The Goat Pen

more's the pity

No, no pity. He's never been funny.

I'm re-watching Gone With the Wind for the first time in maybe 15 years.

Visually it's beautiful. Story-wise, it's pretty dumb. For a while it fools you into thinking that it's a historical drama but really, it's a soap opera that happens to be set in the Civil War. Ashley and Melanie Wilkes are impossibly good. I really like Vivian Leigh and she's gorgeous in it, but her character is so over-the-top that's it's unbelievable that everyone around her swallows her every word. Rhett Butler is the only somewhat believable character.

I've never read the book. I've read that it doesn't romanticize the Old South and gloss over slavery quite as much as the movie does.

Still, I can't help liking the flick a little, just because it IS still a beautiful spectacle with none of the CGI-assistence of modern movies. A ton of craftsmanship and hard work went into making the thing.

It is a soap opera. The Civil War was just the backdrop - in the movie and the book. Most movies from that era were less-than-edgy in their delivery.

AlabamAlum wrote:It is a soap opera. The Civil War was just the backdrop - in the movie and the book. Most movies from that era were less-than-edgy in their delivery.

True, but I'm a bit of a classic film buff and I've seen a fair amount of other movies from the same time period and they've held up better. The problem's more in the script than the acting. Scarlett loves Ashley (for some unexplainable reason). Ashley loves Melanie (who's a living saint). Melanie thinks Scarlett's the greatest BFF of all time (for some unexplainable reason). Rhett wants Scarlett. Stretch this over four hours with occasional reminders that there's a war going on.

Dr. Strangelove wrote:So....Iraq. It's turning into a nightmare again

Next year will probably be the year we watch the last American helicopters lifting off from the roof of the Embassy in Baghdad, a la Saigon, April, 1975. The same scene will probably be be played out in Kabul by the end of this year.

All of the "love/romance" stories of that era pure cheese.

Is that eCat in the last frame of that cartoon?

Also, totally disagree about GWTW. If the complaint is that it's a soap opera, you might as well complain that life is a soap opera. And not even that good, in most cases. So that can't be a valid criticism of GWTW as a piece of dramatic art, unless you're willing to criticize well over 50% of any dramatic art ever produced (and maybe you are, but it certainly leaves you with little else to enjoy except zombie flicks and such, and even those have their soap operatic elements). I'm hard pressed to think of many great movies that don't have that same "soap opera" element. Apocalypse Now, maybe, or some other war flick, but I guess you could criticize those types of movies as just another political flick. No, GWTW is one of the timeless great pieces of cinematic (and dramatic) art...

Heh, since he lost, Cantor is now the darling moderate the MSM so adores.

Most of Shakespeare's plays are "soap opera", at least in terms of dramatic elements (family fueds and foibles, etc., often set against a background of larger historical events). Judging it as literature is a different matter altogether, of course. But in terms of the psychological/dramatic elements, and the seemingly simplistic assigning of good guys and bad guys, it's not much different than any afternoon soap opera. That's just life. It's all we've got to work with and pretty much all we're capable of understanding and appreciating...

DSL, in light of your criticism of GWTW, I'm curious what you consider to be great films (or plays or literature). I'm not saying there's not any out there that don't have heavy elements of seemingly simplistic soap opera as their main elements (I mentioned Apocalypse Now and other war fare), and I'm sure some others will occur to me. But for the great most part, that's about all there is for humans to sink their psychological teeth into...

For that matter, what are religion and politics, except a tawdry and mostly boring and childish soap opera?

DSL likes those Jap cartoons

Certainly you could throw in films that are mainly visual and cinematic in their ambition (most of Terrance Malik's stuff, David Lean, any movie of the "spectacle" type), as well as just plain psychologically weird stuff along the lines of David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman. And I like that kind of stuff. But as you yourself correctly noted, GWTW also has the cinematic aspects down (I hesitate to say this but: in spades. Sorry...). But even most of those films have their share of obvious good guy/bad guy elements, as well as basic "soap opera". I mean, what is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf but a soap opera? That just cannot be a serious criticism of dramatic art...

compare it to all the other pre WW2 films and It stands up very well.

I enjoyed couple of gangster movies, Wizard of oz, from that era but cant think of any other movie pre 1950 with that much spectacle.

Toemeesleather wrote:Heh, since he lost, Cantor is now the darling moderate the MSM so adores.

1. Cantor is the only Establishment candidate that has lost to a Tea Party candidate. Yet I keep hearing that the GOP has been "taken over" by the "right wing" Tea Party. Which is it? If the R's are owned and operated by the Tea Party, then why does the Tea party keep losing to the Establishment in the primaries (with Cantor as the lone exception)?

2. If the GOP, which is supposed to be "highjacked" by the "extremist" Tea Party, takes over the Senate in the midterms, would that indicate that the "right wing" message wins when tried?

So now Iraq is asking for us to come back. How about a big Fuck You?

Have you forgotten?

"but cant think of any other movie pre 1950 with that much spectacle."

There were plenty, but they just don't hold up b/c of what we're used to these day thanks to technology. I mean, I loved King Kong when I was a kid, but even then you could tell it was pretty fake. Same with all the monster movies of the 30's, 40's and 50's. I loved em, but I knew it had to be better than that. Then you got Star Wars and everything changed. But even Star Wars seems like a clunker compared to what came after. Still, you can appreciate old movies if you make allowances for their technological limitations. They're still historically valid as great art. Same is true of GWTW, and with that you can even add that the basic elements of drama and human psychology simply haven't changed that much and likely never will. Hell, you can go back to greek tragedies and comedies and the mainsprings of what makes them work psychologically haven't changed at all. Same goes for GWTW...

You have to give Saddam Hussein credit - his armies threw themselves at Iranian guns and tanks and died in droves...well over a million.

Iraqi soldiers now just throw down their guns and run.

And now they have a real republic to guard, too!