Gone With The Wind Film Quotes

When it comes to the Civil War, all of our popular understanding, our popular history and culture, our great films, the subtext of our arguments are in defiance of its painful truths. It is not a mistake that Gone with the Wind is one of the most read works of American literature or that The Birth of a Nation is the most revered touchstone of all American film. Both emerge from a need for palliatives and painkillers, an escape from the truth of those five short years in which 750,000 American soldiers were killed, more than all American soldiers killed in all other American wars combined, in a war declared for the cause of expanding "African slavery." That war was inaugurated not reluctantly, but lustily, by men who believed property in humans to be the cornerstone of civilization, to be an edict of God, and so delivered their own children to his maw. And when that war was done, the now-defeated God lived on, honored through the human sacrifice of lynching and racist pogroms. The history breaks the myth. And so the history is ignored, and fictions are weaved into our art and politics that dress villainy in martyrdom and transform banditry into chivalry, and so strong are these fictions that their emblem, the stars and bars, darkens front porches and state capitol buildings across the land to this day.

she was flighty and poor, a French studies major who quoted Simone de Beauvoir. She wiped her runny nose on her coat sleeve when it was snowing, stuck her head out of car windows the way dogs do, the wind fireworking her hair. That woman was gone now. Not that it was her fault. Vast fortunes did that to people. It took them to the cleaners, cruelly starched and steam-pressed them so all their raw edges, all the dirt and hunger and guileless laughter, were ironed out. Few survived real money.

Marian can imagine the plume of herself riding the westerly wind over the Southern Ocean, the bits of teeth and bone sinking at once, a gritty gray film settling on the surface until the chop mixes her in. But she doesn’t know what will happen to the part of her that is not her body. All the times she has brushed against death, she’s never given much thought to what might come after. Now she considers it. She supposes there will be nothing. She supposes each of us destroys the world. We close our eyes and snuff out all that has existed, all that will ever be. But if she could choose, she would ask for lift. She would want to rise from her body and have it be like when she’d first gone up with Trout, as though she were being held aloft by pure possibility, as though she were about to see everything.

Question number four: I read somewhere that you were an actor before you became an author. CC: That sounded more like a judgement than a question. MG: It was. Usually people pick a career in medicine or business to fall back on. With your chosen professions, it's like you decided to sail upstream without a paddle or a canoe. CC: Well, performing and writing have always been the same thing to me. You get to be a storyteller in both fields, and at the end of the day, I suppose a storyteller is what I consider myself the most. MG: Well, la-di-da. I know what you mean, though. I was an actress myself back in the golden days of Hollywood - you know, before all this streaming trash. CC: Would I recognize your work? MG: Did you ever see the film Gone with the Wind? CC: Of course! MG: I supplied the wind. CC: [A beat of silence.} How much longer is this interview going to take?

It is not a mistake that Gone with the Wind is one of the most read works of American literature or that The Birth of a Nation is the most revered touchstone of all American film. Both emerge from a need for palliatives and painkillers, an escape from the truth of those five short years in which 750,000 American soldiers were killed, more than all American soldiers killed in all other American wars combined, in a war declared for the cause of expanding “African slavery.” That war was inaugurated not reluctantly, but lustily, by men who believed property in humans to be the cornerstone of civilization, to be an edict of God, and so delivered their own children to his maw. And when that war was done, the now-defeated God lived on, honored through the human sacrifice of lynching and racist pogroms. The history breaks the myth. And so the history is ignored, and fictions are weaved into our art and politics that dress villainy in martyrdom and transform banditry into chivalry, and so strong are these fictions that their emblem, the stars and bars, darkens front porches and state capitol buildings across the land to this day.

