The Most Beautiful

The Most Beautiful (一番美しく(Japanese), Ichiban utsukushiku?, aka Most Beautifully) is a 1944 film (docudrama) written and directed by Akira Kurosawa.

The film is set in an optics factory during the Second World War. The U.S. film Twelve o'Clock High was directly influenced by it.

It is considered by many to be a war propaganda film from wartime Japan, but it does show Kurosawa's developing talent as a director. Inexpensive copies with English subtitles are easily found online. No examples of the original movie poster exist for this film. What is shown in place of the poster are newspaper advertisements. Some of the backgrounds are valuable for showing conditions in war-time Japan. At one point the Marine Corp theme song "Semper Fi" is heard in the background. When the women complain of Japan's enemies, they list Britain ahead of America, but it was the USA that was preparing to invade. One of the leading actresses in the film later became Kurosawa's wife.

The central struggle is to achieve very high production targets, but much of the drama centers upon workers in the dorm/factory setting hiding their illnesses to prevent being sent home to get well. It's an interesting insight into the challenges people faced inside a society that, like all countries at the time, was fully mobilized for military production. Kurosawa's story also shows Japanese management approaching the issues of quality and productivity from a scientific standpoint. It is a revealing look into management science generally and the motivating factors for the workers are not negative views of Americans and Europeans, but the desire to meet the challenges they face as individuals, workers, and citizens.

The climax of the film occurs when a supervisor cannot locate a lens that did not pass quality control, and therefore must re-check an entire production lot. As she re-checks each lens, footage of Japanese fighter pilots looking through the finished product to aim their machine guns is shown. Another high point in the drama occurs when a worker is urged to return home to care for her father after her mother has died. She politely refuses, explaining that her mother had urged her to continue her work at the factory before she died. The supervisors do not enforce the request of the father to have the daughter return home, which appears to be a break with tradition. Kurosawa's use of the camera to frame this scene is characteristic of his later work

Gabbeh (film)

Synopsis:
Gabbeh is a brilliantly colorful, profoundly romantic ode to beauty, nature, love and art. Mohsen Makhmalbaf originally traveled to the remote steppes of southeastern Iran to document the lives of an almost extinct tribe of nomads. For centuries, these wandering families created special carpets – Gabbeh – that served both as artistic expression and autobiographical record of the lives of the weavers. Spellbound by the exotic countryside, and by the tales behind the Gabbehs, Makhmalbaf’s intended documentary evolved into a fictional love story which uses a gabbeh as a magic story – telling device weaving past and present’ fantasy and reality.
On the banks of a stream, an old woman and her husband are washing their Gabbeh. From this carpet comes forth a beautiful young woman – aptly named Gabbeh – who shares her epic tale: she is desperately in love with a mysterious horseman who follows her clan from after. Though her father has agreed to let her marry the man, season after season, the horseman follows Gabbeh—always present, always waiting, howling songs of love after nightfall.
Delicately interlaced with this simple and touching love story are the people whose lives are shaped by the rhythms of nature, and who instinctively express the joys and sorrows of life through song, poetry, and the tales they tell in their brilliantly-hued weavings.













Title:
Screenwriter, Editor, Set Designer, Sound Designer & Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Director of Photography: Mahmoud Kalari
Sound: Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Executive Manager and Still Photographer: Mohammad Ahmadi
Music: Hossein Alizadeh
Cast: Abbas Sayyahi
Shaghayegh Jowdat
Hossein Moharrami
Roghayyeh Moharrami
Parvaneh Ghalandari
1996, Color, 72 mins.


International Sales: MK2 (France)












Festivals:
1) Cannes International Film Festival, France 1996.
2) Festival of Iranian films in Royal film Archive , Belgium 1996 .
3) Melbourne International Film Festival , Australia 1996 .
4) Montreal International Film Festival, Canada 1996.
5) Toronto International Film Festival, Canada 1995.
6) Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada 1995.
7) New York Film Festival ,USA 1996.
8) Tellurid International Film Festival, USA 1996.
9) International Film Festival of Vienalle, Austria 1996.
10) Tokyo International Film Festival, Japan 1996.
11) Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada 1996.
12) Sao Paulo International Film Festival, Brazil 1996.
13) Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Argentina 1996.
14) Sitges International Film Festival, Spain 1996.
15) The 14th Turin International Festival of young Cinema , Italy 1996.
16) London International Film Festival, UK 1996.
17) Lisbon International Film Festival, Portugal 1996.
18) New Delhi International Film Festival, India 1997.
19) Goteborg International Film Festival, Sweden 1997.
20) The 10th Singapore International Film Festival, Singapore 1997.
21) Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Czech 1997.
22) Sochi international Film Festival, Russia 1997.
22) Hamburg International Film Festival, Germany 1997.
23) Film From the South’97 Film Festival , Norway 1997.
24) Phnom Penh Film Festival , Combodia 1997.
25) The Festival of Iranian Films at The Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto, Canada 1997.
26) The Festival of Iranian Films at Montreal Conservatoire ,Canada 1997.
27) The Festival of Iranian Films at The Pacific Cinematheque, Vancouver, Canada 1997.
28) The Festival of Iranian Films at The Northwest Film Center , Portland, 1997.
29) The Festival of Iranian Films at The Film Center of Chicago, USA 1997.
30) The Festival of Iranian Film at The Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA 1997.
31) Museum of Fine Arts of Boston ,USA 1997.
32) Museum of Modern Art of New York, USA 1997.
33) Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, USA 1997.
34) The Festival of Iranian Films at The UCLA Film Archive, USA 1997. “A Tribute to Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
35) The Festival of Iranian Films at Cleveland Cinematheque, Canada 1997.“A Tribute to Mohsen Makhmalbaf”
36) Festival of Iranian films at Stockholm, Sweden 1997.
37) Philipines Film Festival , Philipin 1997
38) Copenhague Film Festival, Denmark 1997
39) Hambourg Film Festival, Germany 1997
40) Oslo Film Festival , Norway 1997
41) The Festival of Iranian films at Cinematheque Bonn , Germany 1997
42) Taipei Film Festival , Taiwan 1997
43) Dhaka Film Festival , Bangladesh 1998
44) Polfilm Stockholm , Sweden 1998
45) Buenos Aires Film Festival , Argentina 1998
46) Gotebourg Film Festival , Sweden 1998
47) Vienne Film Festival, Austria 1998
48) Beirut Film Festival , Lebanon 1998
49) Ljubljana Film Festival, Latvia 1999
50) Festival of Iranian film Festival at Rabat, Maraco 2000.
51) The Festival of Iranian Films in Hungary, 2000
52) The Festival of Iranian Films in Leipzig, 2000.
“ A retrospective of Mohsen Makhmalbaf”

International Awards:

1. Best Artistic Film – Tokyo Festival (Japan) 1996.

2. One of 10 selected films by critics – Times (USA) 1996.

3. Best Director – Sitguess Festival (Spain) 1996.

4. Special Critics Award - Sitguess Festival (Spain) 1996.

5. Best Asian Feature Film – Singapore Festival (Singapore) 1997.














Director’s view:
I think Gabbehs are like good Iranian films. What attracts foreign audiences to Iranian films is their simplicity and their re-creation of nature. These are the same two qualities that have made Gabbehs popular in foreign markets as well. In western countries, people are overwhelmed by difficult, complicated, and rough situations. When they go to the movies they don’t want to see the same complexity and violence they are surrounded by. That is why they are fascinated by simple Iranian films that remind them of nature. Iranian Gabbehs also have a sort of naturalistic poetry about them that gives you a sense of tranquility. You feel that you have spread nature on the floor of your living room.
“Gabbehs have soothing designs somewhat similar to the simple paintings of children. Unfortunately, out of every ten thousand Iranians, only one might have a Gabbeh at this house, or out of every one thousand Iranians, only one might have heard of it. What did we used to sit on forty years ago? A carpet or a kelim. And what is a carpet, except some wool and color and the labor of the weaver? And what is wool, except the labor of a herder? And what is color, except the labor of girls picking flowers in the fields? And don’t we make all of these out of our own labor our own materials here? Gabbeh is one of the most original types of nomadic carpets.


GABBEH(script)

Unspecific surrounding, Day.
(A green gabbeh is being carried by the stream. A wolf howls in the distance. A girl against the blue background of a gabbeh, whose silhouette is a blue gabbeh, carrying a jar of water on her shoulder, turns her head and smiles when she hears the howl.)

