Gone with the Wind
1939 · Directed by Victor Fleming
Original language: English
- drama
- war
- romance
The story
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
What it’s like
Saturated Technicolor the color of red clay, sunset orange and bottle green, with lush Georgia landscapes framed in wide, painterly shots and sweeping camera moves that pull back to show ruined, smoke-filled Atlanta. Interiors glow in candlelit amber and soft window light, while the war sequences burn in hellish reds and black smoke. The score swells with Max Steiner's full orchestral sweep, grand and emotional, punctuated by quieter passages of piano and strings. It is a melodrama at heart: romance, grief, and the decline of a genteel world, with long running time and an episodic, stately rhythm that rewards settling in for an evening. Violence is largely off-screen or implied, but war scenes, fire, a hospital and bereavement carry real weight, and the film's depiction of slavery and its plantation world is period-typical, paternalistic and now deeply uncomfortable. Best suited to viewers who love classic Hollywood spectacle, sweeping romance and costume drama, and who can watch with an awareness of its racial politics.
More films like Gone with the Wind
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Gone with the Windand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
