I’ve been amusing myself re-reading Gone With the Wind. The racism in the book is undoubtedly offensive, but it is otherwise a rip-roaring, fantastically good story, whether as a character study (and Scarlett’s quite a character), as a romance, or as a portrayal of a culture falling apart in war and then trying to pull itself back together again. My problem when I’m reading is that I’m unable to separate the characters in the book from those in the movie. When I read about Scarlett, I can’t stop seeing Vivien Leigh in my mind’s eye. Rhett? Clark Gable, of course. Melanie is the lovely (too lovely by the book’s description) Olivia de Havilland, while Ashley is forever the badly miscast Leslie Howard (too old, too British).
My question for you: Putting aside the fact that a story as racist as GWTW would never be made today, I’m wondering whether it’s even possible to imagine remaking the movie today with any of Hollywood’s current crop of known actors? Can you think of anyone out there who could fill those shoes?
Filed under: Hollywood
No, I don’t think it would be possible. You could maybe use George Clooney as Rhett Butler. And now that I pause to think, I can only suggest Reese Witherspoon as Scarlett but she’s getting too old to play a 16-year-old with any conviction. Although in the movie, she’s only a 16 year old girl for about 30 minutes tops, then she’s a matron and immediately a widow.
Melanie and Ashley, well, no one springs to mind. Ashley should be what Florence King dubbed “collie dog aristocracy, everything long and quivering” and I just can’t think of any actresses who could convincingly portray Melanie’s sweetness and steel.
And how on earth could you ever get any self-respecting black actor or actress to portray Mammy or Pork? That’s not going to happen in this lifetime. Or Prissy, for heaven’s sake!
The race-problem with GWTW is that none of the black characters is given a serious, completely human involvement in the story. Demeaned and sluggishly cooperative slaves are stereotypes that actually existed, but do not represent the majority of Africans’ experience or behavior during the Civil War or at any time before. I suppose that this limitation in GWTW could be finessed by a thoughtful addition to the story–perhaps more than one. I should like to see the mammy, too, leave Scarlett in the lurch, and it would be true to history to see Pork reduced to the de facto slavery suffered by most freed American Africans after the war. It would not take much time or effort to accomplish something meaningful with the story.
As for self-respecting black actors–American actors who are intelligent, brave, extraordinarily gifted, and black abound. Many of them have played the most pitiable victims of our culture without demeaning themselves in the least. Some have managed to play the worst sort of human failures, and in doing so contributed to great films–and covered themselves in glory. See Idi in the hands of Whitaker. Imagine what Oprah Winfrey could do as a trusted house slave in Mississippi–one full of fear but with both adult resolve and compassion.
A remake would likely be just another disaster, but it could be something immensely worth while.
I’m trying to think of a remake that has ever equalled the original or even surpassed it. So far, no candidates. Do you have one?
I don’t even remember watching the original.
Rhett: Leo DeCaprio
Scarlet: Kiera Knightly
Ashley: Jude Law
Melanie: Julia Stiles
They must have given up trying to find suitable actors in Hollywood in 1939 too, as three of the main four actors were English.
Which leads to another question: why are Southern characters so seldom played by Southern actors?
I’m not sure Kiera Knightly has the heft for Scarlett, but I think Leo could carry it off. After seeing him in Blood Diamonds, I think he could do that bravura quality. As for the others, hmmmm….
Scarlett: Angelina Jolie
Rhett: George Clooney
Ashley: Jude Law
Melanie: Kirsten Dunst
No, I disagree emphatically. It’s not possible. Today you do not have the studio system that cultivates actors, and you do not have American actors who have earned their acting chops on stage or in journeyman roles. The American ones are mostly lightweights, many of whom got where they are based on nepotism (note the family connections of Ms. Jolie and Mr. Clooney) as much as talent (and the afore-mentioned performers do have talent). The Brits are more groundedm, better traubedm and thus more versatile (Keanu Reeves could not master a British accent for his role in Constantine, so they rewrote the character; Brits like Damian Lewis and Dominic West were able to morph seamlessly into Americans, respectively, in Band of Brothers and The Wire on HBO). But there is no more Hollywood in the sense of a mogul-run studio system that produced the movies of the Thirties. Sic transit gloria mundae.