A small spring, Day.
(An apple falls from a tree into the spring. An old woman in blue and an old man carrying a gabbeh on his shoulder and a basket in his hand slowly walk towards the pond.)
Old woman: You were groaning with pain last night. I could see you couldn’t go to sleep because of your sore feet. I won’t allow you to wash the gabbeh any more.
Old man: Let me wash it.
Old woman: I have rubber boots. I’ll do it.
Old man: So give me the rubber boots too.
Old woman: You have sore feet. You’d better make the food. I’ll wash it to entertain myself for a while.
(The old man goes to the fire pit where food is being cooked. The old woman spread the gabbeh on the ground. Woven in the rug are a male figure in black and a girl riding in tandem on a white horse. The old woman touches it wistfully.)
Old woman: May I wash the gabbeh?
Old man: My pretty lady, who else but you is to wash it, after all?
Old woman: (touches the gabbeh) My pretty gabbeh, why are you blue? Why are you silent? Why won’t you tell me who that horseman is?Let me know at least who has woven you.
(A gentle breeze blows. A girl in blue appears through the gabbeh. A canary flies off a branch. The old man raises his gaze from the fire. He is astonished.)
Old man: Fantastic! She is as beautiful as the full moon.
Old woman: What is your name, my young lady?
Girl: Gabbeh. (She puts her hand in and out of the limpid water of the spring. Drops drip from her fingers.) What a clear water! Won’t you wash me?
Old man: Whom we’d wash if not you, Gabbeh Khanum?
(The blue gabbeh is immersed in the transparent water of the spring. Now the old woman is alone, scrubbing it with her feet.)
Old woman: May I rest my arms on your young shoulders? I’m old. I no longer have the energy.
Girl: (Who is again there, takes the old woman’s hands and puts them on her shoulders) You are welcome.
Old man: You seem so familiar to my eyes. What is your father’s name?
Girl: His name is warp. His name is warp and weft. There he is.
(Insert of nomads on the move. The girl’s father, on horseback, is leading the caravan.)
Girl’s voice: That’s my father. He is a nomad. We are Qashqais. We can’t feel at home anywhere. Even if we did, my father would set out a caravan so that we’d stop falling in love with any place. I fell for a loved one, a rider, a strange voice, someone like an illusion, who was following our caravan like a shadow so to take me away with him.
Old man: (excited) Were I young enough, I would come to win your hand. Your father is a good fellow.
Girl: Don’t be fooled by her appearance. He’s ill-temperd.
Old woman: (with her feet on the gabbeh, her hands on the girl’s shoulder) That much for your father. What about your mother? Is she kind? Beautiful?
Girl: No. The tribesmen say my father is so sulky ’cause my mother is so ugly. There she is.
(Insert. The girl’s mother is whisking a milk goatskin to make butter.)
Girl’s voice: She is Sakineh, my mother. I’m her eldest daughter.
Old man: Give me the rubber boots so that I can wash the gabbeh.
Old woman: (who is now alone) You have sore feet. You’ll have a bad time if you put them in the water. I’ll wash it myself.
(The old man walks away from the fire to the pond. They are alone again, though the old woman’s arms are still stretched in the air, as if on the imaginary girl’s shoulders. The old man rubs his hand on the gabbeh.)
Old man: Look how beautiful it is now that you have washed it! I fell for it once again.
Old woman: (as if to the girl standing in front of her.) He once again forgot me as soon as his eyes were set on you.
Old man: (as if to the girl standing in front of her.) This old woman is even jealous of herself. Gabbeh Khanum! Gabbeg Khanum! Isn’t anyone in love with a girl as beautiful as you are?
Old woman: You were the one who was in love with me, when you were young.
Old man: (rises and turns his back to the old woman who is standing in the pond, with her arms stretched in the air) What a damned fool I was when young.
Old woman: (as though complaining to the girl standing in front of her) Look how cruel he can be.
(The girl caresses her own cheek with the old woman’s hands. A wolf howls. The girl gazes at the crest of the mountain in the distance. So does the old woman. A rider in black on a white horse appears at the top of the mountain. The old woman turns to the girl.)
Old woman: Then why does his voice sound like that of a wolf?
Girl: That’s a secret between him and me. He says he is mad for me. Then why don’t you come if you really are?
(Wolf howl.)
Old woman: If you’re really in love, why don’t you elope with him?
Girl: My father has vowed to kill me if I did.
Old man: (with his eyes full of tears from the smoke of the fire) I’d rather be killed than pestered all along by you.
(Wolf howl.)
Girl: He is saying we’d better go off with each other. Should I?
Old woman: (stretches the girl’s arms onto her shoulders and keeps them there.) Don’t do that. Your father would kill you if you did. You’d better first talk with him.
Girl: My father wouldn’t speak to me because my granmother is ill. My uncle is to arrive from the town to take her to the doctor. My father says he’d let me marry him when my uncle arrives. But he’ll be mad by then.

A mobile school in the plain, Day.
(A cock crows. Fade in to a plain full of palms. The white tent of the mobile school is amidst the palms. The uncle, an elderly man with a white bag on his shoulder, walks towards the school tent. The pupils are answering to the teacher’s questions in unison. The uncle enters the tent. The teacher calls them to stand up. The uncle in his turn allows them to sit down.)
Uncle: Where is here?
Children: The tribal school of Fars Province.
Uncle: Where does Fars Province belong to?
Children: Iran.
(A small girl shakes a bell hanging from the neck of a goat. The pupils rush out of the tent. Now the uncle is standing before the blackboard, facing the class.)
Uncle: What’s this colour?
(He stretches his right hand out of the frame. Insert of tulips. His hand enters the frame.)
Children’s voice: Red.
(The uncle’s hand grabs as though the red flowers in the tulip prairie. Cut to the blackboard. A bunch of red flowers is in his hand.)
Uncle: The redness of the tulips. Now, what’s this colour?
Children’s voice: Yellow.
(Insert. His hand grabs as though the yellow flowers in the prairie. Cut to the blackboard. A bunch of yellow flowers is in his hand.)
Uncle: The yellowness of the wheat farm. And what’s this colour? (Stretches his arm towards the blue sky.)
Children’s voice: Blue.
(His hand. Blue to the wrist, returns to the frame of the blackboard.)
Uncle: The blueness of the clear sky of God.
(Puts his hand down and out of the frame. Insert. A blue sea with his hand in foreground pointing at it.)
Uncle: What’s this colour?
Children’s voice: Blue.
(His hand, drops dripping from it, returns to the frame of the blackboard.)
Uncle: The serene blue of the seas. Now, tell me what this colour is.
(Stretches his arm towards the sun.)
Children’s voice: Yellow.
Uncle: the yellowness of the shining sun. The yellowness of the sun and the blueness of the water turn into the exquisite greenness of the grass.
(Puts his yellow and blue hands above his head. Cut to a green prairi, with his hand entering the frame.)
Children’s voice: Green.
(Back to the frame of the blackboard. There is some green grass in his hand.)
Uncle: Exquisite green. (Puts his yellow hand, with the bunch of red flowers in it, above his head. Cut to sunset.) The yellowness and the redness of the sun are orange at the sunrise and sunset.

Nomads’ caravan in the plain, Day.
(The uncle is moving in the opposite direction of the caravan.)
Girl’s voice:The spring arrived, but the uncle didn’t. In the spring the whole tribe decamped save our clan. My father said we had better wait for the uncle to arrive to take the ailing grandmother to the town. But she was dead when he arrived. My father buried her in an all-green graveyard.
(Insert of a green prairie, with the uncle’s yellow and blue hands entering it.)

The family’s black tents, Day.
(Three black tents. Sakineh is whisking the milk goatskin to make butter. Other women are baking bread. Children are playing with small goats. The uncle reaches the tents.)
Uncle: Hello everybody.
Sakineh: Hello.
Uncle: You remember me, don’t you?
Sakineh: I don’t
Uncle: (takes off his hat) And now?
Sakineh: You’re my husband’s brother.if you’re married, then why are you travelling alone?
Uncle: I’m still too young for marriage. No woman gets married to a child.
Zeinab: Hello, brother.
Uncle: hello, Zeinab Baji. How is everything? I’m surprised you remember me.
(The clan jovially gathers round the uncle to greet and welcome him.)

At the small spring, Day.
Old man: (raises his head from the fire on which the food is being cooked) Your uncle has arrived, Gabbeh Khanum. You’re going to get married soon.
Old woman: Go to ask your uncle to convince your father.
Girl: He doesn’t remember me. I know he’ll ask me if he’s my father’s or my mother’s brother.

The brother’s black tents, Day.
Uncle: (to Zeinab) Is this your child?
Zeinab: You’ve been so long absent that you hardly know your nieces and nephews.
Uncle: Now I’ll show you that I know everybody well enough. Zeinab, you stand on this side of the tree. Sakineh, you on the other side. That child of zeinab’s on her mother’s side. That child of Sakineh’s goes to his mother.
(The uncle makes his nieces and nephews stand on either side of the tree.)
Girl’s voice: The uncle gathered everybody under the tree that shows our family. When a child is born into the family, a new branch grows on it, and when one from our clan passes away, a branch of it falls off.The grandmother remembered which branch stood for what member of the family.
Uncle: I can tell who’s who, can’t I?
Children: No.
Uncle: What is the correct row?
(The children appropriately move to the side of their mothers.)
Children: Now this is OK.

At the small spring, Day.
(The girl and the old woman are sitting at the pond with their arms round each other’s shoulder.)
Girl: You see? He didn’t ask anything about me. He didn’t even mention my name. All he wanted to know was to see the grandmother before he returns to the town.

The brother’s tents, Day.
(The uncle goes from the family tree to the grandmother’s black tent.)
Uncle: Where’s my mama? Where’s my Naranj Khanum? Mama ! Mama Naranj! Your abbas is back. Where are you?
(The mother’s black tent is empty save for the framework of a gabbeh that has not been started and a dog that wags its tail for the uncle.)
Girl’s voice: You are too late, uncle, your loved one vanished.
Sakineh’s voice: She wanted to weave that gabbeh so to send it to the town for your wedding.
(The uncle is overcome by grief. Insert of the grandmother’s grave in the green prairie. The uncle and the girls are standing at it. Inserts of green prairies undulating in the breeze and the girl’s fingers weaving gabbeh. The sorrowful lullaby of a woman could be heard. The background of the gabbeh is being woven in green.)

At the small spring, The mobile school, Yellow prairies, Day.
(Red flowers are being carried by the stream. The girl in blue picks them from water. She is crying. The old woman tries to cheer her up.)
Old man: The mourning period is over. Now it’s wedding time.
Girl: It is wedding time, but not my wedding. My father says the uncle has grow old without getting married. First his wedding, then mine.
(She turns her head and takes the flowers in his hand out of the frame.)
Congratulations uncle, take them. You’d better arrange your wedding as soon as possible.
(The uncle’s hand takes the flowers and puts them before the blackboard.)
Uncle: The redness of the tulips. What is the sound you are hearing, kids?
Children’s voice: A sparrow’s.
(The old man takes a sparrow from a nest and puts it out of the frame. The uncle’s hand takes it to the blackboard.)
Uncle: Sparrow. (He puts a wheat sheaf on the sparrow and takes it out of the frame over his head. Looks skyward.)
O Almighty!
Thanks to Your yellow
This humble fellow’s sparrow
Was turned into a canary.
(He takes a yellow canary into the frame and let it go. Cut to a yellow prairie through which the caravan, now being led by the uncle, is on the move. The girl, a blue gabbeh on her shoulder, looks back every time she hears a wolf howl.)
Girl’s voice:The uncle had dreamed that he would find his mate by a spring; a girl that would sing like a canary. My father went to every family in the clan to seek the hand of several girls for him. All of them were beautiful, but none would sing like a canary. Our caravan called at every spring it knew. But no girl that would chirp like a canary was found at them.

