Rachel Martin (Host): The 75th anniversary of the movie Gone with the Wind is coming up. And when our staff on All Things Considered started talking about it, we found out that many of the younger folks who work around here haven’t seen this classic film. NPR’s Neda Ulaby wondered why.
Neda Ulaby (Byline): Could it be that Gone with the Wind is not aging particularly gracefully?
(Soundbite of the film, Gone with the Wind)
Butterfly Mcqueen (As Prissy): We’ve got to have a doctor. I don’t know nothing ’bout birthin’ babies.
Ulaby: Film 2)critic Wesley Morris, who works for the online magazine Grantland, says no. Gone with the Wind is a timeless classic, he explains, starting with its breathtaking technical achievements.
Wesley Morris: There’s a 3)shot of Scarlett walking across the street. And she’s 4)encountering all these bodies. And she’s seeing the horror of the war for the first time. And it’s just brilliant. It’s just a brilliant shot. And the movie is full of those—like low angles, high angles, medium shots, long shots. The 5)close-ups are astounding.
Ulaby: But here with students in a film class at Georgetown University said when asked if they’d seen it.
Unidentified Man #1: I’ve seen half of it—parts.
Unidentified Man #2: No.
Unidentified Man #3: No.
Unidentified Man #4: Yes.
Unidentified Man #5: Unfortunately, no.
(Laughter)
Ulaby: These students are serious about movies. But a lot of them sided with 20-year-old Mike Minahan, who said when it comes to Gone with the Wind, frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.
Mike Minahan: Like everything I’ve seen about it says it, like, 6)glorifies like the slave era and stuff. And I don’t know, what’s the point of that? Like I don’t really see that as a good time in history to be like, oh, sweet, a love story of like people who owned slaves—like good for you.
Ulaby: These students had two issues with Gone with the Wind—race and rape.
(Soundbite of the film, Gone with the Wind)
Vivien Leigh (As Scarlett O’Hara): Take your hands off me, you drunken fool.
Ulaby: Scarlett is raped by her husband and wakes up the next morning in an absolutely wonderful mood. Today we watch that scene—or those with happy slaves—differently than we would have even a generation ago. But that doesn’t mean Gone with the Wind isn’t timeless, says critic Wesley Morris. It’s just that, to many viewers now, it’s unfashionable.
Morris: The reason the movie isn’t fashionable is that people think the ideas in it don’t matter anymore.
Ulaby: But Morris says these 7)vexing ideas about rape and race in Gone with the Wind are still huge 8)underlying problems in society.
Morris: And in popular culture—and you can’t pretend that those things aren’t there anymore just because it’s 2014 and not 1939.
Ulaby: In 1939, when the movie came out, its themes of 9)deprivation made sense to Depression-era audiences.
(Soundbite of the film, Gone with the Wind)
Leigh (As Scarlett O’Hara): As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.
Steve Wilson: Food and security, war...
Ulaby: Steve Wilson 10)curated an exhibition about Gone with the Wind up now at the University of Texas at Austin. He discussed it on NPR a few weeks ago. Wilson: These issues that were so important to Scarlett were also important to the people at the time. And I think that it 11)resonated so much that it became an 12)integral part of our culture that is still with us today.
Ulaby: Hunger, Wilson says, homelessness, dealing with 13)trauma after war—they’re all still 14)contemporary issues. And even though it’s told from the perspective of a white slave-owning woman, Wilson says Gone with the Wind’s large 15)canvas love story is timeless, too.
Wilson: I’ve had the experience of falling in love with someone who didn’t fall in love with me, you know. So that is something that I think everybody can relate to.
Ulaby: That relatability is partly what separates a Gone with the Wind from a troublesome classic like The Birth of a Nation. And traditionally, Gone with the Wind has been a family movie. That’s what it was for 27-year-old Georgetown student Becky Neff.
Becky Neff: I saw it because I have aunts and uncles who were very affected by it. And when they were growing up and they just—It’s a way for us to share something together in common. And they like to pass down things that were interesting for them.

瑞秋·馬丁(主持人):電影《亂世佳人》即將迎來第75個紀念日。當我們《面面俱到》欄目組的同事開始討論這部電影時,發(fā)現(xiàn)許多在這里工作的年輕人都沒有看過這部經(jīng)典的電影。NPR新聞的內(nèi)達·烏拉比想知道這是為什么。內(nèi)達·烏拉比(撰稿人):是因為《亂世佳人》經(jīng)不起時代的考驗嗎?
