When we think about the landmark film production of Gone With the Wind, most of us conjure
up images of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and Hattie
McDaniels. If we’re up on film history, we remember the film’s imperious
producer, David O. Selznick, as well as a revolving cast of directors that
included George Cukor and Victor Fleming. But the name William Cameron Menzies
doesn’t readily spring to mind. My colleague Jim Curtis’s exhaustively
researched 2015 book, William Cameron Menzies: The Shape of Films to Come, aims to change all that.
Menzies began his career as an art director at the tail-end
of the silent era. On such early sound films as 1933’s all-star Alice in Wonderland and the futuristic
1936 Things to Come, he used his
artistic talents not only to plan appropriate settings but also to lay out camera
moves and action sequences. Through volumes of elaborate sketches that are the
forerunners of today’s storyboards, he conceptualized the visual aspects of
many productions. He himself described his mandate: “As a production designer,
it is my job to dramatize the mood of a picture and to keep it ‘in character.’
This is done simply by coordinating every phase of the production not covered
by dialogue and action of the players.”
That, of course, was a huge responsibility, and Menzies’
family life inevitably suffered. Still, those in the know fully recognized his
genius. Selznick insisted he be part of the Gone
With the Wind team, and later granted him the brand-new “production
designed by” credit to reflect the broad scope of his services. Ironically, the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did not recognize the title of
production designer when it came to handing out Oscars. That’s why the art
direction Oscar for Gone With the Wind (one
of eight won by the film) went solely to Lyle R. Wheeler. Happily, at the Oscar
ceremony Menzies was awarded a special plaque recognizing his “outstanding
achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood” in the
film. (He had earlier nabbed a competitive Oscar for the 1928 silent, Tempest, but won no awards in his later career,
which ended with an associate producer credit on 1956’s Around the World in Eighty Days.)
The Academy’s recognition of Menzies’ work on Gone With the Wind focused on his
pioneering use of color. For instance, he deliberately chose “severe red skies & indigo
backings” to punch up somber scenes like the burning of Atlanta. When it came
to filming the moment in which Melanie gives birth, the challenge was to
suggest the anguish of the experience while not running afoul of the MPAA’s
Breen office, which frowned on depicting outright pain and suffering. Menzies’
solution was to choose angles “of stark black and sharp, knifelike patterns of
yellow, no light falling on the shutters or the human figures in the
foreground, simply a white backing reflecting the colored glare of flood lamps
through the slits.” He intuited that orange was a hot color, while black could suggest violence. The combination of the
two colors suggested both a steamy afternoon and the violence of childbirth.
Menzies’ contributions to Gone With the Wind also included the iconic use of a (fake) tree in
the foreground to add drama to the shot of Gerald O’Hara showing his daughter
the land that is her birthright. When he needed towering shadows of Leigh and
de Havilland, he got the effect by using doubles who were required to move in
unison with the two actresses in the foreground of the shot. Who knew?
Speaking of Atlanta,
I encourage all working writers and journalists to be aware of the American
Society of Journalists and Authors’ regional conference in that fair city on
Saturday, November 5. There’ll be loads of practical info on how to further
your career. Early bird sign-up rates end soon. Here’s the link.
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