An oasis, Day.
(The caravan reaches an oasis. A chiled is thirsty. The uncle inquires an old man weaving a rope.)
Uncle: Where is the spring?
Old man: Wherever you happen to hear the sound of water.

A larg spring, Day.
(Carrying a goatskin on his shoulder, the uncle is listening for the sound of water in the plain. He hears someone sing. He traces the voice to a spring amidst verdure. It is a girl singing while washing dishes at the pond.)
Uncle: Fine. The fountain of water and song.
Allahdad’s daughter: Hello.
Uncle: Hello. What us your name?
Allahdad’s daughter: I’m Allahdad’s daughter.
Uncle: I was looking for water but I discovered song. What a beautiful lyric! I don’t remember to have heard it before.
Allahdad’s daughter: I composed it just last night. No one could have heard it before.
Uncle: You mean you composed it just the night before?
Allahdad’s daughter: That’s true.
Uncle: You yourself composed it?
Allahdad’s daughter: That’s true.
Uncle: Are you a poetess?
Allahdad’s daughter: No, I’m Allahdad’s daughter.
Uncle: Could you please repeat it?
Allahdad’s daughter: At the upper end of the spring it is me,
At the lower end of the spring it is me.
The stone in the pond is me.
My beloved passes from here,
I am like a partridge in his hand,
I am several pieces in one.
Uncle: Did you compose this piece for your beloved?
Allahdad’s daughter: I don’t have a beloved.
Uncle: Then why? Aren’t you married?
Allahdad’s daughter: Well . . .
Uncle: It’s getting late. How old are You? (The girl remains silent.) Would you get married if someone proposed marriage?
Allahdad’s daughter: It depends on who my lot of life may turn out to be.
Uncle: Suppose I . . .
Allahdad’s daughter: (stops washing things.) If I marry you, how violent would you go when you get cross with me?
Uncle: I won’t get violent. When and if I’m sore at you, I get depressed and recite poems.
Allahdad’s daughter: What sort of poems?
Uncle: (Puts his hand in hand out of the water, drops dripping from it.) I’ll recite:
I am the thirsty one, you are the running water.
I am fatigued, you are full of strength and energy.
I am aged, old and emaciated,
You are a flourishing branch on a tree.
Allahdad’s daughter: I accept to marry you, because I liked your poem.
(Sakineh arrives with the thisty child.)
Sakineh: (to the uncle) We’ve been waiting for you. This baby is dying of thirst.
Uncle: I go with Allahdad’s daughter and will be back while you are filling this goatskin.
(The uncle takes the utensils and follows Allahdad’s daughter. Sakineh fills the goatskin with water. When it is full, the uncle is back with Allahdad’s daughter and carries a red gabbeh as her dowry. The caravan is by now gathering round the spring.)
Uncle: I went to have Allahdad’s consent to my suit. I myself read the sermon to marry her daughter and this for the sweet of the wedding.
(The old woman, the old man and the girl have been watching the scene from the small pond.)

Various plains, At the small spring, by the pond, Day.
(The caravsn is moving in the plain, with the newly-wed bride among them. The girl in blue who has a blue gabbeh on her shoulder turns her head when the wolf howl is heard on and off. The caravan camps somewhere to shear the sheep’s wool, spin it and dye it with the flowers small girls pick from the prairie. Once the rider in black tries to approach the camp to steal the girl, but he is kept at bay by ferocious shepherd dogs. The wool is dyed and spread in the sunshine, but the girls have to collect them hurriedly as it begins to rain.)

Beside Naghsh-e Rustam, Day.
(The plains are suffused with the green of the verdure. Colourful wools are spread on the roof of black tents. A wedding ceremony. The dance of handkerchiefs in the hands of children. The bride milks a goat. Older girls are weaving gabbeh. The uncle spreads the red one his bride has brought as dowry.)
Uncle: Why have you woven a rider on your gabbeh, Allahdad’s daughter?
Allahdad’s daughter: Once I thought my luck would come to me on horse back.
Uncle: A young luck would take home his bride on horse, not an old one.
(He stands in front of the mirror to prepare himself for the wedding. Looking at himself, he whispers a poem ruefully.)
I can hear the looming disaster of old age
As I see my hair turn white.
(Goes to his bride.)
The folk have no keen eyesight,
And all the better they have none;
Otherwise they could see a grave beyond every cradle,
And a looming grief in every merrymaking.
Allahdad’s daughter: Why are you reciting poems? Are you cross with me?
Uncle: I am now past fifty-seven
Alas, how rapidly and futilely it all went away.
Though my body is old and my hair is white,
I have a heart full of longing, full of hope.
My body is as cold and silent as a prison,
My soul as lively as a vivacious child.
(The uncle beging to dance to the rhythm of the shoulders of the gabbeh-weaving girl. Now everyone is dancing. Even the old man at the small spring is dancing for the girl in blue. The wedding scene is being woven on gabbeh. The caravan passes by a river the bank of which is covered with gabbehs all along. A tent is set up for the newly-weds on the river bank. They wave hands and handkerchiefs for a caravan passing by.)
Girl’s voice: The uncle’s wedding was woven on gabbeh. Our clan left the uncle and his bride for their honeymoon on the carpet-washing river bank.

At the small spring, Day.
(The weeping girl is sitting by the pond. The old woman is not around.)
Old man: Why are you crying. Gabbeh Khanum?
Girl: I have to wait a lot longer. My father has said I should wait for my mother’s childbirth before I get married.
Old man: He had promised you to have it after your uncle’s marriage, hadn’t he?
Girl: Now he has changed it to after my mother’s childbirth.
Old man: When is it supposed to be, this month?
Girl: When we have long decamped, when we have gone long ways, when we toiled a lot, when we have passed the water.

The river bank, Day.
(The caravan reaches the river bank. Woman blow up skins and men make a raft with the inflated ones to pass the stream. Wolf howl.)
Girl’s voice: Girls blew into the skins, while men, the uncle and my father fastened them below a raft, and boys placed the lambs and kids on its safe spots where they would not fall off. And we herded the flock past the stream, with my mother working before all of us. But there was no sign of delivery pain in her.

At the lake, Mountains, Valleys, Ponds, The small spring, Day.
(The caravan is on the move beside the lake. A hen lays an egg into the hand of a girl who takes it out of the frame and dorps it. It lands in the hand of the girl in blue.)
Girl: (joyfully) It’s the time.
(Fog cloaks the caravan. Sakineh, in labour pain, walks into the fog. Girls are weaving gabbeh. As women gather round the mother, the uncle disappears in the fog.)
Uncle: Life is colour.
Weaving girls: (in chorus) Love is color.
Uncle: Man is colour.
Weaving girls: (in chorus) Woman is colour.
Uncle: Child is colour.
(The figure of a child is being woven in gabbeh while the cry of an infant fills the air. Now the egg is in the hand of the old man. The girl in blue is beside him. The old man is crying.)
Old man: (to the girl in the blue) You never gave birth to a child. I very much want to have a baby.
Old woman: (goes away jealously) I go and I’ll never be back.
Old man: You could go to hell and stay there. (Turns to the girl.) the oldie is gone, Gabbeh Khanum. Would you like to go off with me?
Girl: But my father’ll kill us.
Old man: Don’t be a liar, Gabbeh Khanum. Lying is a sin. Tell me the truth. You don’t love me, do you?
Girl: I swear I love you.
Old man: I bet you’re lying. Your father isn’t round here. You are a liar.
(The old woman is back and passes the kid she is carrying to the old man. The girl is not there.)
Old woman: Here you are. This kid for you. Stop nagging.
Old man: (embraces the kid) How beautiful is this kid! Has it had its milk?
Old woman: No.
Old man: (lets the kid go) Poor creature, go have your milk.

Sheep-pen, Day.
(the kid, baaing, runs into the fold. The newly born infant is crying. Sakineh is milking the sheep. Kids are bleating behind the closed fence of the fold. When Sakineh takes the milk to her baby, the kids and lambs rush in and start to suck their mother’s teats. The figure of a kid sucking a nanny-goat’s teats is being woven on the gabbeh.)

The small spring, Day.
(The girl in blue, weeping is sitting by the pond. The old woman is not around.)
Old man: You said you would feel better if you washed the gabbeh, didn’t you? Then why are you crying?
Girl: I have to keep waiting and waiting. My father isn’t around. My uncle isn’t around. My mother isn’t around. Everyone has gone to the town. The uncle’s wife is to have a baby. I have to take care of the sheep and the cildren. A sheep is struck by cold. My sister Sho`leh is missing.
(a sick sheep is moaning under a heap of wool. Sho`leh falls off a cliff when running after a kid. The gabbeh-weaving girls weave rows of black against the background of the sunset. Now the mourning girl and the old woman, both in blue, are bitterly ululaling for Sho`leh.)

Snow-covered mountains, Villages near oilfields, Day.
(The rider in black is following the caravan in the deep-cold weather. The girl in blue has the blue gabbeh on her shoulder and looks back when she hears the wolf howl. Thw flock’s dog is watching her. The girl leaves a red scarf for the rider and puts a ball of snow on it to prevent it from being blown away by the wind.the rider reaches the red scarf, takes the snowball and rubs it on to his hands. The girl in blue tries to warm her cold hands by blowing on them. Cut to the columnn of fire rising from the gas valves of oil rigs. There is a small fire in every house of the village near the oilfield.)

Near the oilfield village, Night and day.
(The girl is sleeping under a gabbeh. The uncle is near her. The wolf howls. She decides to escape but when notices that her uncle is watching her returns under the gabbeh and goes back to sleep. The wolf howl is answered by the dogs barking. The dawn sets.)
Girl’s voice: I was being watched by the girls during the day and by the men during the night, leaving me no opportunity to escape. When the gabbeh left unfinished by grandmother was finally complete, the uncle kindly and confidentially told me that he would take my father to a distant place so that I could run away.
(The green gabbeh being woven during the seasonal migration is now complete and spread on the ground. The uncle and the father lie on it.)
Uncle: We finally finished your gabbeh, Mama Naranj. I wish I would lie on it and never rise again.
(Both men lie on the gabbeh and disappear.)
Girl’s voice: Now I had the opportunity, but not the courage, to escape.