Uh that should read more grounded and better trained … sorry about being incoherent there …
What you wrote, Z, reminded me again of just how wonderful the HBO series “Rome” is. HBO actually just sponsored it. It’s British made and is a reminder that, while I constantly focus on the Brit’s decline, when it comes to acting, nobody does it better.
It’s the rarified air. And as I said before, California sunshine will rot, well you know the rest.
We ought to start a thread on Rome, the series. I watched every episode. It was a Sunday night ritual. Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus (who actually do make cameo appearances in the historical record) were vivid characters as portrayed by Ray Stevenson & Kevin McKidd. The problem I had with the series is that it departed from historical accuracy, acceptable for a drama, but veered into the lurid, even misogynist.
I think it kept to the big picture, Z. I also think it did a very good job of showing how similar and yet how different Rome was. We know so much about it, and we trace so many Republican ideas to Rome, and yet, as the historical expert said on one of the first season discs, they were completely amoral as we understand morality. Indeed, to the extent they were driven by honor, they were closer to the Arab or Eastern societies, where “face” matters, more than doing the right thing. Also, even though Roman women had more rights than any other ancient women but for Jewish women, it was a misogynistic society.
Having said that, by the second season, I think the producers/directors/writers were getting carried away with depicting how lurid it was. Stamp, the historical expert, did say, though, that the Egyptian court as Antony and Cleopatra declined was an exceptionally debauched place, and that Caesar Augustus used the effeminacy of Antony’s new sensuality (as opposed to just being a Roman stud), as part of the justification for turning on him.
It seems a year has passed since this website has had a comment but let’s please not drop the ball on this one. Gone With The Wind needs to be redone. During the last 40 years I have read this book ten times and watched this movie probably 25 times. I cannot imagine anyone portraying Scarlett better than Vivien Leigh. And Clark Gable was born to be Rhett Butler. But then again PRIDE AND PREJUDICE was done 3 times in the last decade or so and each version was somewhat captivating….each actor playing Lizzie and Darcy were convincing. It has been almost 70 years since this movie debuted. It is time for a remake. And I vote for Gerard Butler as Rhett,
Julia Sawalha would make a fantastic Melanie Hamilton. I’ve just seen her in Lark Rise to Candleford and Cranford and can’t get over how much she resembles the young Olivia De Havilland. I seriously doubt any of the actresses mentioned would truly be Scarlett. Perhaps Megan Fox? Or the excitement of finding an unknown, just like they did when they found Vivien Leigh and the world knew she was the ‘real’ Scarlett! I so wish they would do the most magnificent remake of such a classic. As for the slavery/racism issue, it is a piece of American history, whether people like it or not.
It’s kinda funny that I saw this because I just sent out the following e-mail to my friends yesterday:
With all the remakes in the works (Fame, Clue, Halloween 2, Robocop, Red Dawn, Weird Science,The Karate Kid, and Top Gun), I decided that the end all be all of remakes would be the following. I believe it would make money for no other reason than for people seeing it for the WTF? aspect.
I’m sick today so I have nothing better to do…
GONE WITH THE WIND
STARRING
Shelley Duvall as Ellen O’Hara
Steven Seagal as Gerald O’Hara
Tyler Perry as Mammy
Tyler Perry as Pork
Tyler Perry as Prissy
Tyler Perry as Big Sam
Jenna Jameson as Melanie
Madonna as Belle Watling
Jack Black as Rhett Butler
with
Harvey Fierstein as Aunt Pittypat
and
Paris Hilton as Scarlett O’Hara
That’s hot…
In other words, don’t do it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Whatabout the princess diaries girl as scarlett?