I decided to begin with romantic films specifically mentioned by Rosie. There were four: Casablanca, The Bridges of Madison County, When Harry Met Sally, and An Affair to Remember. I added To Kill a Mockingbird and The Big Country for Gregory Peck, whom Rosie had cited as the sexiest man ever. It took a full week to watch all six, including time for pausing the DVD player and taking notes. The films were incredibly useful but also highly challenging. The emotional dynamics were so complex! I persevered, drawing on movies recommended by Claudia about male-female relationships with both happy and unhappy outcomes. I watched Hitch, Gone with the Wind, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Annie Hall, Notting Hill, Love Actually, and Fatal Attraction. Claudia also suggested I watch As Good as It Gets, “just for fun.” Although her advice was to use it as an example of what not to do, I was impressed that the Jack Nicholson character handled a jacket problem with more finesse than I had. It was also encouraging that, despite serious social incompetence, a significant difference in age between him and the Helen Hunt character, probable multiple psychiatric disorders, and a level of intolerance far more severe than mine, he succeeded in winning the love of the woman in the end. An excellent choice by Claudia.

I understood slavery as bad and I had a vague sense that it had once been integral to the country and that the dispute over it had somehow contributed to the civil war. But even that partial sense ran contrary to the way the civil war was presented in the popular culture, as a violent misunderstanding, an honorable dual between wayward brothers instead of what it was. A spectacular chapter in a long war that was declared when the first Africans were brought chained to American shores. When it comes to the civil war, all of our popular understanding, our popular history and culture, our great films, the subtext of our arguments, are in defiance of its painful truths. It is not a mistake that Gone with the Wind is one of the most read works of American literature, or that The Birth of a Nation is the most revered touchstone of all American film. Both emerged from a need for palliatives and painkillers, an escape from the truth of those five short years in which seven hundred fifty thousand American soldiers were killed, more than all American soldiers kill in all other American wars combined, in a war declared for the cause of expanding African slavery. That war was inaugurated, not reluctantly, but lustily by men who believe property in humans to be the cornerstone of civilization, to be an edict of god, and so delivered their own children to his maw. And when that war was done the now defeated god lived on honored through the human sacrifice of lynching and racist programs. The history breaks the myth. And so, the history is ignored and fictions are weaved in to our art and politics that dress villainy in martyrdom, and transform banditry into chivalry. And so strong are these fictions that their emblem, the stars and bars, darkens front porches and state capitol buildings across the land to this day.

The Bradford Exchange—a knockoff of [Joseph] Segel’s [Franklin Mint] business—created a murky secondary market for its collector plates, complete with advertisements featuring its “brokers” hovering over computers, tracking plate prices. To underscore the idea of these mass-produced tchotchkes as upmarket, sophisticated investments, the company deployed some of its most aggressive ads (which later led to lawsuits) in magazines like Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Architectural Digest. A 1986 sales pitch offered “The Sound of Music,” the first plate in a new series from the Edwin M. Knowles China Company, at a price of $19.50. Yet the ad copy didn’t emphasize the plate itself. Rather, bold type introduced two so-called facts: “Fact: ‘Scarlett,’ the 1976 first issue in Edwin M. Knowles’ landmark series of collector’s plates inspired by the classic film Gone With the Wind, cost $21.60 when it was issued. It recently traded at $245.00—an increase of 1,040% in just seven years.” And “Fact: ‘The Sound of Music,’ the first issue in Knowles’ The Sound of Music series, inspired by the classic film of the same name, is now available for $19.50.” Later the ad advised that “it’s likely to increase in value.” Currently, those plates can be had on eBay for less than $5 each. In 1993 U.S. direct mail sales of collectibles totaled $1.7 billion

There was no mistaking it, in the 1950’s Liberia proudly, reflected its American roots. Flaunting their power, the palatial homes near Monrovia, owned by the wealthy Americo-Liberians, stood out when compared to the hovels most Liberians had to live in. Although they showed their wear, they were direct copies of the many antebellum Southern Mansions of the Deep South in America. Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, these somewhat rundown but grand buildings looked strangely out of place. The best visual description of Liberia would be a low-priced remake of the film Gone With The Wind, having the lead parts taken by Americo-Liberians and the rest played by the indigenous tribal natives. The upper-crust of Liberian society continued imitating the attire and gentile customs of the pre-Civil War era in the American South. In the mid 1950's, Liberia had all the trappings of an American colony stuck in the distant past.