At the small spring, Day.
(The old man, trying to imitate wolf howl, is beating with a stick the blue gabbeh hanging from a tree. A gentle breeze.)
Old man: Why are you so nasty to me? Why shouldn’t we go off with each other? Your father isn’t around. You’re liar. You ruined my life. You kept me wandering. You had me rove in the wilderness and mountions. You don’t love me. Now that your father isn’t around any more, we could go off.

Beside the pond, Day.
(A lamb is born. The girl in blue is weaving gabbeh. The ewe is licking its newly born lamb. The girl in blue is weaving gabbeh. The lamb tries to learn to stand up and walk. The girl in blue beats the weft thread and the row of knots she has woven by a heavy iron comb beater. The ewe stamps its foreleg on the ground so to make its feeble baby rise. The girl heavily beats the weft. The ewe stamps its foreleg. The lamb rises. So does the girl in blue. The wind is blowing in the green plain and the girl goes off with the man on horseback. With the stamp of the horses’ hoofs speeding away at a gallop, the two men reappear on the green gabbeh. The father grabs his gun from beside the fire and goes after the fugitives. The echo of two shots and the moan of a wolf in the distance. The yellow grass is undulating in the wind. The father is back with his rifle hanging from his shoulder. The clan is anxiously gathering to know what has happened. The father throws down his daughter’s blue gabbeh. Everything turns blue.)

At the spring, Day.
(The old woman wraps the blue gabbeh, fills the jar from the spring and walks back to the hut.)
Old man: (to the old woman)
Would you come to wash the gabbeh, Gabbeh Khanum?
Old woman: I have sore feet. I won’t do it any more.
Old man: Don’t disappoint me, Gabbeh Khanum.(Howls like a wolf.) You don’t love me, or now that your father isn’t around you’d go off with me. You are a liar, you don’t love me.(The old woman walks towards the hut with the jar on her shoulder.)
Girl’s voice: My father did not kill us, thought word spread that he had, so to make sure that my sisters would not be infatuated with a wolf howl. That is why in the past forty years no one has heard a canary chirp by a spring.
(The green and blue gabbeh are being carried by the stream.)

Children of Heaven

Children of Heaven (Persian: بچه‌های آسمان) is a 1997 Iranian film. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998. It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes.

Synopsis
Ali takes his little sister Zahra's shoes to the shoemaker to be repaired, but loses them on the way home. The siblings decide to keep the predicament a secret from their parents, knowing that there is no money to buy a replacement pair and fearing that they will be punished. They devise a scheme to share Ali's sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and hand them off to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. This uncomfortable arrangement leads to one adventure after another as they attempt to hide the plan from their parents and teachers, attend to their schoolwork and errands, and acquire a new pair of shoes for Zahra. Zahra sees the shoes on a schoolmate's feet, and follows her home, but the two soon become friends.

Ali enters a high-profile children's footrace in hopes of receiving the third prize of a new pair of sneakers. He accidentally places first and wins another prize instead. The film ends with Zahra finding out that she will not get a new pair of shoes, but an epilogue explains that Ali eventually achieves the larger-scale success of having a racing career. However a quick shot of their father's bicycle at the end of the movie shows what appears to be the pink shoes Zahra had been focusing on earlier, implying she got the shoes after all. The shoes are definitely tied to his bicycle and it is clear he has just bought these shoes for his children (and there may have been two pairs of shoes- one for each child).



 Background and critical response
The film was shot in Tehran. It was attempted to keep the filming secret in order to capture a more realistic image of the city. The production costs have been estimated at US$ 180,000.

Children of Heaven premiered in February of 1997 at the Teheran Fajr Film Festival and was awarded several national film awards. It started in the US on 22 January 1999, with a total US box office result of $930,000. After the film had become well-known worldwide due to the Oscar nomination, it was shown in several European, South American, and Asian countries between 1999 and 2001.

Critical response to the film was very positive. Some critics compared it to Vittorio de Sica's 1948 Bicycle Thieves. The few negative voices found fault in a too simplistic storyline and unanswered questions in the movie. Roger Ebert's review in the Chicago Sun-Times called it "very nearly a perfect movie for children" that "lacks the cynicism and smart-mouth attitudes of so much American entertainment for kids and glows with a kind of good-hearted purity"



Awards
In 1998, the film was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.

It was successfully shown on numerous film festivals and won awards at the Fajr Film Festival, the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Jury's Grand Prize at the American Film Institute's festival.


Homerun
Homerun, a 2003 Singaporean film by Jack Neo, is an adaptation of Children of Heaven. Unlike Children of Heaven, Homerun's theme is friendship and the film is set in Singapore in 1965. Homerun received two nominations at the 2003 Golden Horse Awards, for Best Theme Song (拥有) and Best New Performer (Megan Zheng). Megan Zheng, then 10 years old, became the first Singaporean to win a Golden Horse Award, sharing her Best New Performer award with Wang Baoqiang, who plays a miner in Blind Shaft.

Dogville

Dogville is a 2003 movie written and directed by Lars von Trier, starring Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgård and James Caan, among others. It is a parable that uses an extremely minimal set to tell the story of Grace (Kidman), a fugitive from mobsters, who arrives in the small town of Dogville and is provided refuge in return for physical labor.

The film is the first in the USA - Land of Opportunities trilogy, followed by Manderlay (2005) and Wasington (2009).

The film was in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival but Gus Van Sant's Elephant won the award.

Contents [hide]
1 Staging
2 Plot
2.1 Prologue
2.2 Chapter 1
2.3 Chapter 2
2.4 Chapter 3
2.5 Chapter 4
2.6 Chapter 5
2.7 Chapter 6
2.8 Chapter 7
2.9 Chapter 8
2.10 Chapter 9 and ending
3 Interpretations
4 Crew
5 Cast
6 External links



[edit] Staging
The story of Dogville is narrated by John Hurt in nine chapters and takes place on a stage with minimalist scenery. Some walls and furniture are placed on the stage, but the rest of the scenery exists merely as white painted outlines which have big labels on them; for example, the outlines of gooseberry bushes have the text "Gooseberry Bushes" written next to them. While this form of staging is common in black box theaters, it has rarely been attempted on film before (the 1954 musical Western Red Garters being a notable exception). The bare staging serves to focus the audience's attention on the acting and storytelling, and also reminds them of the film's artificiality. As such it is heavily influenced by the theatre of Bertolt Brecht. The film does however employ carefully designed lighting to suggest natural effects such as the moving shadows of clouds, and sound effects are used to create the presence of non-existent set pieces (i.e. there are no doors, but the doors can always be heard when an actor "opens" or "closes" one).

The movie was shot on high-definition video using a Sony HDW-F900 camera in a studio in Trollhättan, Sweden.

Tagline: A quiet little town not far from here.

The story of Dogville is given in 9 chapters and a prologue, with a description of each chapter given as it takes place in the film. These descriptions are given below.


[edit] Plot

[edit] Prologue
Dogville is a very small American town in the Rocky Mountains with a road leading up to it, but nowhere to go but the mountains. The film begins with a prologue in which we meet a dozen or so of the fifteen citizens. They are portrayed as lovable, good people with small flaws which are easy to forgive.

The town is seen from the point of view of Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an aspiring writer who procrastinates by trying to get his fellow citizens together for regular meetings on the subject of "moral rearmament." It is clear that Tom wants to succeed his aging father as the moral and spiritual leader of the town.


[edit] Chapter 1
In which Tom hears gunfire and meets Grace
It is Tom who first meets Grace (Nicole Kidman), who is on the run from gangsters who apparently shot at her. Grace, a beautiful but modest woman, wants to keep running, but Tom assures her that the mountains ahead are too difficult to pass. As they talk, the gangsters approach the town, and Tom quickly hides Grace in a nearby mine. One of the gangsters asks Tom if he has seen the woman, which he denies, and so the gangster offers him a reward and hands him a card with a phone number to call in case Grace shows up.

Tom decides to use Grace as an "illustration" in his next meeting - a way for the townspeople to prove that they are indeed committed to community values, and willing to help the stranger. They remain skeptical, so Tom proposes that Grace should be given a chance to prove that she is a good person. Grace is accepted for two weeks in which, as Tom explains to her after the meeting, she has to convince the townspeople to like her.


[edit] Chapter 2
In which Grace follows Tom's plan and embarks upon physical labour
On Tom's suggestion, Grace offers to do chores for the citizens - talking to the lonely, blind Jack McCay (Ben Gazzara), helping to run the small shop, looking after the children of Chuck (Stellan Skarsgård) and Vera (Patricia Clarkson), and so forth. After some initial reluctance, the people accept her help in doing those chores that "nobody really needs" but which nevertheless make life better, and so she becomes a part of the community.


[edit] Chapter 3
In which Grace indulges in a shady piece of provocation.
In tacit agreement, she is expected to continue her chores, which she does gladly, and is even paid small wages in return. Grace even begins to make friends with some of the members of town, including Jack McKay, an old blind man who pretends that he is not blind. Grace tricks him into admitting that he is blind, earning his respect. After the two weeks are over, everyone votes that she should be allowed to stay.


[edit] Chapter 4
Happy times in Dogville
But when the police arrive to place a "Missing" poster with Grace's picture and name on it on the mission house, the mood darkens slightly. Should they not cooperate with the police?


[edit] Chapter 5
Fourth of July after all
Still, things continue as usual until the 4th of July celebrations. After Tom awkwardly admits his love to Grace and the whole town expresses their agreement that it has become a better place thanks to her, the police arrive again to replace the "Missing" poster with a "Wanted" poster. Grace is now wanted for participation in a bank robbery. Everyone agrees that she must be innocent, since at the time the robbery took place, she was doing chores for the townspeople every day.

Nevertheless, Tom argues that because of the increased risk to the town now that they are harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal, Grace should provide a quid pro quo and do more chores for the townspeople within the same time, for less pay. At this point, what was previously a voluntary arrangement takes on a slightly coercive nature as Grace is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, being very amenable and wanting to please Tom, Grace agrees.


