Gone with the Wind question

I think the return to Tara, after Scarlett makes them all pick cotton, and in a final pass through the Union soldiers burn all the cotton, and Scarlett saves the house from burning down too. That is Scarlett and her relationship with Tara in a nutshell.

I liked how Rhett would ride with Scarlett when she was pregnant with Frank's baby and going out to the lumber mill by herself (and Scarlett thought she was hiding her pregnancy by wearing a heavy velvet lap blanket lol). He even switched her horse with his because his horse was better behaved and he was worried about her wagon turning over.

I thought it showed a softer side of Rhett.

Overall most of my favorite scenes made it into the movie. Rhett overhearing Scarlett's declaration of love to Ashley was my favorite scene in the book, and in the movie. I love it when she just hurls that ceramic thing-a-ma-bob across the room, and Rhett just finds it hilarious.

It's a small scene in the book, but I loved when Rhett was asking Scarlett to be his mistress. Just the fact that the first thing to come out of her mouth is "what'll I get out of that except a passle of brats?" (paraphrasing as I can't find the actual quote). I understand that they couldn't put that into movie back in 1939, but it would have been hilarious to see their reactions.

The book was much more involved in the war and what it meant to the South. There was more on the economics and on what the family suffered. There was more on Scarlett's family, their characters and how they lived. Of course there were the parties and even a very limited number of scenes showing the hardship, but it was just not enough to get the reality of this tragedy in our history.

While I recognize that movies have to have stars and that they have to standout, a lot of the other characters were stuck in the background with only a mention, or not at all.

And while I love Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, I think that some of his personality was lost to Clark Gable's own. Don't get me wrong. I think he was a great choice and it would have been hard to find anyone then or today that could do better, but just that Gable overpowered Rhett.

There was even an underplaying of the importance of the burning of Atlanta from the standpoint of the destruction and Sherman's brutality. (Yes, the visual was pretty spectacular, but short-lived.)

But the one scene that made up for a lot of this loss from the book was the one where the soldiers were laid out for what looked like miles and miles alongside the train station dead and dying. That one was a real grabber.

I think Scarlett getting pregnant on her wedding night set up her attitude toward men and sex. Also, having three children, two other than Bonnie Blue with Rhett, makes his total devastation more of a contrast to Scarlett's, by comparison, more grounded grieving.