IRENA GRANAAS

Love stirs a man taught to hate in this fine true story. Forest Whitaker and Tom Wilkinson excel as a black preacher and Klansman who vie for the man's loyalty.

Splendid ahead of its time color, cinematography, spot on casting in all of the key roles -- what's not to like? Romance. action and adventure set against the backdrop of the Civil War. I have enjoyed this film multiple times and plan on keeping my personal DVD copy in light of the current cancel culture's placing this great American film classic on their "offensive" list. I am dismayed and offended in turn by reviews such as the one posted several weeks ago by Sherice Galloway where she asserts that people who enjoy and revere this film obviously have no idea about the evils of slavery and that we viewers who happen to be white get some sort of vicarious jollies seeing black persons treated as less than fully human. She and others who promote this point of view as a reason to denounce the film and the Margaret Mitchell novel on which it is based are wrong to assume that viewers who appreciate the artistry, action, adventure and romance of GWTW are ignorant of or indifferent to the realities and evils of slavery. Yes, in telling the tale of her fictional heroine Scarlett O'Hara, Mitchell did indeed romanticize and gloss over the full extent of what people actually went through as slaves. It's a historical romance, not a history book, and I think most Americans know that slavery was much more brutal than depicted. For a first-hand look, I recommend "12 Years a Slave," book or recent movie, an autobiographical account by a free black man kidnapped and sold to a plantation owner in the deep South.