Gone with the Wind Movie - Essay Example

?Film Analysis Cinema has implemented historical events as crucial plot elements as early as the Silent Era. While history has been incorporated intofilm as long as the filmic medium has existed, in large part it has been shaped, muted, and perverted to fit social trends and more engaging narrative presentations of events. It is for these reasons that film presents a bi-polar source of historical scholarship: while it has engaging impact and immediacy, it generally does so at the expense of accuracy. Throughout the trajectory of American film, it is difficult to find a film with as much cultural impact and historical articulation as Gone With the Wind. The film has assumed its rightful place in the pantheon of American film for its sweeping depiction of the events surrounding the Civil War. Still, it’s clear that in keeping with Hollywood trends the film bends and shapes history to meet its narrative ends. This essay considers Gone With the Wind’s depiction of historical events, and examines the effect they have in the film’s overall ideological message. One of the major areas in which Gone With the Wind demonstrates various degrees of historical accuracies is the articulation of African-Americans and the 19th century African-American throughout the film. When viewing Gone With the Wind the audience will become aware of limited reference to the Ku Klux Klan and to the incendiary word ‘nigger’. Even as the original novel and screenplay contained references to these objects, they were removed by producer David Selznick after receiving the first copy of the draft. While one might not believe that this indicates a significant historical inaccuracy as they represent instances of withholding information rather than articulating it in a wrong way, upon further inspection it’s clear that neglecting this material constituted a significant gap in the actual depiction of 19th century Southern existence. After the Civil War the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated a significant presence in the Southern states. In response to screenwriter Howard, Selznick indicated, “A group of men can go out to 'get' the perpetrators of an attempted rape without having long white sheets over them and without having their membership in a society as a motive" (Leff). In these regards, it appears that the primary concern in implementing the Ku Klux Klan was it being referred to as an organization; one can surmise the fear was that references could be used as a motivation tool for existing Ku Klux Klan organizations. While these concerns held reasonable points, it seems clear that as they do hold this incendiary power, they also represent a significant historical inaccuracy. As civil rights concerns sought to conceal this aspect of American history, they may have actually contributed to understandings of 19th century existence as not being as oppressive and organizationally challenging as in reality they were. In addition to Selznick’s deletion of reference to the Ku Klux Klan, deletion was made to the word nigger. There were a variety of reasons behind this deletion and it wasn’t as clear-cut as many might imagine. After speaking with a broad array of black leaders Selznick determined that the use of the word would not be appropriate in the current social climate. One interesting side-note is that the film censorship board reviewed these concerns as well. In these regards, “The movie industry's censors had ruled only that "nigger" "should not be put in the mouth of white people” (Leff). One notes that the contemporary acceptable social incarnation of the word nigger in media outputs also is divided along these race lines, indicating the power the film industry plays in shaping socially acceptable views and interactions regarding race. Still, similar to the deletion of the Ku Klux Klan, one must consider the extent that the deletion actually contributes to civil rights, or whitewashes a particularly troubling period in American history. In these regards, one considers the contemporary controversy over the deletion of the same term in public school copies of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. While it’s recognized that the term has a troubling and incendiary impact, when placed in its proper context, with a politically conscious perspective on race, it is difficult to discern how the deletion of the term actually contributed to the presentation of a more real and historically accurate Gone With the Wind. In addition to the overriding deletions of these aspects of race, the film is also recognized as not accurately displaying the lives of African Americans during the time period in question. One of the first such instances occurs in regards to the depiction of slavery in the film. In these regards, Catherine Clinton writes, “blacks pick cotton despite the fact that plantations never harvested cotton in spring. (We know it's spring because the drama opens with news of the April 1861 attack on Fort Sumter)” (Clinton 132). Even as the reshaping of the scene seems culturally insignificant, it does align itself with the earlier trends of historical deletion that indicate the willingness of the