

As a kid, tween and teen, I used to have a soft spot for old movies. By “old” movies, I’m referring to movies from the 1940-1960 time frame. I remember running home, rushing through my assignments so that I could watch one of these films. I’m not sure when it started. Perhaps it was during middle school when my grandma would stay during the afternoon and watch Bonanza. Out of curiosity, I would sit down for an episode, and slowly I became obsessed. This was perhaps the gateway which led me to explore vintage movies.

Gene Kelly was a dancer, a singer, and an actor. He starred in many wonderful films. I first became acquainted with Mr. Kelly when I watched Singin’ in the Rain which is perhaps one of the best musicals ever made. Below is the most well-known song from the musical: ☂

I watched a plethora of Gene Kelly films, those of which include Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, Cover Girl, For me and My Gal, Summer Stock, On the Town, Anchors Aweigh, and Take Me Out to the Ball Game. I’ve even watched a non-musical of his called Christmas Holiday.

Granted, I haven’t watched some of these movies in a couple years. Even so, they’re still ingrained in my memory as being some of the best films I’ve had the pleasure to watch. Not necessarily because of the plot. Some of the plots of these films, like in Anchors Aweigh, aren’t necessarily the best. No, what drew me in were the emotions I felt, and also, there are some iconic scenes in these movies.

Take, for example, this scene from Anchors Aweigh:

(If any of you watch Family Guy, in one of the episodes, Jerry the Mouse was replaced with Stewie)

Notice the Navy-ish uniform? This film was made in 1945 probably in an effort to lift moral (or to show happy propaganda). Anyway, what I really like about this scene, in particular, is that it carries a positive message!

Another amazing scene comes from An American in Paris. Gene Kelly plays an (American) artist who sells his art on the streets of Paris. He meets a wealthy art dealer, who happens to like him, and begins selling his art more frequently. He ends up falling in love with a young (much younger than he is) woman.

Here’s the scene:

Gene Kelly and Georges Guetary are both singing about the woman they love. Little do they know, they are in love with the same girl (GASP)!

Another movie that Gene Kelly acts in is a Christmas Holiday. I remember watching the movie when I was in 8th or 9th grade. Christmas Holiday is a noir film, and Gene Kelly doesn’t sing or dance in this one. *

There are lots of great movies that included Gene Kelly. For starters, I suggest that you watch Singing in the Rain and An American in Paris.

Cheers!

☕

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Girl with a Pearl Earring is three things. First, there is a painting, then a book, then finally, a movie.

I remember seeing the movie in eleventh grade. I was seventeen at the time, and the second semester was coming to an end. I was taking European History, and in the class, we learned about the Italian & Northern Renaissance, the Catholic Reformation, and all kinds of topics. My teacher really liked this movie in particular and lent me the film. I took the movie home, watched it, and loved it.

The summer of 2016, I decided to read the book and compare it with the movie. I enjoyed the book immensely. There are a lot of fine details that weren’t present in the film. But, like all films, small details could only be picked up from multiple viewings.

The painting, which inspired the book and the movie, is by Johannes Vermeer. Johannes Vermeer was very successful at manipulating light, objects, and perspective. His paintings are reflections of himself, his desires, his wants, his subconscious. His technique was painting shapes and figures with the shades first. He did this before adding the color on.

The Movie 

The movie, which is a work of historical fiction, stars Scarlett Johansson and takes place in 1664-1676. Northern Europe was highly religious during this time. The films main protagonist, Griet, was raised a protestant. The family she serves is Catholic. She is forced to get a job once her father loses his eyesight. She meets Vermeer when she begins working as a maid for his family. Eventually, she becomes his temporary assistant before her relationship with the family turns sour. 

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), directed by Peter Webber

The Book 

The movie is based off the book. So, the plot is basically the same. However, there is far more character development and fine details the book has that the movie does not.

Above is a photograph of my personal copy of the book. The author is Tracy Chevalier, published 1999. 

The Painting 

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer is the source of inspiration that spurred the creation of the book and the movie.

Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665 by Johannes Vermeer

Nobody knows who the girl in the painting is. She looks back at the viewer with a look of innocence. The dark background is like a shadow, and it looks as if she is slowly descending into the background while being consumed. The look on her face, the dark background, her posture (which is a combination of coming & going) render the painting to be mystifying. Who is the girl? This is the question that the book and the movie are based on.

If you want to see more works by Johannes Vermeer, here’s a link to the MET  website.

—-> https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/verm/hd_verm.htm

Sources: Imdb.com & Wikipedia