I just watched “gone with the wind”

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All wars are won by attrition.  It is not so much the number of soldiers killed or the resources destroyed, but the number of soldiers and resources remaining.  If I loose 20,000 troops and you lose only 200, that looks bad for me; but if I still have 2,000,000 troops left and you have only 2,000 then victory will likely be mine.

By the end of WWII, Germany's overall troop strength was significantly less than the allied forces that surrounded them.

Similarly, the Confederacy's available forces had been reduced far below the forces of the Union.  This was not just troops, but arms, ammunition, food, medicine, and other military resources.  The Confederacy even drafted slaves to fight for them, only to learn that those same slaves would rather be shot for desertion than fight to remain slaves.

I don't understand the question.
It doesn't matter who was winning or losing, or what happened in Russia.
She was affected by seeing loss, meaning the loss of lives and the death of her lifestyle.
She could see what was going to happen like a changing of the guard.
She had to become self-reliant (e.g., shooting the deserter).
It symbolised the changing of times and the collapse of her past.
She had to grow up, confront this harsh reality, and move forward.

Then in the film they should have indicated the number of soldiers remaining. One way to do it would be to show the document quoting numbers.

But showing dead soldiers didn’t fulfill that purpose since it pointed to how many were dead rather than how many were still alive.

I guess one could do the math and say that since Soviet Union was territorially larger than Germany while confederacy was territorially smaller than Union, that’s why in case of confederacy more soldiers killed translated into fewer alive, which in case of USSR it didn’t.

But doing the math won’t change the emphasize from emotional standpoint. The emphasize should be on the number of soldiers alive, not dead. Because making an emphasize on the ones dead would equate sacrifice with a defeat, and that is a bad message from emotional viewpoint.

I thought it very much did matter who was winning or losing. It was like the central point of the film (aside from romance of course).



The reason I brought up Russia is that it provides an illustration of a different way of looking at the dead soldiers. When they are no longer viewed as a symbol of defeat but, instead, of sacrifice.



Again, in Soviet mindset, that’s not what dead soldiers represent. Instead, they give an opposite message. Namely, “look at how much we sacrificed, so we have to keep going with our cause”. In their case their cause was communism and they used world war 2 and how much they sacrificed for that particular victory (dead soldiers) as a motivation to push for more and more victories in their road to communism.

Actuarial documents are exceedingly boring to movie audiences, especially those audiences that enjoy action and drama.It showed the heart-breaking drama of defeat in war, and GWTW was, overall, a drama piece.You have forgotten that the USSR was not fighting the war alone; and that together, the Allied forces (and their resources) were far greater than Germany's by the end of the war.Emphasizing the Confederate dead DID equate THEIR sacrifice with THEIR defeat, thus making their sacrifices poignantly futile.  The negative emotional impact on the audience was likely intentional, because Hollywood directors (even in 1939) know that such drama draws audiences -- more butts in more seats equates to more tickets sold, which equates to greater profits.

Keep in mind that GWTW was produced to be entertaining, not educational; but most of all, to be profitable.

The movie makers were not making that assumption, and the scenes of death and destruction have nothing to do with that. That wasnt the point.

We can return to that topic later, but first...

Actually the USSR lost 7.5 soldiers.

It also lost about 15 million civilians (maybe more). But it did lose more soldiers than did the invading German army. But the loss of life by all parties (invaders, defenders, soldiers and civilians) was astronomical. And beyond what most Brits and Americans can easily grasp. Agree with you on that.

Unlike the Soviet war against Hitler, the American civil war was one of the few major wars in history which were not genocidal (ie more soldiers were killed than civilians). But it was the worst war America went through. In proportion to the population, it was equivalent to the USA of 2022 loosing six million people in a war today.

But like the Soviet "Great Patriotic War" in our civil war the victors lost more men than did the vanquished. The north lost half again as many men as did the south. Though the south lost far more relative to its smaller population size than did the north.

GWTW is not a "war movie" as such. Its not a Soviet style propaganda movie. And its not even an American style John Wayne movie. Its the story of the end of a way of life: That of the southern slave owning aristocracy. And the story of one woman surviving the end of that way of life. you're not looking at it through the right Lense. Its more like a movie adaptation of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" than what you're comparing it to.

That movie had snapshots of some written stuff at other points, that’s actually what gave me an idea.



USSR contributed far more to world war 2 than all the rest of allied forces combined. And their 20 million dead soldiers is a good indication of this. That’s why I perceive dead soldiers in an opposite way to how the film portrays them.

You mean 7.5 million?



If the north lost only half as many as south did, how are you saying victors lost more? Or was it a typo?

This is the strangest conversation about GwtW that I’ve ever seen.

It is not a documentary. It is historical fiction. Historical accuracy is less important than dramatic effect when it comes to a big Hollywood film. The director knew what he was doing. It’s a great movie although challenging for various reasons.

Last I checked, neither Margaret Mitchell nor the novel are Russian.

Also, the story isn't about "romance". It's about self-determination.

I wasn’t talking about historical accuracy. I was talking what represents what. Should dead soldiers represent defeat or no? That is more of a language question rather than historical question. And can be asked both within a fiction and non-fiction context.

Here is an example of outright fiction where I have similar question. I watched a movie “king stag” and they used a drawing of a stag that still stands, just has its head hanging to represent dead stag. I didn’t like it either. Because if I don’t sleep a night and then try to study, I would fall asleep on my chair and my head would be hanging, similar to his. So they shown an animal that’s simply tired to represent the one that’s dead. It is a really pissimistic message. You see an animal struggling. You want to hope that the sleep would heal it. But no, you are told it’s dead.

Sleepy/sick animal being used to represent the dead one bothers me in the same way as struggling army being used to represent defeated army.

And “king stag” is as much fiction as it gets. So fiction vs non-fiction is not a point. The point is what represents what and it’s implications on larger mindset.

I think most people would think that showing the dead soldiers here is an effective way of depicting defeat/the futileness of war.

Of course, not everyone would agree and that’s okay.

When it comes to books and movies, it’s usually a good idea to show but not tell. That’s what this scene is doing. If instead we were told that they lost through a telegram, the movie wouldn’t have the same emotional impact on its viewers and the director/screenwriters probably knew that.

The facts about the actual war (in terms of numbers killed) don’t matter that much here. It’s not a documentary. It’s a film that seeks to give the viewers an emotional experience, and it does. It’s old Hollywood at its best in my opinion.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 05 Jul 2022, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Here's the original text of the scene.

Scarlett is learning humility and desperation.

It's her rite of passage, or loss of innocence.

Are you saying that the concept that sacrifice might be a victory rather than defeat is unique to Russia? If so, it’s really sad.



Ironically, while they show determination on a personal level, they send opposite message on the political level. If an entity has determination to fight, then dead soldiers might not represent a defeat.

No, I'm saying that people die in war and the protagonist sees it first hand.
It's a plot device.

You are way overthinking this.