It's Your Fun and Fancy Free Discussion! (January 15, 2016)

boils down to a brave patriot (Nevsky) defending his homeland from foreign invaders

This presents a small problem for American patriotism. Except purportedly for the Alamo and the Maine, they've always waged aggressive wars of expansion or unjust rebellion. They've never faced a serious and determined foe of comparable power directly, nor have histories of opposition and subjugation like what the Germanic Teutons and Mongol Huns represent to Slavic cultures. They don't have anything like 'Fire over England' (which can be considered a precursor of Elizabeth). The closest analogues seem to be the lopsided struggles with Spain and Mexico, and Indian nations. Films about the latter to consider might be 'The Last of the Mohicans', 'Drums along the Mohawk, maybe 'Northwest Passage'. There don't seem to be any good roughly early red scare contemporary historical dramas based on the former. You might explore how they conflate settlers defending 'their' homesteads from evil Indians and the British, with American patriotism, but it seems weak. British rule was comparatively benign, if not beneficent, with the rebellious cabal of greedy 'Americans' motivated, sponsored, and aided by her external enemies (France and Spain) in their insurgency. It was never either the primary theater of conflict or the greatest concern for the British, behind the balance of power on the continent and their East Asian trade and colonies respectively.

Gone with the Wind seems more plausible if you consider Ashley as a weak sort of failed Alexander Nevsky for the south. Rhett's virtually the main character (besides Scarlett), and though he's really a sort of adaptable reverse carpetbagger, almost a scalawag, he's no Nevsky for the North. He sort of naturally aligns 'north', with their sort of mindset and values, despite living in the south. Note his training at west point, his erudition and rather strident sarcasm and cynicism through much of the film, and how quickly he marries Scarlett after Frank, his contemptuousness and scorn of southern society, it's pomp and pretension, as well as their enthusiasm for, and prosecution of, the war and the quality of the people fighting it and their cause. Notably he doesn't join the southern army until it's effectively lost (which may seem out of character). He's a man always on the up and up, almost brashly taking any good opportunities, very pragmatic. Scarlett is similar but maybe a little more conniving, conceited and selfish. He was a gambler, hardly an honest or noble profession, and becomes a smuggler.

The major problem for a comparison though, of course, is that the South loses. It ends with Scarlett likely to lose Tara, not with the proud defense of her home. In many respects it's probably virtually the opposite of Alexander Nevksy, instead of a proud patriotic celebration of righteous victory, you've got wistful nostalgia for a lost 'noble' nation and culture, with it's bygone way of life, despite in reality, a bitter and ignominious struggle, inconclusive in many respects. Perhaps weirdly though, the propaganda still works for both North and South. Southerners are romanticized as noble, idealistic and ardent, if also misguided, rash and impractical, while the few Northerners portrayed are caricatures demonized as violent, mean, greedy and grasping, if not brutally effective in the aggregate. That being said, the south still loses, and astute audiences should hardly fail to notice the discrepancies and prominent omissions of the film.

In many ways, it works for the North as a sort of Paean to reconstruction, and resilience. 'Tomorrow is another day' is always true for Scarlett and by extension the south. I suppose any American is meant to be proud, ostensibly sharing and inheriting that southern gumption and grit since the reconstitution of the nation.

I suspect the music is used unabashedly to emphasize all these elements.

/r/TrueFilm Thread Parent