‘Gone With the Wind’ at 75: Celebration, censure

FILM MOVIE QUOTES In this photo released by New Line Cinema, Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable, and Scarlett O'Hara, played by Vivien Leigh, dance in this scene from "Gone With the Wind," in 1939. (AP)
Clark Gable Vivien Leigh This photo provided by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment shows Clark Gable, left, as Rhett Butler, and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in a scene from the film, "Gone With the Wind." The film's 75th anniversary will be celebrated over the next week, with special screenings and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's release of a lavish new limited-edition box set. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
Film-GWTW 75th Mammy in a scene from the film, "Gone With the Wind." McDaniel's performance won the first Oscar awarded to a black actor. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
Cara Varnell Cara Varnell, an independent art conservator who specializes in Hollywood film costumes, works with the green velvet gown from the film "Gone With the Wind," Tuesday, July 19, 2011, in Austin, Texas. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas is working to preserve five of the dresses acquired with the collection of film producer David O. Selznick in the 1980s. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Gone With the Wind Dresses This undated handout photo provided by the Harry Ransom Center shows conservator Cara Varnell using an opti-visor to study the green curtain dress jacket worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind". The iconic dress and Scarlett's burgundy ball gown from the 1939 film were saved from deterioration by a $30,000 conservation effort by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The dresses are on display for the first time in nearly 30 years at London's Victoria and Albert Museum as part of a Hollywood costume exhibit. (AP Photo/Harry Ransom Center,Pete Smith)
Gone With The Wind Buttons on the green velvet gown from the film "Gone With the Wind" are seen, Tuesday, July 19, 2011, in Austin, Texas. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas is working to preserve five of the dresses acquired with the collection of film producer David O. Selznick in the 1980s. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Cara Varnell Cara Varnell, an independent art conservator who specializes in Hollywood film costumes, examines the feathers on the burgundy ball gown from the film "Gone With the Wind," Tuesday, July 19, 2011, in Austin, Texas. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas is working to preserve five of the dresses acquired with the collection of film producer David O. Selznick in the 1980s. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Dress A dress worn by actress Cammie King Conlon in the movie "Gone with the Wind". The museum opens an exhibit of memorabilia from the "Gone With the Wind" movie that belongs to James Tumblin. He's the former head of Universal Studios makeup and hair department. His collection is considered the largest private holding of "Gone with the Wind" memorabilia. (AP Photo/North Carolina Museum of History)
Dress A dress worn by actress Vivien Leigh in the movie "Gone with the Wind". The museum opens an exhibit of memorabilia from the "Gone With the Wind" movie that belongs to James Tumblin. He's the former head of Universal Studios makeup and hair department. His collection is considered the largest private holding of "Gone with the Wind" memorabilia. (AP Photo/North Carolina Museum of History)
ODD Gone With the Wind This undated image provided by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin shows the wedding dress worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin says if it cannot raise $30,000 to restore five of Scarlett O'Hara's gowns, they may be too fragile to display at its exhibit to mark the 1939 movie's 75th anniversary in 2014. (AP Photo/The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin)
ODD Gone With the Wind Designer Walter Plunkett holding feathers with a sketch of Scarlett O'Hara's burgundy ball gown on the table. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin says if it cannot raise $30,000 to restore five of Scarlett O'Hara's gowns, they may be too fragile to display at its exhibit to mark the 1939 movie's 75th anniversary in 2014. (AP Photo/The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin)
Obit Ann Rutherford This undated image from the film "Gone with the Wind" provided by New Line Cinema shows, from left, Ann Rutherford, Vivien Leigh and Evelyn Keyes. Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister Carreen in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," died at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, June 11, 2012. She was 94. (AP Photo/New Line Cinema)
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MIKE CIDONI LENNOX
AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As its 75th anniversary approaches, “Gone With the Wind” is again being celebrated as a timeless movie classic. But now, even the film’s distributor acknowledges the Civil War epic’s portrayal of slavery is dated and inaccurate.

