Book vs. Movie: Gone With the Wind

I just finished the amazingly long Gone With the Wind movie. The book is over 1000 pages long so it's fitting that the movie would almost be four hours long. Luckily for me, the movie was very engaging and enjoyable and the time just flew by.

I guess we should just get this out there: the book was definitely better than the movie and I would recommend that over watching the movie. But the movie won several Oscars and was nominated for a heap more and I definitely agree that the movie deserved them. It was well acted, well written, and great adaptation from the book. Oh, and it was also filmed in 1939.

Please don't be turned off by the fact that the move is 70 years old. It's in color so that's a plus and there's not much that makes it seem old. It is funny to see how conservative it is compared to today's movies. There's no cursing, and the writers had to get special permission to use the word "damn" in the famous line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Even the book is more risque. There's a character in the book who is a prostitute, and she's in the movie but it's never said what her job is so you really have no idea unless you're very observant. But that wasn't such a big deal.

You would think that with a 4 hour movie not much would be cut out - but there was. I didn't mind too much because there's a lot of filler stuff in Gone With the Wind, and movie managed to hit all the important points in a timely manner. I also thought all the actors did a really good job and were well-cast. Clark Gable is just how I imagined Rhett Butler and the same goes for Vivien Leigh as Scarlett.

Both the movie and book forms of Gone With the Wind are American classics and I would whole-heartedly recommend both. They are both very enjoyable to read and watch.