[edit] Chapter 6
In which Dogville bares its teeth
At this point the situation worsens, as with her additional workload, Grace inevitably makes mistakes, and the people she works for seem to be equally irritated by the new schedule – and take it out on Grace. The situation slowly escalates, with the male citizens making small sexual advances to Grace and the female ones becoming increasingly abusive. Even the children are perverse: Jason (Miles Purinton), the perhaps 10-year-old son of Chuck and Vera, asks Grace to spank him, until she finally complies after much provocation. Soon thereafter Chuck returns home and rapes Grace, as it becomes obvious that she is hardly able to defend herself against exploitation.


[edit] Chapter 7
In which Grace finally gets enough of Dogville, leaves the town, and again sees the light of day.
After Tom discusses the possibility of escape with her, Grace is blamed by Vera both for spanking Jason and for being raped by Chuck. In revenge, Vera threatens Grace with destroying the porcelain figurines created by the town shop that she had acquired with the little wages she was given, Grace begs for mercy, reminding Vera of how she taught her children about stoicism. In response, Vera challenges Grace to stand up without shedding a tear while she destroys the first two of the porcelain figurines. Grace not being able to hold her tears, Vera destroys the remaining figurines. The symbol of her belonging in the town gone, she now knows that she must leave. With the help of Tom and Ben, the freight driver, she attempts escape in his apple truck, only to find herself 'raped' by Ben ("It's not personal. I just... have to take due payment, that's all") and then returned to the town.


The town agrees that they must not let her escape again. The money that she used to pay Ben had been taken by Tom from his father, and Grace is blamed for the theft. Tom refuses to come forward because, he explains, this is the only way he can still protect Grace without people getting suspicious. At this point, Grace's status as slave is finally confirmed as she is collared and chained to a large iron wheel which she must carry around with her, too heavy to allow her to move anywhere outside the town. More humiliatingly still, a bell is attached to her collar and announces her presence wherever she goes. Suffice it to say that at this point, she becomes both work and sex slave for the town. Tom is the only male citizen of the town that does not rape her.





[edit] Chapter 8
In which there is a meeting where the truth is told and Tom leaves (only to return later).
This culminates in a late night general assembly in which Grace —following Tom's suggestion— relates calmly all that she has endured from everyone in town. Embarrassed and in complete denial, the townspeople finally decide to get rid of her. When Tom informs Grace to console her, he attempts to make love to her, having been the only adult male townperson who hasn't had sex with her. Grace, however, refuses to have sex with him. Angry partly at Grace's rejection, but even more at himself for his realization that he would eventually stoop to force himself upon her like everyone else in the town, Tom ends up personally calling the mobsters, and later proposes to unanimous approval that she be locked up in her shack.


[edit] Chapter 9 and ending
In which Dogville receives the long-awaited visit and the film ends
When the mobsters finally arrive, they are welcomed cordially by Tom and an impromptu committee of other townspeople. Grace is then freed and we finally learn who she really is: the daughter of a powerful gang leader who ran away because she could not stand her father's dirty work. Her father confronts her in his big limousine and tells her that she is arrogant for not holding others to the same high standards to which she holds herself. At first she refuses to listen, but as she looks again upon the town and its people, she is compelled to agree: she would have to condemn them to the worst possible punishment if she held them to her own standards, and it would be inhumane not to do so.

So she accepts to be again her father's daughter, and immediately demands that the whole town be eliminated. In particular, she gives the order to have Vera look on at the murder of each of her children, having been told that it would stop if she can hold back her tears. The film ends in a crescendo of violence: the town is burned and all its citizens are brutally murdered by the gangsters on direct order from Grace, with the exception of Tom, whom she kills personally with a revolver. As the ashes of Dogville smolder around her, she finds and spares the only surviving resident, Moses the Dogville dog. Ironically, the only "dog" that hasn't wronged her was the town dog that had disappeared while the town was revealing its true nature. It is at this point that the audience realizes that Kidman was one smooth criminal all along...


[edit] Interpretations
The film is set in the 1930s, and the small dead-end town of Dogville can be a symbol for any similar town in the United States. As the fifteen citizens and the children of Dogville are introduced to Grace, they are put to a moral test: Are they willing to save a woman on the run who might be a criminal, and to potentially risk their own lives for her, receiving little more than kindness in return? Grace too, is faced with a test: when faced with cruelty from the people of Dogville, can she forgive them, or will she seek revenge?

Critics have accused Dogville of having strongly anti-American messages. Ebert and Roeper repeatedly expressed this sentiment during their television review citing, for example, the closing credits sequence with images of poverty-stricken Americans accompanied by David Bowie's song "Young Americans." However, others feel that the message is much broader: the human species is just naturally inclined toward evil and that, like a dog who cannot help but behave in a dog-like fashion, humans simply cannot be expected to live up to their own high ideals.


[edit] Crew
Writer/Director -- Lars von Trier
Cinematographer -- Anthony Dod Mantle
Production Design -- Peter Grant
Costume Design -- Manon Rasmussen
Production Manager -- Tina Winholt
Foley Artist -- Julien Naudin
Sound Designer -- Per Streit
Lighting Designer -- Asa Frankenberg

[edit] Cast
Grace Mulligan -- Nicole Kidman
Ma Ginger -- Lauren Bacall
The Big Man -- James Caan
Narrator -- John Hurt
Tom Edison, Jr. -- Paul Bettany
Chuck -- Stellan Skarsgård
Vera -- Patricia Clarkson
Bill -- Jeremy Davies
Tom Edison, Sr. -- Philip Baker Hall
Jack McCay -- Ben Gazzara
Mrs. Henson -- Blair Brown
Gloria -- Harriet Anderson
Martha -- Siobhan Fallon Hogan
Liz Henson -- Chloë Sevigny
Jason -- Miles Purinton

[edit] External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
DogvilleOfficial site
Dogville at the Internet Movie Database
Dogville at Rotten Tomatoes
Dogville at AboutFilm.com: analysis by Carlo Cavagna
On the Nature of Dogs, the Right of Grace, Forgiveness and Hospitality: Derrida, Kant, and Lars Von Trier's Dogville by Adam Atkinson
Newsweek review
BBC Collective review
Dogville, or, the Dirty Birth of Law Theoretical Essay
Movie stills

Gone with the Wind (film)

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming. The epic film which was set in the American South in and around the time of the Civil War, starred Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland. It told a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern point of view.

It was awarded ten Academy Awards, a record that would stand for years. It has been named by the American Film Institute as number four among the top 100 American films of all time. It has sold more tickets than any other film in history. Today it is considered one of the most popular and greatest films of all time, and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood.

Contents [hide]
1 Story
2 Behind the scenes
3 Responses
3.1 First public preview
3.2 1939 response
3.3 Worldwide debuts
3.4 Racial politics
3.4.1 Portrayal of Black characters
3.4.2 Unquestioned racist comments
3.4.3 Racial politics at Atlanta premiere
3.5 Legacy
4 Sequel
5 Trivia
6 Credits
6.1 Principal cast
6.2 Other cast members
7 Academy Awards
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links



[edit] Story
The story opens on a large cotton plantation named Tara in rural Georgia in 1861, on the eve of the American Civil War. Scarlett O'Hara is the eldest of three daughters of Irish immigrant Gerald O’Hara and his wife, Ellen. She is seemingly sought after by every young man in the county, except the refined Ashley Wilkes, for whom Scarlett longs. She is upset to hear of Ashley’s imminent engagement to his cousin Melanie Hamilton, to be announced the next day at a barbecue at his family’s home, the nearby plantation Twelve Oaks.


Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. Photo: Howard Frank ArchivesAt Twelve Oaks, she notices she is being admired by a handsome but roguish visitor, Rhett Butler, who had been disowned by his Charleston family. Rhett finds himself in further disfavor among the male guests when, during a discussion of the probability of war, he states that the South has no chance against the superior numbers and industrial might of the North.

When Scarlett is alone with Ashley, she confesses her love for him. He admits he finds Scarlett attractive, but says that he and the gentle Melanie are more compatible. She accuses Ashley of misleading her and slaps him in anger, which is heightened when she realizes that Rhett has overheard the whole conversation. “Sir, you are no gentleman!” she protests, to which he replies, “And you, miss, are no lady!”

The barbecue is disrupted by the announcement that war has broken out, and the men rush to enlist. As Scarlett watches Ashley kiss Melanie goodbye, Melanie’s shy young brother Charles Hamilton, with whom Scarlett had been innocently flirting, asks for her hand in marriage before he goes. She consents, they are married, and she is just as quickly widowed when Charles dies not in battle, but of pneumonia.

Scarlett's mother sends her to the Hamilton home in Atlanta to cheer her up, although the O’Haras' outspoken housemaid Mammy tells Scarlett she knows she is going there “like a spider”, to wait for Ashley’s return. Scarlett and Melanie attend a charity ball in Atlanta, where Rhett makes a surprise appearance. Now he is a heroic blockade runner for the Confederacy. Scarlett shocks Atlanta society by accepting his bid for a dance, even though she is still in mourning. While they dance, Rhett tells her of his intention to win her, which she says will never happen.

The tide of war turns against the Confederacy. Scarlett makes another unsuccessful appeal to Ashley’s heart while he is visiting on Christmas furlough. Eight months later, as the city is being besieged by the Union Army in the Battle of Atlanta, Melanie goes into a premature and difficult labor. Scarlett must deliver the child herself. Rhett appears with a horse and wagon to take them out of the city on a perilous journey through the burning depot and warehouse district. He leaves her with a kiss on the road to Tara. She repays him with a slap, to his bemusement, as he goes off to fight with the Confederate Army.

On her journey back home, Scarlett finds Twelve Oaks burned out and deserted. She is relieved to find Tara still standing, but learns that her mother has just died, and her father's mind has begun to crumble under the strain. With Tara pillaged by Union troops, and the fields untended, Scarlett vows she will do anything for the survival of her family and herself: “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”

Intermission
Scarlett sets her family and servants to picking the cotton fields. She also fatally shoots a Union deserter who threatens her during a burglary, and finds gold coins in his haversack. With the defeat of the Confederacy and war's end, Ashley returns from being a prisoner of war. Mammy restrains Scarlett from running to him when he reunites with Melanie. The dispirited Ashley finds he is of little help to Tara, and when Scarlett begs him to run away with her, he confesses his desire for her and kisses her passionately, but says he cannot leave Melanie.