There was no mistaking it, throughout the 1950’s, Liberia proudly brandished its American roots by flaunting the palatial homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean near Monrovia or the antebellum style mansions dominating rubber plantations owned by wealth Americo Liberians who considered themselves privileged. Their homes were closely modeled after the affluent homes of the pre-civil war era in the Confederacy. These beautiful homes stood out when compared to the dirt floor, thatch roofed village homes most Liberians lived in. The best visual description of Liberian architecture,would be in film clips taken from the movie Gone With The Wind.. In the 1950's, Liberia had all the trappings of an American colony stuck in the past. To a great extent it was this great social divide between the indigenous natives and the Americo-Liberians that brought on the two civil wars in Liberia. This aspect of life in Liberia is highlighted in Seawater Two and will be covered in my upcoming book about the history of West Africa. Many of the Americo Liberians including President Talbert, have been killed of displaced. Because of the fierce civil wars in Liberia the coastal ships of the Farrell Lines fleet were sunk in “The Port of Monrovia” and much of Liberia’s antebellum architecture has been destroyed .

I also bought an evening dress suit from a secondhand clothing store in Charing Cross Road. It was double-breasted and in a very heavy, uncomfortable material, and I looked, frankly, stupid in it, but it was the only one I could afford. Miss Leigh announced to us one day that Gone with the Wind was going to be rereleased theatrically, and she requested the pleasure of our entire company at the premiere, which would be my first. And so, also for the first time, I had to wear that tux in public. I had by this time bid farewell to my friends and moved out of the boardinghouse, to slightly nicer digs that were walking distance from the London Coliseum in St. Martin’s Lane. This meant that I would not need to get out of a taxi and walk the red carpet—I knew that I looked idiotic in my tuxedo and wanted to keep a low profile. Inside, there was a champagne reception before the film in the upstairs bar, and my castmates had a field day making fun of me and my shit suit. Evidently, Miss Leigh caught sight of this scene and took pity on me. For all of a sudden, her boyfriend, John Merivale, was at my side, whispering into my ear that he was going to be sitting on one side of Vivien at the screening and that she had requested that I sit on her other side. I was already besotted with her, and this act of kindness only intensified my feelings. The capper was that, once I was seated beside her, I addressed her as “Miss Leigh” and she took my hand in hers. “Patrick,” she said, “you are to call me Vivien.” My erstwhile Irish roommate was right: The memorable experiences were already piling up. One more happened that evening. The film had been running for about an hour when Vivien—I still couldn’t quite believe I got to call her that—turned to me and again took my hand. I could see that she was crying. “I am so sorry, Patrick, but I am going to have to leave,” she said. “So many of these dear people I worked with are now dead, and it is making me so sad. I hope you enjoy the rest of it.” And off she went into the night.

I told her that the plots were all the same, and that the style was pretty terrible. She would answer, ‘Well, if it is a good plot, it will stand being read over a good many times, and the style doesn’t matter as long as you can understand what the characters are doing.

It was Ernie Haller, who had photographed Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, who was solely responsible for the visuals in Mildred Pierce, said Crawford. "Ernie was at the rehearsals. And so was Mr. [Anton] de Grot, who did the sets. I recall seeing Ernie's copy of the script and it was filled with notations and diagrams. I asked him if these were for special lights and he said, 'No, they're for special shadows.' Now, that threw me. I was a little apprehensive. I was used to the look of Metro, where everything, including the war pictures, was filmed in blazing white lights. Even if a person was dying there was no darkness. But when I saw the rushes of Mildred Pierce I realized what Ernie was doing. The shadows and half-lights, the way the sets were lit, together with the unusual angles of the camera, added considerably to the psychology of my character and to the mood and psychology of the film. And that, my dear, is film noir." "Mildred

The survivors of a nuclear war will be able, if they can make their way to Hutchinson, Kansas, and get 200 metres (650 feet) down into the salt-shafts, to retrieve an assortment of objects which have been chosen partly with them in mind. There are seeds of hybrid plants, the files of various commercial enterprises, secret formulae for making brand-name products, food for the treasure-finders, and even folding cots, just in case they bring their babies with them. There is a film library which includes Gone with the Wind, Polly of the Circus, and lots of Buster Keaton.