film to reshape history to meet its narrative ends. In examining this scene other researchers have also considered that the scene ends when the foreman yells it’s quitting time. In these regards, it’s been indicated that, “the in-joke about who exactly is in charge of the field is a standard Hollywood gag. The question of whether the slaves are plowing or harvesting the field is moot when it is understood that regardless of their actions, they are conventional comic types” (‘The Depiction of African-Americans in Gone With the Wind’). Essentially, what this last statement is arguing is that while the film’s producer Selznick is acknowledging that the film is shifting historical accuracies to match its narrative presentation, it is doing so in self-reflexive ways that indicate the historical inaccuracies are not racially or culturally relevant. This is a different understanding of the muted historical instances of ‘nigger’ and ‘Ku Klux Klan,’ which are argued to represent significant shortcomings within the film’s overriding narrative message. While race constituted a major area of historical concern in Gone With the Wind, the film also has a number of notable historical concerns in relation to 19th century life and social relations. Even as the film oftentimes bended or deleted history to suit its narrative ends, it’s clear that in many instances great efforts were made to achieve historical accuracy. Kurtz notes that, Producer David O. Selznick included many historical authenticities to create the period look of the Old South during the course of the Civil War. Selznick hired Atlanta historian Wilbur Kurtz to counsel on manners, dress, garments, ambience, black accents, and weaponry. He found artillery units that represented the cannons of the period, field pieces with 1862 stamped on the muzzles, and several metal artillery buckets of the period (Kurtz 142). As this passage notes, the depiction of historical accuracy in Gone With the Wind was given significant attention. Still, one must consider that in large part the implementation of history in the film was done so not with the intention of capturing the reality of the 19th century racial climate, but of using period costumes, mannerisms, and military supplies as a means of creating greater viewer involvement in the film’s narrative. In these regards, one must consider that there is an ambiguous relation between the historical depiction of events, and a new sort of sugarcoated Hollywood mythologizing that comes to pervade seemingly every issue of controversy. In addition to the steps Gone With the Wind took to ensure historical accuracy, there were a number of elements where the film failed to adequately capture authentic 19th century experiences. While many of these historical inaccuracies may seem slightly pedantic, they are significant in that they indicate that in many regards the film does not function as an important historical resource for 19th century existence. In these regards, Barnes indicates that the film oftentimes includes 20th century props and sets within a 19th century context (Barnes). When Ashley Wilkes is brought into a room after being injured a lamp with a chord is depicted. Similarly, various instances of light bulbs occur at sporadic instances in the film. 20th century technology is also demonstrated with the inclusion of a radio tower at once instance. Furthermore, Southern soldiers refer to one particular conflict as the Battle of Bull Run when in reality the conflict did not take on that name until much later in history; at the time the conflict was referred to as the Battle of Manassas. In these regards, it can be argued that rather that a true period piece, the film is more accurately understood as a 20th century impressionistic account of 19th century existence. In conclusion, this essay has considered the depiction of history in the film Gone With the Wind. The essay considered the nature of both deletions and muting history in regards to the lives of African Americans. The essay also considered overarching historical depictions of 19th century Southern existence. Ultimately, in considering these elements the essay has argued that while the film makes an effort to capture historical accuracy, it fails as an accurate 19th century resource as it actively shapes controversial aspects of history to conform to narrative conventions. References Barnes, Andrea. (2009) History and Hollywood: Gone With the Wind & A League of Their Own. New York: Templeton. Clinton, Catherine. "Gone With the Wind." Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. Mark C. Carnes, ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1995, p. 132. Gone With the Wind. (1939) prd. David Selznick. Kurtz Wilbur. (1983). “How Hollywood Built Atlanta,” Gone with the Wind as Book and Film, ed Richard Harwell. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press/ 142. Leff, Leonard. (2009). Gone With the Wind and Hollywood’s Racial Politics. The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99dec/9912leff.htm ‘The Depiction of African Americans in Gone With the Wind’ Virginia. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma99/diller/mammy/gone/depiction.html Read More