Gerald O'Hara dies after he is thrown from his horse while chasing a Yankee carpetbagger off his property. Scarlett is left to care for the family, and realizes she cannot pay the taxes on Tara. She knows that Rhett is in Atlanta. Believing he is still rich, she has Mammy make an elaborate gown for her from her mother’s drapes. However, upon her visit, Rhett tells her his foreign bank accounts have been blocked, and that her attempt to get his money has been in vain. However, as she departs, she encounters her sister’s fiancé, the middle-aged Frank Kennedy, who now owns a successful general store and lumber mill.

Soon Scarlett is Mrs. Frank Kennedy. She becomes a hardheaded businesswoman, willing to trade with the despised Yankees and use convict laborers in her mill. When Ashley is about to take a job offer with a bank in the north, Scarlett preys on his weakness by weeping that she needs him to help run the mill; pressured by the sympathetic Melanie, he relents. One day, after Scarlett is attacked while driving alone through a nearby shantytown, Frank, Ashley, and others make a night raid on the shantytown. Ashley is wounded in a melee with Union troops, and Frank is killed.

With Frank’s funeral barely over, Rhett visits Scarlett and proposes marriage. Scarlett is aghast at his poor taste, but takes him up on his offer. After a honeymoon in New Orleans, Rhett promises to restore Tara, while Scarlett builds the biggest and most crassly opulent mansion in Atlanta. A daughter, Bonnie, is born. Rhett adores her as a less spoiled version of her mother, and does everything to win the good opinion of Atlanta society for his daughter’s sake. Scarlett, still pining for Ashley and chagrined at the ruin of her figure, lets Rhett know that she wants no more children and that they will no longer share a bed. In anger, he kicks open the door that separates their bedrooms to show her that he will decide that.

When visiting the mill one day, Scarlett listens to a nostalgic Ashley wish for the simpler days of old that are now gone, and when she consoles him with an embrace, they are spied by two gossips including Ashley's sister India Wilkes, who has always held a grudge against Scarlett. They eagerly spread the rumor and Scarlett’s reputation is again sullied. Later that night, Rhett, having heard the rumors, forces Scarlett out of bed and to the party in her most flamboyant dress. Incapable of believing anything bad of her beloved sister-in-law, Melanie stands by Scarlett's side so that all know that she believes the gossip to be false.

At home later that night, Scarlett finds Rhett downstairs drunk. Blind with jealousy, he tells Scarlett that he could kill her if he thought it would make her forget Ashley. Picking her up, he carries her up the stairs in his arms, telling her, "This is one night you're not turning me out." She awakens the next morning with the look of guilty pleasure, but Rhett returns to apologize for his behavior and offers a divorce. Rhett then takes Bonnie on an extended trip to London while Scarlett discovers that she is pregnant again. For the first time, she is glad.

When Rhett returns with Bonnie, Scarlett is delighted to see him however he rebuffs her attempts at reconciliation. She then resentfully tells him that she is pregnant and does not even want the baby. Hurt, Rhett tells her "cheer up. Maybe you'll have an 'accident,'" Enraged, Scarlett lunges at him, falls down the stairs, and suffers a miscarriage. Rhett, frantic with guilt, cries to Melanie about his jealousy. He refrains from telling Melanie about Scarlett's true feelings for Ashley.

As Scarlett recovers, and Rhett attempts reconciliation, while young Bonnie, as impulsive as her grandfather, dies in a fall from her pony when she attempts to jump a fence. Scarlett and Rhett are devastated and exchange recriminations over her death. Melanie visits to comfort them, but then collapses in labor from a pregnancy she was warned could kill her. On her deathbed, she asks Scarlett to look after Ashley for her, as Scarlett had looked after her for Ashley. With her dying breath, Melanie also tells Scarlett to be kind to Rhett, that he loves her. Outside, Ashley collapses in tears, helpless without his wife. Only then does Scarlett realize that she never could have meant anything to him, and that she had loved something that never really existed.

She runs home to find Rhett packing to leave her, saying it is too late to salvage their marriage. She begs him not to leave, telling him she realizes now that she had loved him all along, that she never really loved Ashley. Rhett tells her that as long as there was Bonnie, whom he could spoil and love unconditionally, as he wished he could with Scarlett, there was a chance that they could have been happy, but now that chance was gone.

As Rhett walks out the door, she begs him, "Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?" He answers,

“ Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. ”

and turns away. She sits on her stairs and weeps in despair, "What is there that matters?" She then recalls the voice of her father Gerald: "Land's the only thing that matters, it's the only thing that lasts." And Ashley: "Something you love better than me, though you may not know it. Tara." And Rhett: "It's from this you get your strength, the red earth of Tara."

Hope lights Scarlett's face: "Tara! Home. I'll go home, and I'll think of some way to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!" In the final scene, Scarlett stands once more, resolute, before Tara.


[edit] Behind the scenes
Producer David O. Selznick, head of Selznick International Pictures, decided that he wanted to create a film based on the novel after his story editor Kay Brown read a pre-publication copy in May 1936 and urged him to buy the film rights. A month after the book's publication in June 1936, Selznick bought the rights for $50,000, a record amount at the time.[1] Major financing for the film was provided by Selznick business partner John Hay Whitney, a financier who later went on to become a U.S. ambassador.

The casting of the two lead roles became a complex, two-year endeavor. Many famous or soon-to-be-famous actresses were either screen-tested, auditioned, or considered for the role of Scarlett, including Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Lana Turner, Susan Hayward, Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, Joan Fontaine, Loretta Young, Miriam Hopkins, Tallulah Bankhead, Frances Dee, and Lucille Ball.

Four actresses, including Jean Arthur and Joan Bennett, were still under consideration by December 1938. But only two finalists, Paulette Goddard and Vivien Leigh, were tested in Technicolor, both on December 20.[2] Selznick had been quietly considering Vivien Leigh, a young English actress little known in America, for the role of Scarlett since February 1938, when Selznick saw her in Fire Over England and A Yank at Oxford. Leigh's American agent was the London representative of the Myron Selznick talent agency (headed by David Selznick's brother, one of the owners of Selznick International), and she had requested in February that her name be submitted for consideration as Scarlett. By summer of 1938, the Selznicks were negotiating with Alexander Korda, to whom Leigh was under contract, for her services later that year.[3] But for publicity reasons David arranged to meet her for the first time on the night of December 10, 1938, when the burning of the Atlanta Depot was filmed. The story was invented for the press that Leigh and Laurence Olivier were just visiting the studio as guests of Myron Selznick, who was also Olivier's agent, and that Leigh was in Hollywood hoping for a part in Olivier's current movie, Wuthering Heights. In a letter to his wife two days later, Selznick admitted that Leigh was "the Scarlett dark horse", and after a series of screen tests, her casting was announced on January 13, 1939. Just before the shooting of the film, Selznick informed Ed Sullivan: "Scarlett O'Hara's parents were French and Irish. Identically, Miss Leigh's parents are French and Irish."[4]

For the role of Rhett Butler, Clark Gable was an almost immediate favorite for both the public and Selznick. Nevertheless, as Selznick had no male stars under long-term contract, he needed to go through the process of negotiating to borrow an actor from another studio. Gary Cooper was thus Selznick's first choice, because Cooper's contract with Samuel Goldwyn involved a common distribution company, United Artists, with which Selznick had an eight-picture deal. However, Goldwyn remained noncommittal in negotiations.[5] Warner Bros. offered a package of Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland for the lead roles in return for the distribution rights. But by then Selznick was determined to get Clark Gable, and eventually found a way to borrow him from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Selznick's father-in-law, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, offered in May 1938 to fund half of the movie's budget in return for a powerful package: 50% of the profits would go to MGM, the movie's distribution would be credited to MGM's parent company, Loew's, Inc., and Loew's would receive 15 percent of the movie's gross income. Selznick accepted this offer in August, and Gable was cast. Nevertheless, the arrangement to release through MGM meant delaying the start of production until Selznick International completed its eight-picture contract with United Artists.

Principal photography began January 26, 1939, and ended on June 27, 1939, with post-production work (including a fifth version of the opening scene) going to November 11, 1939. Director George Cukor, with whom Selznick had a long working relationship, and who spent almost two years in preproduction on Gone with the Wind, was replaced after less than three weeks of shooting.[6] Victor Fleming, who had just directed The Wizard of Oz, was called in from MGM to complete the picture, although Cukor continued privately to coach Leigh's and De Havilland's performances. Another MGM director, Sam Wood, worked for two weeks in May when Fleming temporarily left the production due to exhaustion.

Cinematographer Lee Garmes began the production, but after a month of shooting what Selznick and his associates thought was "too dark" footage, was replaced with Ernest Haller, working with Technicolor cinematographer Ray Rennahan. Most of the filming was done on "the back forty" of Selznick International with all the location scenes being photographed in California, mostly in Los Angeles County or neighboring Ventura County.[7] Estimated production costs were $3.9 million; only Ben-Hur (1925) and Hell's Angels (1930) had cost more.


