We were coming home from the supermarket last night around 8:00, R and I, and I stopped at a corner to wait for it to be clear so I could turn right and then, BOOM! Well, it was really more like BOOM, because I didn't get hit hard or fast, but I got hit. I went out to look and damn if my little piece of crap car isn't the best damn piece of crap in the world. And I am never buying a car without a spare tire on the back of it. Anyway, the guy who hit me felt terrible and was so nice and then I realized I knew him and he knew me; he works at the deli where we go. I said "I know you from someplace; where?" and he looked at me and showed me the deli shirt he was wearing under his jacket and said "Oh, you're the lady with the two daughters!" because if one of us goes in there alone he always asks us where the other two are because he thinks the three of us look exactly like each other. (We don't.) He was all upset, of course, and said he was distracted because his own daughter is in the hospital, so then I felt really bad for him, and we said good-night and that's it. We are fine and so is the car, although the check engine light came on this morning. I'll get it checked out one of these days. There's nothing wrong with the car. (Hoping those don't turn out to be famous last words.)Somehow I've kept very busy today, doing I don't even remember what. Oh yeah, I got my food for the week, I walked away some pounds, I watched last night's Bill Maher show, which I'd taped. But about twenty minutes ago, I ran out of stuff to watch on TV so I put in a movie, something I rarely remember to do, although I like to collect movies. I put in Gone With the Wind, which is playing now in the background. What is it about this movie? I know that the book, and really, especially the movie, are so many things that are politically incorrect now, which is not to say that they aren't morally wrong for any time and place. Think about it: when is slavery ever morally right? One of the social studies teachers is considering using it with a class, and she says if she does, she'll ask the kids to examine it within the context of its time (1939) and to explore the issues from that point of view. I think that's the way to look at it, examining how and why the southern point of view as Margaret Mitchell expressed it (and as Selznick captured it on film) looked back at the Civil War and slavery and everything else the way they did. People who see this film and think its only historical context is the Civil War tend to hate it, I think, and say "Well, it's so inaccurate." It's not a documentary. It's first and foremost the story of an individual strong woman and her inability to identify which of the men in her life is the right one for her (not until it's too late, anyway.) The rest of it is backdrop, but it's powerful backdrop. One of the things that fascinates me in the book/film is how the people who treated their slaves "well" felt morally superior to those who didn't, as if slavery itself wasn't immoral.
(There is, btw, a boy in my school -- a very bright but somewhat peculiar freshman -- who says that he is a "libertarian" and that he believes that slavery should be legal, because every human being owns his own body and has the right to sell it, if he chooses. He wrote this in an essay, which his teacher told me about. She told him that he is lacking some essential understanding of what slavery is, and that what he's talking about is prostitution.)
Anyway, when I was a kid - 15, 16 - I worshipped GWTW, book and film. Like everything else I've ever been interested in, I read extensively about their background, details about the filming, and so on. I gave a speech on it once, in speech class (the class where I met the Hubs.) I've watched it on TV before, here and there, but only the big screen in a movie theater really does it justice. That said, the color and quality of the DVD is really excellent, and this isn't even the most recent, deluxe release. Clark Gable is just oozing charisma in this movie, and I still want to smack Ashley Wilkes in the head with a 2 x 4.
Okay, I just stopped for a minute to watch the part where they get the casualty report from Gettysburg and practically everyone in the southern army is dead (except Ashley) and the fife and drum corps starts playing "Dixie" but they're all crying because everyone of them has lost a loved one and now I'm all choked up. This movie knows how to pull strings.
Oy. I'm going to watch the rest of it.
