While Gone with the Wind glosses slavery and makes it seem to be a romantic and vital part of the “old South” (especially since all the slaves in this pre-Civil War south besides Prissy are hard working, devoted, and almost like members of the family. One critic of the film addressed the fact that slaves were represented romantically and this idealized view of slavery at Tara was emphasized by the presence of Mammy, whose “association with darkness, earthiness, and fleshiness—in contrast to the white mistress’ lightness, heavenliness, and absence—neutralize a peculiar division of domestic labor in the antebellum South (with contemporary extensions nationwide) and psychic labor currently. The mistress is able to remain prim and proper to the extent that mammy does the dirty work” (St. John 2001). In Cold Mountain, however, the fact of slavery goes almost completely unrecognized. “Many reviewers have criticized the film for its few depictions of African Americans. There are fleeting glimpses of black Union soldiers in the horrific maelstrom of the Crater. At Ada’s farm, we can see in the twilight a candlelit slave cabin. There is another scene of slaves picking cotton. And there is a brief but haunting scene of a terrified family about to be caught in the open by the Home Guard.
The issue of race and slavery in Cold Mountain is similarly muted, in some cases simply marginalized. Ada, we are told, frees her slaves early in the war. And several minor characters, including a Confederate doctor, pointedly express antislavery sentiments” (Campbell 2004). With this in mind it is useful to go back to the idea that none of the Southerners in the film seemed to care what they were fighting for. If slavery was not a prominent issue for them as it was for many other Southerners, perhaps this is why they were not represented in the film. If that is the case, then rather than seeing the absence of African American slaves inCold Mountain is making a more subtle point—while in Gone with the Wind the slaves were “needed” to run the massive upper-class plantation, how were they needed in rural places such as the one inhabited by Ada and Ruby? They were self-sufficient and needed no slave labor, therefore what stake should they have felt they had in the Cause? Perhaps this is a more meaningful exclusion than a smile case of glossing a negative part of history. In other words, b showing that slaves did not play an important role in the well being of these particular Southerners, it shows how useless and senseless the war really was.
While it may be easy to lump Southerners into a bunch of slave-owning plantation “empowers” as seen inGone with the Wind, it seems an equally accurate picture presented in Cold Mountain since not all Southerners were rich land and slave owners. While this is a debatable point, it is worth considering that throughout both films the threat to the Southern way of life comes from outside, in this sense, the threat comes from within. For rural agricultural families in the South, the war threatened their land and stability. The problem is, they had nothing to gain from the war. Many of them weren’t slave owners, therefore, the threat of war meant the threat of stability, thus the harm came from the South’s assertion to fight in a doomed war. This critical aspect on the part of Ruby is made clear when she says, “They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say ‘Shit, it’s raining!’” and is also expressed by the depressed Ada’s comment, “What we have lost will never be returned to us. The land will not heal – too much blood. All we can do is learn from the past and make peace with it.” In this sense, the rural non-slave owning people of the South offer a better and more complete picture of the time period.
In both films the South has been irrevocably changed but in different ways. Although each film concludes with the idea that life will go on, since the character Scarlett, played by actress Vivian Leigh makes her impassioned speech about how “tomorrow’s another day” and Ada has a new family, there is the sense that something grand has been lost. This is most prominent in Gone with the Wind since the viewer is shown the decadence before the ruin, but in Cold Mountain, there is the sense that many good men died and the South won’t be the same without their presence. The two films offer two ways of viewing the South. In Cold Mountain, it is the depiction of the rural agricultural life which we understand will change yet remain essentially the same no matter what and this is contrasted with the grandeur of the large plantation that will never be whole again. In sum, if someone not familiar with the region and its history were to see these two films there would be a palatable sense of loss—loss of something magical that can never be regained. Even if the viewer knows it’s “Hollywood magic” it is understood that although it has been romanticized, it is a region with rich, dark history.
Other essays and articles in the Main Archives related to this topic include : Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects Overview of the Reconstruction Era • Character Analysis of “Trip” in the Film Glory • Discussion of Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina From 1670 to the Stono Rebellion by Peter Wood • Comparison of Films “Sidewalks of London” and “La Strada” : Leigh and Masina
Works Cited
Burks, Ruth Elizabeth. (2004). Gone With the Wind : Black and White in Technicolor. Quarterly Review of Film & Video, 21(1), 53.
Campbell, E. (2004). Cold Mountain(review). Southern Cultures, 10(2), 103
Inscoe, John C. (2004). Cold Mountain. Journal of American History, 91(3), 1127
John, Maria St. (2001). ‘It Ain’t Fittin’.’. Studies in Gender & Sexuality, 2(2), 129
Koresky, Michael. (2004). Cold Mountain. Film Comment, 40(1), 74
Railton, Ben. (2003). “What Else Could a Southern Gentleman Do?”: Qentin Compson, Rhett Butler, and Miscegenation. Southern Literary Journal, 35 (2), 41
