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Gone With The Wind-THIS Is What TCM's All About-Yaaayyyy!


daddysprimadonna
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HOW can Scarlett be so obtuse as to not see that Rhett loves her like no other man could,becasue he loves her just as she is? I actually never had anything against Ashley,I think he's attractive in a different way,but anyone could see that he's not the man for Scarlett,nor she the woman for him. Ashley belongs with Melly,and Rhett belongs with Scarlett.

 

 

 

Something about the whole Scarlett/Rhett/Asley/Melly quadrangle makes me think of some Old South/New South sub-plot.Also,the way Scarlett is torn between being who she is(New South),but desiring to be gracious like her mother was(Old South). Ashley and Rhett both seem to have understood it,but had different ways of dealing(or not dealing,in Ashley's case) with it.

 

 

 

If anyone here has ever read any of Augusta Evan's books(Beulah,At The Mercy Of Tiberius),it would broaden the picture of ante-bellum Southern life. These books are contemporary to the times,and some of the few works of fiction written by a Southern woman,though except for one of her books,they don't strictly focus on Southern culture. They're simply written by a Southern woman in a Southern setting.

 

 

 

 

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Scarlett likes Ashley and not Rhett because Ashley is wimpy, and that?s what Scarlet wants because she is a domineering woman. Ashley knows he?s wimpy and that?s why he won?t marry Scarlett.

 

Rhett loves Scarlett because she is not wimpy, but that the very nature of her that gives him the most trouble.

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I honestly never considered Ashley wimpy. I always felt that even before the war,he realised what it was going to mean to the old slow quiet graciousness of Southern life and he just couldn't accept life being different.The realisation defeated him. It's harder on those who are perceptive,in my opinion,than on those who are oblivious. The oblivious ones can just see the obvious and deal with it.The perceptive ones realise what's been destroyed. Rhett was a rare one in that he had the same perceptiveness as Ashley,but he was willing to meet the change and deal with it. But in the end,even Rhett wound up longing for the grace of the lost way of life. Actually,he admitted to realising he would miss what was being lost when he joined the war at the very end,knowing it was a Lost Cause. Actually,even Scarlett in the end dimly realised what Ashley and Rhett had known all along. She begins to realise when at the end,she repeats to Rhett what Ashley said to her that day at the mill,about the slow lazy gracious days before the war.

 

 

 

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I agree, Ashley and Rhett are two ends of the masculine spectrum (well not exactly opposite ends in the Brokeback fashion). Scarlett is a bit masculine herself in a willful way, for that era. I think that's why she ends up **** both men. If the story were to take place today, Ashley would cling to her and Rhett would never give her the time of day.

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Fred,

 

I don't think Scarlett was so much in love with Ashley as she was in love with ideal of Ashley. To her thinking, he was the perfect gentleman: well educated, polite to a fault, probably had never raised his voice in anger to her, somewhat worldly (well, compared to Scarlett's very close knit world), everything a young girl of Scarlett's age (isn't Scarlett still a teenager when the book/movie opens) believes makes up the ideal man.

 

If I remember the book correctly, Scarlett had spent almost all her life (like most Southern girls of that time) completely within the confines of her small town world. Books and an overactive imagination were probably her only window on the world so to speak and Ashley certainly fit the image of the romantic, gentile knight that Scarlett would fancy for herself.

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I agree with that,and yes,she was sixteen when the her story begins. I believe she was barely seventeen when she married Charles Hamilton. Ashley Wilkes was the cultured,well-read and educated,"knight in shining armor" that was a different species of male to her. In the book,her "county" beaus are described,and they are hard-drinking,hard-riding,hunting and shooting types,at home on a horse. The book mentions the Tarleton brothers(there are four in the book) constantly being expelled from college,and that no one blinked an eyelash at it,it was just "boys being boys". The Wilkes/Hamilton clan is considered "different" because they go to college(they actually finish,LOL),make the "Grand Tour" of Europe,have books imported from Europe and New York and Boston,collect and appreciate art,etc. They can ride,hunt,and shoot as well as any other gentleman-they wouldn't be well-rounded gentleman otherwise-but they have that added element of culture that the other county men don't consider essential.So yes,Ashley is intriguing to Scarlett because of that difference.