[edit] Responses
Ratings
Argentina: Atp
Australia: PG
Belgium: KT
Canada (BC/SK): G
Canada (Ontario): PG
Canada (Manitoba): PG
Canada (Maritime): G
Canada (Quebec): G
Chile: TE
Finland: K-16
France: U
Germany: 12
Iceland: L
India: U
Mexico: A
Netherlands: AL
New Zealand: PG
Norway: 16
Peru: PT
Portugal: M/12
South Korea: 12
Sweden: 11
United Kingdom: PG
United States: G

[edit] First public preview
When David O. Selznick was asked by the press in early September how he felt about the film, he said: "At noon I think it's divine, at midnight I think it's lousy. Sometimes I think it's the greatest picture ever made. But if it's only a great picture, I'll still be satisfied."[8]

On September 9, 1939, Selznick, his wife Irene Mayer Selznick, investor Jock Whitney, and film editor Hal Kern drove out to Riverside, California with all of the film reels to preview it before an audience. The film was still unfinished at this stage, missing many optical effects and most of Max Steiner's music score. They arrived at the Fox Theatre, which was playing a double feature of Hawaiian Nights and Beau Geste. Kern called for the manager and explained that they had selected his theatre for the first public screening of Gone with the Wind. He was told that after Hawaiian Nights had finished, he could make an announcement of the preview, but was forbidden to say what the film was. People were permitted to leave, but the theatre would thereafter be sealed with no re-admissions and no phone calls out. The manager was reluctant, but finally agreed. His only request was to call his wife to come to the theatre immediately. Kern stood by him as he made the call to make sure he did not reveal the name of the film to her.

When the film began, there was a buzz in the audience when Selznick's name appeared, for they had been reading about the making of the film for over two years. In an interview years later, Kern described the exact moment the audience realized what was happening:

When Margaret Mitchell's name came on the screen, you never heard such a sound in your life. They just yelled, they stood up on the seats...I had the [manually-operated sound] box. And I had that music wide open and you couldn't hear a thing. Mrs. Selznick was crying like a baby and so was David and so was I. Oh, what a thrill! And when "Gone with the Wind" came on the screen, it was thunderous!

In his seminal biography of Selznick, David Thomson wrote that the audience's response before the story had even started "was the greatest moment of his life, the greatest victory and redemption of all his failings."[9]

After the film, there was a huge ovation. In the preview cards filled out after the screening, two-thirds of the audience had rated it excellent, an unusually high rating. Most of the audience begged that the film not be cut shorter and many suggested that instead they eliminate the newsreels, shorts and B-movie feature, which is eventually how Gone with the Wind was screened and would soon become the norm in movie theatres around the world.


[edit] 1939 response
The film premiered in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 15, 1939 as the climax of three days of festivities hosted by the mayor which consisted of a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, false antebellum fronts on stores and homes, and a costume ball. The governor of Georgia declared December 15 a state holiday. President Jimmy Carter would later recall it as "the biggest event to happen in the South in my lifetime."

From December 1939 to June 1940, the film played only advance-ticket road show engagements at a limited number of theaters, before it went into general release in 1941.[10]

It was a sensational hit during the Blitz in London, opening in April 1940 and playing continuously for four years.


[edit] Worldwide debuts
Country Date
Argentina December 27, 1939
Brazil January 1, 1940
U.K. April 17, 1940
Australia July 4, 1940
Sweden October 6, 1941
Spain April 28, 1947
Norway December 15, 1947
Belgium, Netherlands March 3, 1949
Hong Kong June 16, 1949
France May 20, 1950
Finland September 15, 1950
Italy November 3, 1951
Philippines May 20, 1952
Japan September 10, 1952
West Germany January 15, 1953
Austria January 30, 1953
Denmark September 9, 1958


[edit] Racial politics
Some have criticized the film for romanticizing, sanitizing or even promoting the values of the antebellum South, in particular its reliance on slavery. For example, syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts has referred to it as "a romance set in Auschwitz."


[edit] Portrayal of Black characters
The character of Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel, has been linked with the stock character of the "happy slave", an archetype that implicitly condones slavery. But Helen Taylor, in Scarlett's Women: Gone with the Wind and Its Female Fans argued that Mammy's character is more complex than this, that her character represents someone who cared for others, despite the racism and oppression she suffered. Other writers[attribution needed] also point out that despite her position as slave, she is not shy about upbraiding her white mistress, Scarlett; and indeed, she is yelling at Scarlett in her first scene.

On the other hand, Mammy frequently derides other slaves on the plantation as "field hands", implying that as a House Servant she is above the "less-refined" blacks. Most apparent is the scene in the film where Mammy accompanies Scarlett to Atlanta, in order to convince Rhett Butler to help them pay the taxes on Tara. As they walk down the streets, Mammy passes by a Yankee carpetbagger who promises a group of ex-slaves "forty acres and a mule." The ex-slaves are excited, but Mammy glares at them disapprovingly.

Responding to the racial critiques of the film, Selznick replied that the black characters were "lovable, faithful, high-minded people who would leave no impression but a very nice one." While Mammy is generally portrayed in a positive light, other black characters in the film are not so fortunate.

The character of Prissy, played by Butterfly McQueen, perpetuates the stereotype that black slaves were stupid and childlike. In one especially famous scene, as Melanie is about to give birth, Prissy bursts into tears and admits she lied to Scarlett: "Lawzy, we got to have a doctor. I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" (In response, Scarlett slaps her).[11] In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the former civil rights leader recounted his experience of watching this particular scene as a small boy in Michigan: "I was the only Negro in the theater, and when Butterfly McQueen went into her act, I felt like crawling under the rug."

The role of Prissy catapulted Butterfly McQueen's film career, but within ten years, she grew tired of playing black ethnic stereotypes. When she refused to continue being typecast that way, it ended her career.

Members of the African-American community criticized many black actors for agreeing to play a role in the film. Oscar Polk, who played the role of Pork, wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Defender — a prominent newspaper in the black community — to respond to that criticism. "As a race we should be proud," he said, "that we have risen so far above the status of our enslaved ancestors and be glad to portray ourselves as we once were because in no other way can we so strikingly demonstrate how far we have come in so few years."


[edit] Unquestioned racist comments
After the Civil War, Gerald O’Hara (Scarlett’s father, who owns the plantation Tara), scolds his daughter about the way she is treating Mammy and Prissy. “You must be firm to inferiors, but gentle, especially darkies,” he advises her. While Scarlett was criticized for being too harsh on the house servants, Gerald’s premise that black people are “inferior” is not questioned, however “inferior” could be interpreted as their social status as workers, just as one’s boss is referred to as his “superior.” In the novel, author Margaret Mitchell made a point of the importance of social hierarchy in the Antebellum South.

Some scenes subtly undercut the apparent romanticization of Southern slavery. During the panicked evacuation of Atlanta as Union troops approach, Scarlett runs into Big Sam, the black foreman of the O'Hara plantation. Big Sam informs her that he (and a group of black field-hands who are with him) have been impressed to dig fortifications for the Confederacy. But these men are singing Go Down Moses, a famous black spiritual that slaves would sing to call for the abolition of slavery.

The Shantytown Raid scene was changed in the film to make it less racially divisive than the book. After Scarlett is attacked in a Shantytown outside Atlanta, her husband Frank, Ashley, and others leave to raid the Shantytown that night to avenge Scarlett's honor. In the book, Scarlett's attacker was black, and those who raid the Shantytown after her attack are identified as members of the Ku Klux Klan (although Scarlett herself disdains the Klan).[12] In the film, no mention of the Klan is made. In both the film and the book, a black man, Big Sam, saves her life during the attack.


[edit] Racial politics at Atlanta premiere
Racial politics spilled into the film's premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. As Georgia was a segregated state, Hattie McDaniel could not have attended the cinema without sitting in the "colored" section of the movie theater; to avoid troubling Selznick, she thus sent a letter saying she would not be able to attend. When Clark Gable heard that McDaniel did not want to attend because of the racial issue, he threatened to boycott the premiere unless McDaniel was able to attend; he later relented when McDaniel convinced him to go.[13]

At the costume ball during the premiere, local promoters recruited blacks to dress up as slaves and sing in a "Negro choir" on the steps of a white-columned plantation mansion built for the event. Many black community leaders refused to participate, but prominent Atlanta preacher Martin Luther King, Sr. attended, and he brought his 10-year-old son, future civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who sang that night in the choir.[citation needed]

The film also resulted in an important moment in African-American history: Hattie McDaniel won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first time an African-American actor received the award.





[edit] Legacy
In an attempt to draw upon his company's profits, but to pay capital gain tax rather than a much higher personal income tax, David O. Selznick and his business partners liquidated Selznick International Pictures over a three-year period in the early 1940s. As part of the liquidation, Selznick sold his rights in Gone with the Wind to Jock Whitney and his sister, who in turn sold it to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1944. Today it is owned by Turner Entertainment, whose parent company Turner Broadcasting acquired MGM's film library in 1985. Turner itself is currently a subsidiary of Time Warner, which is the current parent company of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Gone with the Wind was given theatrical re-releases in 1947, 1954, 1961, 1967 (in a widescreen version),[14] 1971, 1989, and 1998. It made its television debut on the HBO cable network in June 1976, and its broadcast debut the following November on the NBC network, where it became at that time the highest-rated television program ever presented on a single network, watched by 47.5 percent of the households in America, and 65 percent of television viewers. Ironically, it was surpassed the following year by the mini-series Roots, a saga about slavery in America.

Gone with the Wind also holds the record as being the biggest box-office hit in the history of movies.

In 1989, Gone with the Wind was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked it #4 on its "100 Greatest Movies" list.

Rhett Butler's infamous farewell line to Scarlett O'Hara, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", was voted in a poll by the American Film Institute in 2005 as the most memorable line in cinema history.[15][16]

In 2005, the AFI ranked Max Steiner's score for the film the second greatest of all time. The AFI also ranked the film #2 in their list of the greatest romances of all time (100 Years... 100 Passions).

After filming concluded, the set of Tara sat on the back lot of the former Selznick Studios as the Forty Acres back lot reverted to RKO Pictures and then was sold to Desilu Productions. In 1959, Southern Attractions, Inc. purchased the façade of Tara, which was dismantled and shipped to Georgia with plans to relocate it to the Atlanta area as a tourist attraction.[17] [18] David O. Selznick commented at the time,

Nothing in Hollywood is permanent. Once photographed, life here is ended. It is almost symbolic of Hollywood. Tara had no rooms inside. It was just a façade. So much of Hollywood is a façade.[19]

However, the Margaret Mitchell estate refused to license the novel's commercial use in connection with the façade, citing Mitchell's dismay at how little it resembled her description. In 1979 the dismantled plywood and papier-mâché set, reportedly in "terrible" condition, was purchased for $5,000 by Betty Talmadge, the ex-wife of former Georgia governor and U.S. senator Herman Talmadge.[20] She lent the front door of Tara's set to the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum in downtown Atlanta, Georgia where it is on permanent display, featured in the Gone with the Wind film museum. Other items from the movie, such as from the set of Scarlett and Rhett's Atlanta mansion, are still stored at The Culver Studios (formerly Selznick International) including the stained glass window from the top of the staircase which was actually a painting. The famous painting of Scarlett in her blue dress, which hung in Rhett's bedroom, hung for years at the Margaret Mitchell Elementary School in Atlanta, but is now on permanent loan to the Margaret Mitchell Museum, complete with stains from the glass of sherry that Rhett Butler threw at it in anger.


