It ’s not an overstatement to say that the process of bringingMargaret Mitchell ’s 1936 novelto thesilver screenwas one of the most tortuous inHollywood history . By the timeGone With the Windfinally premiered in December 1939 , it had cycled through three directors , more than a twelve screenwriters — F. Scott Fitzgeraldamong them — and too many 11th - minute script revision to count .
Some of those revise are probably lost to history , as producer David O. Selznick reportedly instructed mould and gang to put down their shooting scripts . But not everybody comply . A smattering of these so - called “ Rainbow Scripts , ” in which Selznick ’s edits were added on different - colour sheets of paper , are still float around in appeal today . retch director Fred Schuessler ’s Rainbow Script lately turned up at an auction , where Yale University PhD bookman David Vincent Kimel purchased it for $ 15,000 .
Realists vs. Romantics
During the development of the movie , asThe Wrap report , screenwriters were split on how to depict slavery . Some , Kimel excuse , were “ ‘ Romantics ’ who leaned into the mythos of Moonlight and magnolia , ” while “ ‘ realist ’ … amped up scenes of mistreatment to foreground the brutality of Scarlett ’s character and even condemn the mental hospital of bondage itself . ” Anyone who ’s seenGone With the Windalready know which coterie won out : The film has long been criticized for perpetuating the fallacious Romantic Movement of the Antebellum South and all the damaging racial stereotypes that go along with it .
Schuessler ’s Rainbow Script moult more light on on the dot what the Realists tried and failed to admit . Per Kimel , “ much of the excised material … was a harsh portrayal of the mistreatment of the enslaved workers on Scarlett ’s plantation , include references to licking , threats to throw ‘ Mammy ’ out of the woodlet for not work heavily enough , and other characterization of physical and excited violence . ” These scenes would have serve debunk the misconception that enslavers had sizable , loving relationships with the people they enslaved — a notion that has complicated the legacy ofHattie McDaniel ’s historical Oscar winfor her portrayal of Mammy .
Another deleted aspect postulate an intoxicated Rhett Butler “ fondling a pistol , gazing at it in a dazzle , morose direction ” after Scarlett ’s miscarriage ; in another , a manful looter “ with a woman ’s chapeau on his head , his weapon system full of billowing dresses ” cut across paths with Rhett and Scarlett as Atlanta burning . The Rainbow Script also have some montage that portrayed theConfederate Armyin a positivist Christ Within .
Cut for Time—Or Not?
Not all the cutting content was potentially controversial . Some of it was actually meant to be funny , let in a scene in which Scarlett ’s fiancé , Charles Hamilton , proposes that the couple have a doubled wedding with Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton ( Charles ’s sister ) . Scarlett , who ’s mainly marrying Charles to make Ashley jealous , quickly shoot down down the mind .
The thematic variance in — and sheer volume of — Rainbow Script minute that did n’t stop up in themoviemakes it difficult to identify why any give scene got ax . For sure one , the reason was probably just that the moving picture really needed to be shorter ( even the final interpretation isnearly 4 hours long ) . But with so many of those setting involving more exact word picture of slavery , it ’s hard to neglect the theory that Selznick was pointedly siding with the Romantics when he cut them .
“ Regardless of his motive , as a result of his decisiveness , from a modern perspective still struggling with the idealization of the antebellum world , the manufacturer created a form of cinematicConfederate monumentwhose critical reputation was increasingly called into interrogation , ” Kimel write .
you may read more about Kimel ’s researchhere .
[ h / tThe Ankler ]