 

 

 

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In the book,the difference is exemplified even further by describing Twelve Oaks as opposed to Tara and other county homes. Twelve Oaks is the stereotypical ante-bellum mansion,with Greek columns and long galleries around the house,formal gardens with rose bushes laid out in precise French fashion.Tara is a large comfortable home,but it's whitewashed brick,and Gerald had it built before he met and married Ellen,before her refined and genteel taste could have an influence on the style of the architecture.

 

 

 

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Hello,

 

I have not read the book. I don't know if Margaret Mitchell's novel has the same sense of drama but, the movie "Gone With The Wind" is a great example of the 1930's melodramas that TCM viewers know and love.

 

For instance, the scene between Ashley and Scarlett. Ashley has returned from the Civil War, he is splitting rails, Scarlett runs up and asks (major paraphrase), "Tara is going to crap...what are we to do!". Leslie Howard (Ashley Wilkes) launches into wonderful oratory (paraphrase), "I am so weak...Scarlett, you are so strong...".

 

"Melo" moment, eh? Love it.

 

One more thing.

 

daddysprimadonna...my earlier (admittedly cryptic) message? I refer to that beautiful Technicolor! On my TV, the restored Technicolor of "Gone With The Wind" (the 'play' of light and shadow) reminds me of a "Dutch master" oil painting. Maybe even Thomas Kinkade!

 

Rusty

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The whole European class that Ashley and his family, no doubt, represented to all around Twelve Oaks, must have been very seductive. It was so far removed from their every day lives and everything they all wished to aspire to. That it came with marrying within the family, while very impractical in the confines of Southern aristocrats, on the continent had the advantage of being more times removed by all the blood lines. It was probably seen as very contintental to those who knew the Wilkes family and barely batted an eye over such things.

 

And there is Scarlett, wanting so much to be a part of such a class but being on the outside, looking in at such a refined and dignified family. If only she could scale the wall and land the handsome Ashley for herself, surely they would accept her and a world she only dreamed of would be hers for the enjoying.

 

She came so close and in doing so realized that the truth was no where near the myth she had built up her in mind over all those years.

 

What was it John Ford said about the myth and fact......

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I though that was what you meant by "the print",but my mind was going in so many directions thinking about the movie that I wasn't sure.Yes,the color was crisp and clear.

 

 

 

I always felt that Ashley knew that with his upbringing and mentality,the life he had been prepared for,he knew that there wasn't going to be a place in this new world for him,a "gentleman scholar". I'm not sure I consider it weakness-I feel that he didn't want to become the person that he knew he'd have to become to survive in the new reality.Look what it did to Scarlett. She was a survivor,true,but she had to discard any gentleness to do so.Of course,it was pretty much a veneer with her anyway.

 

 

 

I always think that if she'd been stronger physically,Melly might have coped the best out of the main characters.Underneath her demureness and fragility was a core of mental and moral courage that would've allowed her to survive and still manage to maintain the best of the old ways. In the book,she becomes the center of a circle of the "Old Guard",who look to her as a secure constant in the topsy-turvy world they're living in. I think that Ashley also recognised that in her,and it was one reason he would've never left her.

 

 

 

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In the book,Margaret Mitchell explains how the families of the eastern seaboard were considered the old blood,and Georgia and west of it were the new families. A man in the book who is from Mississippi is called a "westerner"! The Wilkes/Hamilton families were descended from eastern seaboard families. Scarlett's mother's family was also,a French descent family by name of "Robillard".Gerald was self-made first generation Irish. So Scarlett is kind of schizo-the gentility and breeding of her mother's side,and the independence and self-reliance of her father's side. I wonder sometimes if that wasn't another euphemism-conscious or subconscious-of the tug-of-war between the Old South and the New South. (sorry, I love to analyze things,but I've seen pettier things from popular culture analyzed-I expect that anyday someone will do their thesis on Britney Spears,LOL).

 

 

 

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