(電影《亂世佳人》原聲片段)
蝴蝶·麥奎因(飾演碧西):我們要找個醫(yī)生。我不知道怎么接生。
烏拉比:在網(wǎng)上雜志《Grantland》工作的影評人韋斯利·莫里斯認為不是這樣。他解釋道,《亂世佳人》是一部永恒的經(jīng)典,首先它驚人的技術(shù)成就(很好地證明了這一點。)
韋斯利·莫里斯:有一幕是斯嘉麗走在大街上。她看到了滿地的尸體,這是她第一次看到了戰(zhàn)爭的殘酷。這很出色,這是一個出色的鏡頭。這部電影都是這些鏡頭——像是仰拍、俯拍、中景鏡頭、全景鏡頭。特寫效果也很贊。
烏拉比:但是當被問到是否看過這部電影時,喬治城大學(xué)的學(xué)生在電影課上是這樣回答的:
不知名男士# 1: 我只看過一半——一部分。
不知名男士# 2: 沒看過。
不知名男士# 3: 沒看過。
不知名男士# 4: 看過。
不知名男士# 5: 很遺憾,沒看過。
(笑)
烏拉比:這些學(xué)生都很認真地對待電影,但是他們中的許多人都同意20歲的麥克·米納漢的看法。他說提到《亂世佳人》,老實說他沒有很留意這部電影。
麥克·米納漢:我在電影里看到的都是諸如奴隸制時代的輝煌。我不知道這部電影的意義是什么?我不認為這是歷史上的一個好時期——擁有奴隸的人們甜蜜的愛戀——就像這是很好的事一樣。
烏拉比:這群學(xué)生對《亂世佳人》有兩個爭論點——種族和強奸問題。(電影《亂世佳人》原聲片段)
費雯·麗(飾演斯嘉麗·奧哈拉):你這個爛酒鬼,把你的手從我身上拿開。
烏拉比:斯嘉麗被她的丈夫強奸了,第二天早上醒來的時候心情卻異常的愉悅。現(xiàn)在我們看到這個場景——或者看著那些有奴隸的人們——感覺會與上一代的人有很大不同。但這不代表《亂世佳人》不是永恒的,影評人韋斯利·莫里斯說道。只是對現(xiàn)在的許多觀眾來說,它過時了。
莫里斯:這部電影已經(jīng)過時的原因是人們認為里面的觀點已經(jīng)沒有任何意義。
烏拉比:但是莫里斯說《亂世佳人》里這些令人煩惱的強奸與種族觀念仍然深刻地反映著當今社會潛在的大問題。
莫里斯:在大眾文化中——你不能因為現(xiàn)在是2014年而非1939年就假裝這些東西不存在。

烏拉比:1939年,當這部電影上映時,貧困的主題讓處于大蕭條時代的觀眾們產(chǎn)生了共鳴。(電影《亂世佳人》原聲片段)
麗(飾演斯嘉麗·奧哈拉):蒼天作證,我不會再挨餓了。
史蒂夫·威爾遜:食物、安全、戰(zhàn)爭……
烏拉比:史蒂夫·威爾遜在德克薩斯大學(xué)奧斯汀分校策劃了《亂世佳人》的電影展。幾星期前他在NPR欄目中討論了這部電影。
威爾遜:那些對斯嘉麗來說很重要的問題對當時的人們也很重要。我認為它引起了如此多的共鳴,以至于成為我們文化中不可缺失的一部分,伴隨我們至今。
烏拉比:威爾遜說,饑餓、流離失所、戰(zhàn)后心靈創(chuàng)傷的治愈——它們?nèi)匀皇钱敶膯栴}。盡管(這部電影)是從一個擁有奴隸的白人婦女的角度展開的,但威爾遜說《亂世佳人》的愛情故事也是永恒的。
威爾遜:我曾經(jīng)愛過一個人,但她并不愛我,你懂的。所以我認為這和每個人都有聯(lián)系。
烏拉比:這種聯(lián)系就是讓《亂世佳人》區(qū)別于飽受爭議的經(jīng)典電影《一個國家的誕生》(譯者注:《一個國家的誕生》又名《同族人》(The Clansman),是美國電影史上最有影響力、也最具爭議性的電影之一,情節(jié)設(shè)定在南北戰(zhàn)爭期間及戰(zhàn)后,于1915年2月8日首映。由于拍攝手法的創(chuàng)新,以及因為對白人優(yōu)越主義的提倡和對三K黨的美化所引起的爭議性,使得此片在電影史上有著重要的地位。)的部分原因。在傳統(tǒng)觀念里,《亂世佳人》一直是一部家庭電影,來自喬治城大學(xué)27歲的學(xué)生貝基·內(nèi)夫是這樣認為的。
貝基·內(nèi)夫:我看這部電影是因為我的叔叔阿姨們都深受它的影響。他們成長的過程——這是讓我們共同分享的一種方式。他們想把對自己來說有趣的事傳遞下去。