Sarah W. Blog 1: David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind

The Harry Ransom Center has an online exhibition devoted to David O. Selznick’s feature film adaptation of Gone with the Wind. The Selznick Collection is one of the largest archives housed in the Ransom Center. Therefore, it is fitting that one of the online exhibitions be devoted to such an extensively researched and beloved film. Based upon my experience working at the HRC as the film curator’s assistant, I can verify this high level of interest. I thought it would be interesting to examine this digitization project based on my knowledge of the extensive files and materials on this film alone in the Selznick Collection.

Collection Principles

The online collection focuses on four aspects of the film: acquiring the rights to the novel, the search for Scarlett, and costumes and makeup. Each section has examples of items found in the Selznick Collection such as a memo that illustrates how Selznick was convinced to buy the rights to the film. Although there are many, many more items in the collection that may pertain to the process of acquiring the rights to the novel, the purpose of this part of the exhibition is served with the narrative like design leading you from page to page with links at the bottom. There is no explanation given as to why certain memos were chosen over the vast amount of items in the Selznick Collection devoted to Gone with the Wind.

Object Characteristics

Sample memos are included in each of the three sections of the exhibition. Descriptions of the sample memos are included to help give the patron a visual of what the physical memo or letter looks like. In the costumes and makeup section, examples of Scarlett’s costumes are pictured in the exhibition accompanied by still photographs from the film of Vivien Leigh wearing the dresses. The film curator includes descriptions of the costumes along with a link to a page about the reproductions that were made in 1986.

There is an ease of use with the digitized objects because you can click on one of the costumes and be directed to a larger image and page devoted to a discussion about that particular dress. The curator also included scenes from the script in which the dress was worn.

One of the sections I liked the best was regarding the Search for Scarlett. Each photograph of the potential Scarlett contained a link to a page devoted to that actress along with memos from the Selznick files that pertained to the casting process.

Metadata

The metadata of the digitized images on the website is lacking. There is no information regarding what box or folder the images are found within the Selznick Collection on the website. I find this frustrating because if a patron would write and want a copy of an image it might be difficult for me to locate it amongst the roughly 5,000 boxes in the archive. The digitized memos also do not have any metadata available for the user.

Intended Audience

The intended audience for this exhibition would be the general public who happens upon the Harry Ransom Center’s website along with film enthusiasts particularly those who have a love for Gone with the Wind. This online exhibition would not be sufficient for scholars and researchers interested in Selznick's management style and film production from the ground up because of the lack of digitized materials available online.