Frankly, My Dear "Gone with the Wind" Revisited Molly Haskell

How and why has the saga of Scarlett O'Hara kept such a tenacious hold on the American imagination for almost three-quarters of a century? In the first book ever to deal simultaneously with Margaret Mitchell's beloved novel and David Selznick's spectacular film version of "Gone with the Wind", film critic Molly Haskell seeks the answers. By all industry predictions, the film should never have worked. What makes it work so amazingly well are the fascinating and uncompromising personalities that Haskell dissects here: Margaret Mitchell, David Selznick, and Vivien Leigh. As a feminist and onetime Southern adolescent, Haskell understands how the story takes on different shades of meaning according to the age and eye of the beholder. She explores how it has kept its edge because of Margaret Mitchell's (and our) ambivalence about Scarlett and because of the complex racial and sexual attitudes embedded in a story that at one time or another has offended almost everyone. Haskell imaginatively weaves together disparate strands, conducting her story as her own inner debate between enchantment and disenchantment. Sensitive to the ways in which history and cinema intersect, she reminds us why these characters, so riveting to Depression audiences, continue to fascinate seventy years later.

Molly Haskell is a writer and film critic. She has lectured widely on the role of women in film and is the author of From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies.

"'This is a beautifully written and well-detailed account of the making of a movie that has, by now, become an American treasure, a landmark in popular entertainment. And it's written by a real Southerner, who happens to be one of the best writers on film we have.' Martin Scorsese 'The era of Scarlett O'Hara is long Gone with the Wind but her story still fires our imagination. Molly Haskell explains why it mattered and, Frankly My Dear, why it continues to.' Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair 'Haskell disentangles the film's qualities from the confounding issues of misogyny, racism and intellectual snobbery... Haskell's critical sensitivity rescues Scarlett's Americanism and femininity, indicating how her image rebounds upon our eternal political struggles and deepest fantasies.' Armond White, New York Times Book Review"