Scarlett O'Hara is willful, vain and extraordinarily tough. The Civil War destroys her world, and she has to get through the war and what comes after. All the while, she is in love with the wrong man and loved by the right one. Hollywood's most ambitious production turned the antebellum South, the South before the war, into mythology.
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 drama, history and romance film directed by Victor Fleming. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (3 narrative and 1 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Godfather uses several of the same techniques.
Setting personal stories against the Civil War or another historical war. The large-scale violence of armies gives context and extra weight to what the individual characters do.
How this film uses it
The war wrecks Tara, scatters the O'Haras and wipes out the social world Scarlett was raised to live in. Nevertheless, the film mostly uses the war as a force that changes people. Its subject is what the war does to Scarlett. The historical destruction is the pressure that shows who people really are. The war is a specific piece of history, and it also acts like a character in the story.
Where to see it
The Atlanta railway depot. The crane shot pulls back over the wounded in the railway yard. You suddenly see the scale of the war: 1 person's catastrophe multiplied until it becomes history.
Digitally placing a fictional character into real archive footage, or blending actors with rebuilt period sets and backgrounds. It looks as if the character was really there in history.
How this film uses it
William Cameron Menzies designed the production and Jack Cosgrove did the matte paintings, which are painted backgrounds combined with live footage. Together, they create antebellum Georgia and Civil War Atlanta with enough visual detail that the period feels lived in. The burning of Atlanta sequences combine real fire with full-scale sets. You believe the spectacle of destruction because the production is so big.
Where to see it
The burning of Atlanta. The real fire from the old RKO sets is combined with the actors' performance. You get to see the historical destruction at full scale.
Taking a character to the opposite of where they started, such as from weak to strong or from decent to compromised. That reversal is what the film is about.
How this film uses it
Scarlett begins as a privileged, shallow girl. She is all social performance and romantic delusion. She ends as a woman who has survived everything (starvation, war, death, failure) through willpower and ruthlessness. The reversal shows who she always was under the social role she was handed to play. The film doesn't present it as her becoming a better person.
Where to see it
Scarlett's vow at Tara: 'As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.' The war destroys everything that hid her true nature, and this is where you see it.
Showing real social hardship and personal failure honestly while still letting love, grief and community matter. The film is openly emotional without pretending things are easy.
How this film uses it
The film does not apologize for how emotional it is. Scarlett's love for Ashley, her grief for Melanie and her final loss of Rhett are all played as full melodrama. They land because the film believes in its emotions the whole way through. The sentimentality is a strength here. It shows the film is committed to treating its characters' feelings as important.
Where to see it
Melanie's death scene. The emotion is turned all the way up. The film has earned the sentimentality through 3 hours of built-up affection for the character.
Questions
Gone with the Wind: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Gone with the Wind use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Gone with the Wind (1939): Civil War as Moral Backdrop, Historical Compositing, Character Arc Inversion and Sentimental Realism.
Who directed Gone with the Wind?
Victor Fleming directed Gone with the Wind, released in 1939. CineCode also covers The Wizard of Oz (1939).
What films are similar to Gone with the Wind?
Films that share techniques with Gone with the Wind include The Godfather (1972), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Forrest Gump (1994), It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
