Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited

by Molly Haskell

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300164374
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	02/23/2010
Series:	Icons of America
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Molly Haskell is a writer and film critic. She has lectured widely on the role of women in film and is the author of From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. She lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

“Besides her unique and crucial role in American feminism, Haskell is also one of the best writers on film in America, and both as a critic and stylist she’s only getting better.”--The L Magazine

The L Magazine

Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice Magazine

Choice

“[Haskell’s] passion for her subject is whopping, and her book is a flat-out must for any fan of epic Hollywood. She doesn’t tell all the stories — only the ones worth hearing, and they gleam in between ingeniously fevered pages on slavery, or startling memories of Haskell’s Virginian schoolmates climaxing on first reading the book. A near-perfect example of how cinema ought to be written about.”—Antonia Quirke, The Times (UK)

The Times (UK)

". . . Molly Haskell is interested in the meeting points between film, sociology and history, and she writes about all of them, together and separately, with ease and authority. . . . Her research and insights—her intelligent understanding of all she surveys—are unsurpassed. . . .” — Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle - Mick LaSalle

"It's near exhilarating to read Molly Haskell's Frankly, My Dear, a revisitation that explores the reverberating complexities of the Margaret Mitchell franchise. . . . "—Steve Coates, New York Times

New York Times - Steve Coates

"Molly Haskell applies her deep movie knowledge, feminist eye, and Southern roots to a fiercely smart appreciation of Gone With the Wind. . . ."—Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

". . . Molly Haskell . . . rises to the task of explaining this uniquely American cultural phenomenon by boldly burrowing into both the 1936 best seller by Margaret Mitchell and the big-screen epic it inspired. . . . It leaves you yearning to return to Tara . . ."—Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today

USA Today - Susan Wloszczyna

“The era of Scarlett O’Hara is long Gone with the Wind but her story still fires our imagination. Molly Haskell explains why it mattered and, Frankly My Dear, why it continues to.” - Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair - Elissa Schappell

". . . affectionate scholarship . . . [Haskell] disentangles the film's qualities from the confounding issues of misogyny, racism and intellectual snobbery. . . . Haskell's critical sensitivity rescues Scarlett's Americanism and femininity, indicating how her image rebounds upon our eternal political struggles and deepest fantasies . . . "—Armond White, New York Times Book Review

International Herald Tribune - Armond White

"A smart, sassy, and sophisticated reappraisal of the novel and the movie."—Glenn C. Altschuler, Tulsa World

Tulsa World - Glenn C. Altschuler

"What Molly Haskell does so deftly is dismiss conventional wisdom about Gone With the Wind."—Margaret Moser, Austin Chronicle

Austin Chronicle - Margaret Moser

"Haskell's feminist perspective comes to the rescue of a film most academics won't touch and current critics dismiss."—New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

New York Times Book Review

"Molly Haskell has written a new book about Gone With the Wind. If you give a damn about this subject, I urge you to seek it out."—Pamela Fiori, Town & Country

Town & Country - Pamela Fiori

"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

"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

“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

"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

“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

"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

". . . Molly Haskell is interested in the meeting points between film, sociology and history, and she writes about all of them, together and separately, with ease and authority. . . . Her research and insights—her intelligent understanding of all she surveys—are unsurpassed. . . .” — Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

— Mick LaSalle

San Francisco Chronicle

"It''s near exhilarating to read Molly Haskell''s Frankly, My Dear, a revisitation that explores the reverberating complexities of the Margaret Mitchell franchise. . . . "—Steve Coates, New York Times

— Steve Coates

New York Times

". . . Molly Haskell . . . rises to the task of explaining this uniquely American cultural phenomenon by boldly burrowing into both the 1936 best seller by Margaret Mitchell and the big-screen epic it inspired. . . . It leaves you yearning to return to Tara . . ."—Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today

— Susan Wloszczyna

USA Today

“The era of Scarlett O’Hara is long Gone with the Wind but her story still fires our imagination. Molly Haskell explains why it mattered and, Frankly My Dear, why it continues to.” - Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

— Elissa Schappell

Vanity Fair

“. . . an earnest work of moviegoer remembrance that’s also affectionate scholarship . . . Haskell clarifies the long shadow that Scarlett O’ Hara casts over the American movie imagination.” — Armond White, International Herald Tribune

— Armond White

International Herald Tribune

"What Molly Haskell does so deftly is dismiss conventional wisdom about Gone With the Wind."—Margaret Moser, Austin Chronicle

— Margaret Moser

Austin Chronicle

"Molly Haskell has written a new book about Gone With the Wind. If you give a damn about this subject, I urge you to seek it out."—Pamela Fiori, Town & Country

— Pamela Fiori

Town & Country