Of course it does!

They must have seen it before making that judgement though surely? I agree BTW.

Just wanted to point out that in the new 4 disc set that the documentary and extras are outstanding. Seeing the premieres filmed in Atlanta gave me a perspective on this movie that I never actually had before. The restoration and making of it had some great little tidbits are fabulous and rich in history all on there own.

I also think it is hard to separate the slavery from the film, but then again, having been removed from that slice of history by 100+ years it just doesn't bother me as much. I don't think the film is a celebration of slavery or slave owners. I think the story just takes place during that place in time and history. To not have slaves in the film would make it less authentic somehow and although the blacks are portrayed as caricatures, it would be even lamer if they were portrayed as educated thespians or the like. A lot of slaves were uneducated, that's history. I'm not defending it, but sometimes people need to let the past go instead of dwelling on it and enjoy the film.

No body is suggesting that the film is "celebrating" slavery or slave owners. And to not have slaves in the film would have been ridiculous. To have had them portrayed as "educated thespians" would have been laughable. Of course they were uneducated, because white people ensured they wouldn't be educated!

I think what we are trying to get at here is that in GWTW it is simply not an honest portrayal of their lives. Okay, you can use the argument that in 1939 they couldn't show anything too brutal, I accept that. But good movie directors have always been excellent at "implying" brutality, without actually shoving it in your face!

When you say, "sometimes people need to let the past go instead of dwelling on it and enjoy the film" I wonder is that how negroes feel about GWTW? and the past?

Should they just forget about it and enjoy the film?

It may be not be honest but it makes us talk about the film and what we've seen.

There are a couple of scenes that show brutality without actually showing it, though not to the slaves. There's the bit when the soldier is about to get his leg amputated and we hear him screaming "Don't cut.. don't cut!"

The look on Scarlett's face makes that scene excruciating. In many ways it's a brutal and honest film. The treatment of slavery in it is dishonest. I would imagine that many black viewers would be unable to look past it and I understand that. The film is drenched in it (it's not a momentary subplot that's easily forgotten) and the entire thing is colored by those interactions. (Read the review I linked above if you haven't already)

In short, yes. The past is the past. Learn from it and move on. Don't harbor a destructive hatred for wrongs of the past. Especially don't hold it over contemporaries that had nothing to do with it. If I'm African American I could bare just as big a grudge against the africans who sold me into slavery from the continent.

This would be akin to the Irish hating the British today for the potato famine. Or the British hating the Romans today for years of invasion or suffering hundreds of years ago. Do you hold current day Germans accountable for the Nazi's of the 30's and 40's? Do you get mad at German people when a film about nazis comes out trying to explain why that horrible event happened? On and on and on. It's history.

I agree with your first sentiments - the movie is a movie - it is not an honest portrayal of their lives. Neither is Braveheart or even 'Rome' on HBO. It's entertainment. In this case, I don't think there was anything evil intended so I don't see why you raise the point you do.

I have read your review BTW Gil, and its excellent
You make a good point Kerborus. I know its a different sort of film, but the movie "Fist of Fury" (The Chinese Connection) was extremely popular in Japan despite its obvious anti-Japanese sentiment. Japanese of 1972 and the Japanese of today are able to watch it knowing it refers not to "all" Japanese but the particular right-wing people who occupied Shanghai and HK in the 1930's and 40's.

As a Black woman GWTW is one of my favorite movies and a favorite book. It is just a movie about a selfesh woman that happens to take place during that time frame. It is not about Slavery ! And as how I feel about the past it was a shameful time in our history but not the first and not the last, look how the Japanese were treated during WW2 but they do not let that stop them. I think that people use slavery as a crutch and it is not.

I raise the point because although there may not have been anything evil intended when they made the film, the slave part of it (and let's face it, it's a pretty big part) is totally distorted and gives the impression that negroes (who where either clowns, idiots or childlike) where quite happy to live under the whim of white men, and go singing happily off to work!
Why then wasn't the truth shown? or even "off screen"?

As for "especially don't hold it over contemporaries that had nothing to do with it" I never suggested any such thing! and let me make this absolutely clear: I do not hold southern people today guilty for the inhumanity of their forbears at all, or the Germans or anyone else in contemporary times!

Of course movies are famous for not "showing the truth". You mention Braveheart and Rome as examples, and I could mention plenty more, but this is GWTW, the supposedly biggest movie of an era, taken from a best-selling tome, that took years to make and endless studio resources, countless technicians, directors, actors etc, (you get the message) and was reputedly "a story of The Old South". Why then was this most horrendous of episodes, not simply ignored, but distorted beyond belief?

As I mentioned earlier, I am not a Negro, but if I was, I would consider the slave issue in GWTW, at best, a distortion of the truth. But in reality a gross insult to an entire people.

I would guess the truth about slavery wasn't shown because it's not a movie about slavery. Just like Tara isn't a real southern plantation because it's not a movie about southern architecture. The treatment of the wounded isn't accurate because it's not about 19th century medicine. Rhett and Scarlet aren't real because it isn't a movie about a real historical couple.

Why do you keep concentrating on what the movie isn't about?

You might want to use a different term than "negro." In a historical sense, it's proper, since that is what blacks were referred to as during that time period. Today, it's a bit uncomely. While not exactly a pejorative term like the other "N word," I know a lot of people who would take it that way.

I apologise profusely for any offence

I certainly do not wish to insult anyone, least of all blacks! Where I come from, we are not aware that the other term is offensive, in fact quite the opposite.
However, I apologise sincerely for any offence given, if that is indeed the case.

I will not be taking any further part in this discussion as it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. These were simply my views on the subject and I didn't mean to stir up a hornet's nest.

Peace

I'm trying to figure out how people born in the 1970s or 1980s can be so knowledgeable about a problem that was abolished in the 1860s.

Books. Lectures. Documentaries. Oral histories and family histories. There are still people alive today who knew people who were adults during that era.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/06/16/civilwar.widow/

Not many though surely?
Its it right to make a comparison with how Japanese audiences reacted in Japan to "Fist of Fury"? (No one commented on what I said).

I'm sure every nation has aspects of its history of which it isnt proud.

Whatever the individual motivations of the fighting men -- yes it's true, the majority of Southerners were too poor to own slaves, and many northerners actively protested against the concept of fighting *for* blacks -- the Civil War was fought over slavery and the fact the slave-holding was a cultural and economic cornerstone of Southern culture. Without slaves, wealthy plantation owners didn't have access to wage-free workers they could own, control, and breed. Cheap labor was especially necessary, given the advent of Eli Whitney's cotton gin and the fact that the South was making buttloads of cash on their cotton crop, selling to both Europe and Northern factories. If they had to *pay* workers to work the fields, their magins dropped precipitiously. Slavery drove the Missouri Compromise used to protect southern industry, stating that for every new free state admitted to the union, another had to be admitted as a slave one. Then you get into the whole issue of nullification ordinances, which tested whether or not states could strike down federal laws.. but these were mostly about slavery (in the north AND the south). Slavery became a major issue after the Mexican American war, as the Wilmot Proviso tried to keep slavery out of Texas and California as part of a reparations package to Mexico. The Senate never approved it. Also the

I sometimes think people are either trained or want to be offended...

This thread is making me think just that.