“Gone With the Wind” was screened this weekend in 650 theaters nationwide, will be broadcast Monday by Turner Classic Movies and will be reissued Tuesday in a lavish home-video box set, including a music box, an embroidered handkerchief and more than 8 hours of bonus features.

To produce something new for yet another “GWTW” box set, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment brought in filmmaker and historian Gary Leva. “‘There’s been a ton of stuff about the making of the film,'” Leva recalls the studio telling him. “‘Can you give us a deeper look at how the movie portrays the Civil War?'”

Leva responded with the 30-minute documentary “Old South/New South,” which drew a surprisingly frank conclusion for a studio-commissioned commemorative project: One of the world’s all-time great films also has great shortcomings.

In the documentary, which is included in the box sets out Tuesday, historians discuss how the film has perpetuated mythology dubbed “The Lost Cause,” which proposes Southern involvement in the Civil War was solely for noble reasons, including defense of states’ rights.

“But when you get right down to it, what state right are you talking about?” asks University of North Carolina history professor David Goldfield in the Leva film. “You’re talking about the right of individuals to own slaves.”

Based on Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 best- seller, “Gone With the Wind” is the fictional story of a spoiled Old South socialite, Scarlett O’Hara. But the real-life war that serves as her story’s backdrop looms too large in the film for many to overlook.

“(Slavery) is such a component of the movie, and the characters who you are rooting for are oblivious,” noted film critic and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

Actress Hattie McDaniel, who played Scarlett’s devoted nanny Mammy, a slave, became the first African-American actor to be nominated for and win an Academy Award.

Nevertheless, the film’s portrayal of black characters has been criticized ever since the world premiere in Atlanta on Dec. 13, 1939.

“In ‘Gone With the Wind,’ slavery is portrayed in the most benevolent terms,” Leva said. “Characters like Mammy are looked at like family members. And there’s no hint at any sort of wrongdoing — the slave masters do nothing in the film that seems inappropriate.”

At least the movie got one thing right: Tomorrow is, indeed, another day; Hollywood is finally offering a grittier, more honest view of slavery in films such as “12 Years a Slave” and “Django Unchained.”

“Compare ‘Gone With the Wind’ and ‘Django’ — very different films about the same period of time, with a lot of the same imagery, dealt with in very different ways,” observed actress Kerry Washington.

The “Scandal” star is one of the leads in 2012’s “Django,” Quentin Tarantino’s violent pre-Civil War saga, which includes such scenes as an owner forcing his slaves into gruesome death matches.

Washington said the final scene in “Django,” a plantation in flames, is a direct reference to “Gone With the Wind.” But she added “GWTW” “has a really important place in the history of filmmaking, and in the history of African- Americans at the Oscars, in the history of messaging and how we portray history. And all of that is worth talking about.”

Leva, a Texan who said he considers himself a Southerner, acknowledged he’s conflicted over “Gone With the Wind.”

“For me, as a film, just looking at it cinematically, it is a masterpiece,” said Leva. “But politically? … If you were to do the film today, you wouldn’t make the film nearly as romantic. You’d make the film much grittier. And you could show, I think, in a balanced way, that some Southern slave owners were, perhaps, kind human beings, and some of them were brutal.”

And that’s precisely what director Steve McQueen did with this year’s best picture Oscar-winner, “12 Years a Slave.”

“The fact that the 75th anniversary of ‘Gone With the Wind’ comes in the same year that ’12 Years a Slave’ wins — it makes it, for a change, a little bit simple,” Mankiewicz said. “Like, ‘Look what kind of progress we’ve made?’ And if somebody has, what, 6 1/2 hours to view both? That’s a pretty good way to get a little cross-section of studying America and studying Hollywood simultaneously.”

So what is McQueen’s take on “Gone With the Wind”?

“I haven’t seen it,” he said.

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Online: http://www.gonewiththewindmovie.com/

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Mike Cidoni Lennox at www.twitter.com/CidoniLennox

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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