Disclaimer: I have never seen either Birth Of A Nation nor Gone With The Wind, nor do I have any plan to do so at this time. With that out of the way, and returning briefly to the specific decision:
There was an earlier point made by PGage Wednesday night that the headline was misleading, because WarnerMedia promised "it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions." To which my response is: 1. Given that it would take about a day to create an intertitle that says the first two sentences from the statement spoken to Variety in their item, with a link to hbomax.com/gwtw, which could start with a link to the Analysis section of the existing Wikipedia entry about the film and grow from there, I fail to see how there's a need to pull the film (it ain't like we didn't know this was a problem on June 8); 2. The failure to provide a definitive return date given the reasonably extensive content that a simple Google search returns on the topic leads me to believe that the actual goal is to not return this film to the library and let it go away; 3. If a viewer is really committed to spending three-and-two-thirds hours on an 81-year-old film, I'm guessing they know the metaphorical score already. On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 7:58 AM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 5:40 AM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> I've seen it two or three times (nearly getting into a fight the last >> time I saw it in a theatre) and, its racial politics aside, find it a lousy >> movie. It's bloated, all of the characters are static, ending up either >> dead or exactly where they started psychologically, and the two male leads >> obviously dislike their characters. McDaniel struggles bravely with her >> role, but there really is little of value in the whole thing. >> > > In the days before TV there was just the movie theater. And the movie > playing there changed frequently, so if one missed a movie during its run > it was conceivable that one would never see it. And over the course of time > moviegoers would have seen many movies that they would have forgotten soon > after they left the theater and a few that stuck with them for months or > years afterward. GWTW is one of those movies that stuck with viewers and > got into the lists of best movies over the decades. A lot of that had to do > with people who loved the book and were happy to see how it was brought to > the screen and a lot were swept away from the romance. Today, with access > to the movie, as well as film criticism, only a click away, we can form a > different impression of GWTW. When the question of repertory movie theaters > booking GWTW came up a couple of years ago I realized that I saw the movie > when it was a massive event on network TV back in 1978 or so. Then it was > shown on two nights and broken up for commercials. So I got a DVD from a > used book store and then watched the movie and a commentary track from a > film historian. > > I agree with Dave's assessment. The script went through several hands and > the movie went through different directors and it shows. They were over > budget and rushed for time and a lot of sloppiness remains in the film. One > scene that sticks out to me was a scene with Scarlett and Ashley in a barn. > Through the whole scene Leslie Howard talks with an English accent. I can't > understand why they would print that and not do another take. > > I've also seen Birth of a Nation and I realized while watching GWTW that a > lot of Griffith's visual language was copied into it. Since there was a 24 > year gap between the movies I'm not sure if it was expected that viewers > would resonate with those cues or just that was the way the era was going > to be depicted. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiFpa8X9nVj8S1L4XwcUaTx6%3DaY4Zyyr22yoFAMTx%3Dzx-Q%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiFpa8X9nVj8S1L4XwcUaTx6%3DaY4Zyyr22yoFAMTx%3Dzx-Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CABru7%2BePWxsssUUXSxijO54PDmwoX1mPRGycLPZHt7Rtma9sNg%40mail.gmail.com.
