REVIEW: Gone with the Wind

ByRobert Greenberger

Gone with the Wind arrives on 4K with a presentation that reveals fresh detail in a familiar epic. The restoration gives its visual achievement renewed impact, but no upgrade can fix its romanticized view of the past.

Released in 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind was hailed as a moving story of survival under terrible circumstances. Scarlett O’Hara loves and loses but remains determined to endure the Civil War’s devastation of her beloved plantation home, Tara. Written during the Great Depression, the novel found readers who empathized with its depiction of the collapse of the South’s plantation economy.

It has not aged particularly well as it romanticized the “lost cause” which nearly destroyed the United States. It was also seen as whitewashing slavery and defending it as a necessity in the culture of the day. The 1,037-page novel framed the Ku Klux Klan as necessary and was free with its racial slurs.

The film adaptation was conceived as an epic befitting the bestseller, with no expense spared. Producer David O. Selznick turned the production itself into a publicity event, most famously through the global search for Scarlett that ended with Vivien Leigh winning the role. The film’s ambitious scale and use of color brought its vision of the South to vivid life.

The production was troubled, with several directors brought in to shoot portions of the film. Such contributions were not uncommon—The Wizard of Oz offers another example—but the number of directors complicates any simple account of who made Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood, Cameron Menzies, and Reeves Eason all appear in that account.

The movie’s visual achievement and performances hold up; its core message and themes, beyond survival, fare no better than the book’s. That distinction matters as Warner Home Entertainment brings the film to 4K: a new presentation offers another opportunity to appreciate its craft without overlooking its shortcomings.

The film justified its near-record $4 million budget, played for years, and returned in periodic rereleases. Its reach extended into home viewing: I remember the excitement of gathering with friends in high school to watch its HBO debut. The Academy recognized Leigh as Best Actress and Hattie McDaniel as Best Supporting Actress. The film also won Best Picture, Director (Fleming alone), Screenplay, Art Direction, Color Cinematography, and Film Editing, with a special award for production designer William Cameron Menzies and a scientific/technical award for mechanical effects supervisor Don Musgrave.

The restoration begins with a 16-bit 8K scan of the original negative, revealing details previous editions could not show, from lace to wallpaper patterns. Dolby Vision and HDR10 support an expanded color gamut that gives the three-strip Technicolor imagery renewed richness. For those of us who have seen the film before, that attention to period detail can be revelatory and makes this edition well worth a look. The film is split across two 100GB discs, with data rates averaging around 80Mbps.

The audio presentation combines DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 with a remastered version of the original Western Electric mono mix. Max Steiner’s lush score and the sound effects benefit from the restoration, making the soundtrack a fine match for the superior visuals.

The supplements combine previously released bonus features with newly included material from TCM, some of it dating to 2019. The subjects range from the production and restoration to the film’s complicated legacy. Here’s the disc-by-disc breakdown:

Discs One & Two: The Film (4K Ultra HD)

  • Audio Commentary by historian Rudy Behlmer
  • The film is split over two 100GB discs to allow of the best possible data rates (averaging around 80Mbps).

Disc Three: Special Features (Blu-ray)

  • NEW Turner Classics Movies Intro Hosted by Jacqueline Stewart (4:31)
  • NEW Gone with the Wind: The Influence that Endures (8:22)
  • NEW Scarlett O’Hara: A Woman Ahead of Her Time (8:09)
  • NEW Gone with the Wind: Restoring and Preserving an Epic (7:13)
  • The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind (2:3:15)
  • Gone with the Wind: The Legend Lives On (32:42)
  • Melanie Remembers: Reflection by Olivia de Havilland (38:43)
  • The Supporting Players (28:41)
  • Dixie Hails Gone with the Wind (4:01)
  • Atlanta Civil War Centennial (3:41)
  • International Prologue (1:17)
  • Foreign Language Versions (2:37)
  • Gone with the Wind: Hollywood Comes to Atlanta (12:36)
  • NEW TCM Presents: The Complicated Legacy of Gone with the Wind (2:03)
  • NEW TCM Presents: A Conversation about Slavery in Film (7:10)

The release is available as a three-disc 4K Ultra HD set with Blu-ray and a Digital Code, plus a standard edition, a Steelbook with a 12-page booklet, poster, ticket, and lobby card reproductions, and a Walmart-exclusive collector’s set. For those returning to the film, the restored picture and remastered sound make this edition worth a look. Its appeal lies in a stronger presentation of an enduring cinematic achievement, not in resolving the problems in its view of the past.

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