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Only in case you glossed over the title of this post, you should know that it gives away the story. Even so, I suspect that almost people are familiar with the film, at least. I think it's pretty hard to grow up in Northward America without having seen some parts of it. It's on television about one time a year.

I watched the picture over the last couple of nights to refresh my memory. I picked up the book almost a calendar month ago and couldn't put it down. (You tin read my review also on this blog.) While reading, I kept trying to remember the movie and wondered about the differences between the two. So, hither goes….

(I've updated this postal service on June 15, 2022 due to the anti-Black racism especially depicted in the moving-picture show, which has been pulled from HBO's streaming service. That was in response to the recent heartbreaking, senseless deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Ahmaud Arbery, which have incited world-wide protests. May there be equality and justice for Black lives. Finally.)

The book is much darker than the moving-picture show. Mitchell eloquently writes about Scarlett's thoughts and feelings. They are much more complex and venomous than the moving-picture show portrays. For example, in the movie, when Scarlett is going to deliver Melly's infant, she pauses on the stairway and actually looks concerned for the woman she hates. Not and then in the book.

Every bit well, Mitchell writes about racial tensions. The book was criticized for some of her portrayals of Blacks. Stereotypes are in both, but I feel (granted I'm a white woman) they're more predominant in the film. And she writes of the Klan. In the volume, a Black man grabs Scarlett when she is driving her buggy past Shantytown. It'south a white man in the pic. In the book, Ashley, Frank, Dr. Meade et al are Klan members and then that is why they go to take matters in their own hands after the buggy incident, believing the Yankees will do naught. Their Klan activities are why the Yankees know well-nigh the Shantytown raid. In the film, Frank mentions he has a "political meeting" every bit an alibi to Scarlett. Only the reference is and so weak that if I hadn't read the novel, I would have missed information technology. By fugitive any mention of the Klan in the movie, the Yankees' awareness of the raid seems less plausible. And racial conflicts are white washed.

A commenter points out that the moving picture also changes the reason Rhett was in prison after the war. In the volume, it was considering he was suspected of murdering at least one, if not two Blackness men. In the movie, the reason is that the Spousal relationship believes Rhett has access to the Confederate treasury or cognition of where it's located. In the book, he admits to Scarlett that he and other blockade runners pocketed money meant for goods when it became incommunicable to get around the blockade.

I also found the escape of Scarlett, Melanie, her babe, and Overnice in the moving picture to exist a piddling lighter than the book's description. Prissy definitely gets cuffed past Scarlett more times in the book. The picture show makes no mention that Melanie'southward baby is starving (considering she has no milk) and that's why finding the moo-cow is such a blessing. In that location is no rain in the book. I remember the movie tried to draw the hopelessness visually with the scene of them (buggy and horse included) hiding from soldiers, under a bridge in the pouring rain.

There are many other darker scenes and relationships in the book. The controversial scene of a drunkard Rhett sweeping an angry, uninterested Scarlett off to the bedroom is downplayed in the movie, probably so it looks less like marital rape. Moreover, Scarlett has iii children in the volume – one from each of her marriages. She has a boy named Wade with Charles, a daughter named Ella with Frank, and another girl named Eugenie Victoria (Bonnie Blue) with Rhett. Her horrible parenting—but referred to in the movie by Rhett when he says that cats are better mothers—and lack of love for her children make her a vile character in writing. Layered on is her abysmal treatment of Squeamish. In the motion picture, she ofttimes looks simply superficial and distracted.

Looking at those finer points may brand information technology audio like the pic doesn't hold up. It does. It's really the best picture show I've seen that was made from a novel. I believe the darker elements were left out to make information technology more widely appealing, every bit well equally to avoid controversy.

The movie does an excellent chore of compressing events. Here are a couple of examples. Much of Rhett'south and Scarlett's courting takes place when they are travelling in carriages. Scarlett and Mrs. Meade are present when Belle Watling gives Melanie coin for the hospital. That mode Scarlett tin can immediately see that the prostitute's aureate coins are wrapped in one of Rhett's handkerchiefs. Also, Gerald O'Hara dies when chasing their old Yankee overseer off their belongings, whereas in the volume his blow happens because he'southward upset later Sue Ellen (his daughter) tries to have him sign papers proving he's a Yankee sympathizer. In the book, Scarlett does not witness his death. The only compression in the motion picture that I didn't similar is Scarlett'due south hurried revelation that she is non in honey with Ashley – that she was in beloved with a fantasy of him.

And there are still other differences:
– Many characters, forth with Scarlett'south beginning 2 children, are cutting from the pic, like Will Benteen, a Confederate veteran who helps Scarlett rebuild Tara; Dilcey (Pork's wife); and Honey Wilkes, whom Charles Hamilton was courting in the book. In the movie, he was courting India before falling in love with and marrying Scarlett.
– In the novel, Scarlett marries Charles the day before Melanie and Ashley marry, which is extremely rude because the order of the appointment announcements. In the movie, Melanie and Ashley marry before Scarlett and Charles.
– Rhett'south relationship with Belle Watling is sanitized in the film.
– Rhett's last words in the novel are: "My honey, I don't give a damn." In the motion-picture show, he adds a "Frankly" to the kickoff of them.
– On the night of the Shantytown raid, Melanie reads from David Copperfield in the movie, rather than Les Miserables.
– In the novel, Scarlett gives her ring to The Cause earlier Melanie follows conform. Melanie makes the offer first in the movie.

Phew. All of that pretty much covers the differences between the book and the pic. I yet would choose the book over the film.

Thanks to IMDB, AMC Filmsite, and a post by Andrea Rowe on Yahoo! Voices for helping to remind me of the many differences.