At the same time, black entertainers have long been rewarded and often restricted to roles that adhere to caste stereotype. The first African-American to win an Academy Award, Hattie McDaniel, was commended for her role as Mammy, a solicitous and obesely desexed counterpoint to Scarlett O’Hara, the feminine ideal, in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. The Mammy character was more devoted to her white family than to her own, willing to fight black soldiers to protect her white enslaver.

In the spring of 1935, an editor at the New York publishing house Macmillan, while on a scouting trip through the South, was introduced to Mitchell and signed her to a deal for her untitled book. Upon its release in the summer of 1936, the New York Times Book Review declared it “one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer.” Priced at $3, Gone with the Wind was a blockbuster. By the end of the summer, Macmillan had sold over 500,000 copies. A few days prior to the gushing review in the Times, an almost desperate telegram originated from New York reading, “I beg, urge, coax, and plead with you to read this at once. I know that after you read the book you will drop everything and buy it.” The sender, Kay Brown, in this missive to her boss, the movie producer David Selznick, asked to purchase the book’s movie rights before its release. But Selznick waited. On July 15, seeing its reception, Selznick bought the film rights to Gone with the Wind for $50,000. Within a year, sales of the book had exceeded one million copies. Almost immediately Selznick looked to assemble the pieces needed to turn the book into a movie. At the time, he was one of a handful of major independent producers (including Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, and Walt Disney) who had access to the resources to make films. Few others could break into a system controlled by the major studios. After producing films as an employee of major studios, including Paramount and MGM, the thirty-seven-year-old Selznick had branched out to helm his own productions. He had been a highly paid salaried employee throughout the thirties. His career included producer credits on dozens of films, but nothing as big as what he had now taken on. As the producer, Selznick needed to figure out how to take a lengthy book and translate it onto the screen. To do this, Selznick International Pictures needed to hire writers and a director, cast the characters, get the sets and the costumes designed, set a budget, put together the financing by giving investors profit-participation interests, arrange the distribution plan for theaters, and oversee the marketing to bring audiences to see the film. Selznick’s bigger problem was the projected cost.

Again. This was the year in which a million people crowded into Atlanta—still alive despite the ashes to which David Selznick had reduced it—for the ceremonial opening of Gone With the Wind. Confederate flags flew everywhere, and hawkers peddled Rhett caramels and Melanie molasses and Tara pecans, and when Vivien Leigh heard a military school band bleating “Dixie,” she said, “Oh, they’re playing the song from our picture.” There was a grand unreality about all the festivity, this celebration of defeat in a war long finished, as though nobody could understand that a much larger struggle had already begun. That September, a group of Selznick’s technicians had been carrying out one of their last tasks, filming the title itself—Gone With the Wind—pulling the camera along on a dolly so that each word could be framed separately, when Fred Williams, the head grip, turned on his radio and heard that Britain had declared war on Nazi

The Confederacy would lose the war in April 1865, but in the succeeding decades would win the all-important peace. The Confederates would manage to take hold of the public imagination with gauzy portrayals of the Lost Cause. Two of the most influential and popular films of the early twentieth century—Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind—fed the country and the world the Confederate version of the war

More recently, the OED has defined nostalgia as a “sentimental longing for the past,” although this definition is imperfect and allows considerable latitude for the negative. After all, a sentimental longing for the past has variously given us Brexit, resurgent right-wing nationalism in Europe and the US, and a Russian presidency that has more than a whiff of tsardom about it. For some, the past may be not only a nice place to visit but also to live. It is, perhaps, the difference between personal nostalgia, which draws on significant memories of family, friends, spouses, even pets, and a more generalized, dangerous nostalgia that peddles idealized fantasies of yesteryear, of a better past that didn’t even exist at the time. Culture as much as politics has a part to play in this, an example being the 1939 film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone with the Wind, whose opening title crawl celebrated “a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields,” a “pretty world” where “gallantry took its last bow,” which required one to ignore the 3,500,000 slaves held in the South by 1860, a situation that meant nine out of ten Black Americans were in a state of involuntary servitude. The title crawl did at least manage to acknowledge the existence of slavery, but only in a somewhat wistful manner: “Here,” it told us, “was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and Slave… A Civilization gone with the wind…