tabuno
09-28-2006, 03:03 AM
Sixty seven years after it was first released, thirty years after its first televised broadcast, and twenty nine years after it was declared by an American Film Institute (AFI) poll declaring that Gone With The Wind (1939) as the greatest American film, I endured watching the 1998 digitally restored movie on VHS tape cassette. By 1998, this movie was bumped to fourth by AFI placed behind Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), and The Godfather (1972), and edging out Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Wizard of Oz (1939) that was released the same year as Gone With The Wind .
Based on this first viewing of the classic, I can't say that I can sincerely state that Gone With The Wind has stood the test of time. While this movie appears to be a monumental and paradigm-setting movie, it still looks like a struggling new art form in development that would not peak until years later. What was startling was the integration of both stage production and real setting cinematography making the movie look uneven and by today's standards artificial in appearance. Many of the scenes evoke the production standards that eventually laid the groundwork for grand musical productions such as West Side Story (1961) and Cabaret (1972), and Sweet Charity (1969) that provided even grander visual impact in terms of consistency and uniformity of cinematography. The acting again has the appearance of a struggling experimental art form transitioning from stage theatrical production to a more subtle and natural film performance that began to be experienced in such movies as Lawrence of Arabia twenty-three years later and The Great Escape (1963) twenty-four years later.
What Gone With The Wind achieved was a comprehensive outline of what was to come by demonstrating certain forms of film production that would be copied, imitated to this day. However, historical film-making would continue to improve and get better as experience with the art form flourished. In terms of finished products that owe some of their qualitative value to Gone With The Wind that I consider to be superior in terms of their sensory and literary impact include:
Pride and Prejudice (1995 television mini-series).
Dances With Wolves (1990)
Schindler's List (1993)
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
One of the strongest comparisons to Gone With The Wind and having an even more powerful impact on me in terms of historical depictions and relational upheavals would be:
House of Mirth (2000).
Even Excaliber (1981) had a more riveting, powerful energtic raw cinematographic aura based on many years of improvement in production values and understanding the medium of film. But ultimately it's Dr. Zhivago (1965) that truly addresses the superlative historical piercing of the heart and visual sweep of film (except a few weak scenes) compared to Gone With The Wind .
Based on this first viewing of the classic, I can't say that I can sincerely state that Gone With The Wind has stood the test of time. While this movie appears to be a monumental and paradigm-setting movie, it still looks like a struggling new art form in development that would not peak until years later. What was startling was the integration of both stage production and real setting cinematography making the movie look uneven and by today's standards artificial in appearance. Many of the scenes evoke the production standards that eventually laid the groundwork for grand musical productions such as West Side Story (1961) and Cabaret (1972), and Sweet Charity (1969) that provided even grander visual impact in terms of consistency and uniformity of cinematography. The acting again has the appearance of a struggling experimental art form transitioning from stage theatrical production to a more subtle and natural film performance that began to be experienced in such movies as Lawrence of Arabia twenty-three years later and The Great Escape (1963) twenty-four years later.
What Gone With The Wind achieved was a comprehensive outline of what was to come by demonstrating certain forms of film production that would be copied, imitated to this day. However, historical film-making would continue to improve and get better as experience with the art form flourished. In terms of finished products that owe some of their qualitative value to Gone With The Wind that I consider to be superior in terms of their sensory and literary impact include:
Pride and Prejudice (1995 television mini-series).
Dances With Wolves (1990)
Schindler's List (1993)
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
One of the strongest comparisons to Gone With The Wind and having an even more powerful impact on me in terms of historical depictions and relational upheavals would be:
House of Mirth (2000).
Even Excaliber (1981) had a more riveting, powerful energtic raw cinematographic aura based on many years of improvement in production values and understanding the medium of film. But ultimately it's Dr. Zhivago (1965) that truly addresses the superlative historical piercing of the heart and visual sweep of film (except a few weak scenes) compared to Gone With The Wind .