[edit] Sequel
Rumors of Hollywood producing a sequel to this film persisted for decades until 1994, when a sequel was finally produced for television, based upon Alexandra Ripley's novel, Scarlett, itself a sequel to Mitchell's original. Both the book and mini-series were met with mixed reviews. In the TV version, British actors played both key roles: Welsh-born actor Timothy Dalton played Rhett while Manchester-born Joanne Whalley played Scarlett. Original plans were used for the reconstruction of a replica of the original Tara set in Charleston, South Carolina for the filming.


[edit] Trivia
Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Gone with the Wind is Ted Turner's favorite movie, as such he launched the TNT network with a broadcast of this film.
Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh spent their time between takes playing battleship as said by Olivia de Havilland during an interview called, "Melanie Remembers". They permitted de Havilland to play once and she promptly beat the both of them. She was not allowed to play again.
Also in Olivia de Havilland's interview, she stated that when it came time to get into character she would take at least twenty minutes to fully become Melanie while Vivien Leigh could march before the camera and become Scarlett O'Hara.
All the liquid used for alcohol was tea, but during the scene where Clark Gable and Hattie McDaniel are drinking to the birth of Bonnie Butler, Gable (as a joke) replaced the tea with real alcohol. McDaniel did not know until she took a swig. (Courtesy of IMDB).
Olivia de Havilland's character Melanie is the only principal character to die in the movie. Ironically, de Havilland is the only member of the top four members of the cast to still be alive. Leslie Howard died in a plane crash during the war, Clark Gable died of a heart attack in 1960, and Vivien Leigh died of tuberculosis in 1967.
Vivien Leigh reportedly stated that she did not like kissing Clark Gable citing his breath smelled foul due to his false teeth.
During the filming of Gone with the Wind, Vivien Leigh was reported to have smoked four packs of cigarettes a day.
Olivia de Havilland said that she had learned of George Cukor's firing on the day they were filming the Atlanta bazaar scene. She saw a distressed Vivien Leigh and asked what the trouble was. Leigh told her that Cukor had been fired. The pair went to David O. Selznick's office in full costume with their handkerchiefs and begged him to not get rid of George Cukor. Selznick apologized but refused to change his mind.

[edit] Credits

A promotional poster for the film's 1998 "remastered" re-release.Directed by
Victor Fleming
George Cukor (uncredited, left the production)
Sam Wood (uncredited, took over while Fleming was away)
Writing credits
Margaret Mitchell (novel)
Sidney Howard - adapted screenplay
Ben Hecht (uncredited)
David O. Selznick (uncredited)
Jo Swerling (uncredited)
John Van Druten (uncredited)
Produced by
David O. Selznick

[edit] Principal cast

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara
Clark Gable as Rhett Butler
Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes
Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton


[edit] Other cast members
Thomas Mitchell .... Gerald O'Hara
Barbara O'Neil .... Ellen O'Hara
Evelyn Keyes .... Suellen O'Hara
Ann Rutherford .... Carreen O'Hara
George Reeves .... Stuart Tarleton (miscredited on screen as Brent Tarleton)
Fred Crane (actor) .... Brent Tarleton (miscredited on screen as Stuart Tarleton)
Hattie McDaniel .... Mammy
Oscar Polk .... Pork
Butterfly McQueen .... Prissy
Victor Jory .... Jonas Wilkerson
Everett Brown .... Big Sam
Howard C. Hickman .... John Wilkes
Alicia Rhett .... India Wilkes
Rand Brooks .... Charles Hamilton
Carroll Nye .... Frank Kennedy
Marcella Martin .... Cathleen Calvert
Laura Hope Crews .... Aunt Pittypat Hamilton
Eddie Anderson .... Uncle Peter
Harry Davenport .... Dr. Meade
Leona Roberts .... Mrs. Meade
Jane Darwell .... Dolly Merriwether
Paul Hurst .... Yankee Deserter
Cammie King .... Bonnie Blue Butler
Ona Munson .... Belle Watling
Eric Linden .... Amputation case
Cliff Edwards .... Reminiscent Soldier

[edit] Academy Awards
Winner of 10 Academy Awards. The first eight received the "Oscar" statuette:

Best Picture - Selznick International Pictures (David O. Selznick, producer)
Best Actress in a Leading Role - Vivien Leigh
Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Hattie McDaniel
Best Cinematography, Color - Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan
Best Director - Victor Fleming
Best Film Editing - Hal C. Kern, and James E. Newcom
Best Writing, Screenplay - Sidney Howard
Best Art Direction - Lyle Wheeler
Special Award - William Cameron Menzies - "For outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood in the production of Gone with the Wind." (plaque)
Technical Achievement Award - Don Musgrave and Selznick International Pictures - "For pioneering in the use of coordinated equipment in the production Gone with the Wind." (certificate)
Five additional nominations:

Best Actor in a Leading Role - Clark Gable
Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Olivia de Havilland
Best Effects, Special Effects - Fred Albin (sound), Jack Cosgrove (photographic), and Arthur Johns (sound)
Best Music, Original Score - Max Steiner
Best Sound, Recording - Thomas T. Moulton (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)
Also:

David O. Selznick was given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his career achievements as a producer.

[edit] References
^ Selznick gave her an additional $50,000 as a bonus when he dissolved Selznick International Pictures in 1942.
^ Haver, Ronald (1980). David O. Selznick's Hollywood. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-42595-2.
^ Pratt, William (1977). Scarlett Fever. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 73-74, 81-83. ISBN 0-02-598560-4. In a memo to George Cukor on October 21, 1938, Selznick said he was "still hoping against hope for that new girl." Memo, p. 184
^ Letter from David O. Selznick to Ed Sullivan, Jan. 7, 1939. Research by Leigh's biographer Michelangelo Capua has called into question both ancestral claims.
^ Selznick, David O. (2000). Memo from David O. Selznick. New York: Modern Library, 172-173. ISBN 0-375-75531-4.
^ Myrick, Susan (1982). White Columns in Hollywood: Reports from the GWTW Sets. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 126-127. ISBN 0-86554-044-6. From a private letter from journalist Susan Myrick to Margaret Mitchell in February 1939:
George [Cukor] finally told me all about it. He hated [leaving the production] very much he said but he could not do otherwise. In effect, he said he is an honest craftsman and he cannot do a job unless he knows it is a good job and he feels the present job is not right. For days, he told me he has looked at the rushes and felt he was failing... the thing did not click as it should. Gradually he became convinced that the script was the trouble... David [Selznick], himself, thinks HE is writing the script... And George has continually taken script from day to day, compared the [Oliver] Garrett-Selznick version with the [Sidney] Howard, groaned and tried to change some parts back to the Howard script. But he seldom could do much with the scene... So George just told David he would not work any longer if the script was not better and he wanted the Howard script back. David told George he was a director — not an author and he (David) was the producer and the judge of what is a good script... George said he was a director and a damn good one and he would not let his name go out over a lousy picture... And bull-headed David said, "OK get out!"
Selznick had already been unhappy with Cukor ("a very expensive luxury") for not being more receptive to directing other Selznick assignments, even though Cukor had remained on salary since early 1937; and in a confidential memo written in September 1938, Selznick flirted with the idea of replacing him with Victor Fleming. (Memo, 179-180.) Louis B. Mayer had been trying to have Cukor replaced with an MGM director since negotiations between the two studios began in May 1938. In December 1938, Selznick wrote to his wife about a phone call he had with Mayer: "During the same conversation, your father made another stab at getting George off of Gone with the Wind." Scott Eyman, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer (2005), pp. 258-259.
^ Molt, Cynthia Marylee (1990). Gone with the Wind on Film: A Complete Reference. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 272-281. ISBN 0-89950-439-6.
^ "G With the W", Time, vol. 34, December 25, 1939.
^ Thomson, David (1992). Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-56833-8.
^ In February 1940, the movie was playing in 156 theatres in 150 U. S. cities.
^ wav file
^ Chapter 38:
I won't be a big-mouthed fool, she [Scarlett] thought grimly. Let others break their hearts over the old days and the men who'll never come back. Let others burn with fury over the Yankee rule and losing the ballot. Let others go to jail for speaking their minds and get themselves hanged for being in the Ku Klux Klan. (Oh, what a dreaded name that was, almost as terrifying to Scarlett as to the negroes.)
^ Harris, Warren G. Clark Gable: A Biography, Harmony, (2002), page 211.
^ The American Widescreen Museum, Gone With the Wind.
^ http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1398449.htm
^ Although legend persists that the Hays Office fined Selznick $5,000 for using the word "damn", in fact the Motion Picture Association board passed an amendment to the Production Code on November 1, 1939, that forbade use of the words "hell" or "damn" except when their use "shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context, of any scene or dialogue based upon historical fact or folklore … or a quotation from a literary work, provided that no such use shall be permitted which is intrinsically objectionable or offends good taste." With that amendment, the Production Code Administration had no further objection to Rhett's closing line. Leonard J. Leff and Jerold L. Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code, pp. 107-108.
^ Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1959, p. G10.
^ Jennifer W. Dickey, "A Tough Little Patch of History": Atlanta's Marketplace for Gone With the Wind Memory, Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007, pp. 85–89.
^ Murray Schumach, "Hollywood Gives Tara to Atlanta," New York Times, May 25, 1959, p. 33.
^ The disassembled set was later sold to the owner of a Gone with the Wind-themed bed and breakfast inn in Concord, Georgia, who determined that the façade would be impossible to restore. Dickey, pp. 120–121.