Frankly, My Dear: 'Gone with the Wind' Revisited (Icons of America Series) - Softcover

Molly Haskell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300164378 ISBN 13: 9780300164374

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2010

Synopsis

An exploration of the book, the movie, and the author of one of the most captivating stories ever told How and why has the saga of Scarlett O'Hara kept such a tenacious hold on our national 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 70 years later.

About this title

Product Description:

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? Sensitive to the ways in which history and cinema intersect, the author reminds us why these characters, so riveting to Depression audiences, continue to fascinate seventy years later.

Review:

"An absolutely marvelous work - provocative, perceptive, richly informative, and written with a contagious passion. Molly Haskell has given all of us who are in thrall to Gone with the Wind countless fresh insights, not only about its characters and the era in which they lived, but also about ourselves and our own times." - Olivia de Havilland

"An absolutely marvelous work-provocative, perceptive, richly informative, and written with a contagious passion. Molly Haskell has given all of us who are in thrall to Gone with the Wind countless fresh insights, not only about its characters and the era in which they lived, but also about ourselves and our own times."-Olivia de Havilland

"Beautifully written and fascinating to digest, Molly Haskell''s Frankly, My Dear towers above any other book that''s yet been written about Gone with the Wind. It has the kind of insights into the Wind phenomenon that only a writer of Molly Haskell''s stature, wisdom and clarity could give us. It is quite the perfect toast to both the book and to the film version of Wind on the latter''s 70th birthday."-Robert Osborne, Host of Turner Classic Movies

"In engaging and witty fashion, Haskell seamlessly weaves together biographical and autobiographical issues, production information, sharp critical commentary, and cogent analysis of the literary, social and political context of both the Margaret Mitchell novel and the David Selznick adaptation. She gives us numerous important insights into the deep mythology of the film and its ability to function as ''the Bible of America.''"?James Naremore, Indiana University -- James Naremore

"A stunning piece of criticism, written with fever-pitch intensity, that demonstrates so movingly why it''s impossible to name the kind of greatness found in Gone with the Wind and impossible to refrain from trying."?Alan Trachtenberg, author of Lincoln''s Smile and Other Enigmas -- Alan Trachtenberg

"Molly Haskell is a magician to coax such exciting, fresh, brilliant analysis from such a problematic classic. Her feeling for ambivalence and nuance reveals unsuspected shadings, and thrillingly elucidates Gone with the Wind's miraculous tightrope act of masculine-feminine sensibilities."?Phillip Lopate -- Phillip Lopate

?Beautifully written and fascinating to digest, Molly Haskell''s Frankly, My Dear towers above any other book that''s yet been written about Gone with the Wind. It has the kind of insights into the Wind phenomenon that only a writer of Molly Haskell''s stature, wisdom and clarity could give us. It is quite the perfect toast to both the book and to the film version of Wind on the latter''s 70th birthday."?Robert Osborne, Host of Turner Classic Movies -- Robert Osborne

"With her sharp feeling for movie culture, sexual politics, and the elusive mores of the old South, Molly Haskell brilliantly sketches the contribution of everyone who shaped Gone with the Wind into a problematic but enduring popular classic."?Morris Dickstein, author of Gates of Eden and Leopards in the Temple -- Morris Dickstein

"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 -- Martin Scorsese

?An absolutely marvelous work?provocative, perceptive, richly informative, and written with a contagious passion. Molly Haskell has given all of us who are in thrall to Gone with the Wind countless fresh insights, not only about its characters and the era in which they lived, but also about ourselves and our own times. Olivia de Havilland -- Olivia de Havilland

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0300164378
• ISBN 13: 9780300164374
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272