Remake This: Gone With The Wind

Imagination is a treasure. Forget about Lego, in your mind you can create and innovate thousands of idea. I am no filmmaker, but I am a dreamer. Here I take a movie and put it in another era, try to imagine how it would be like.

How do you even remake a classic as widely seen and enormously adored as Gone with the Wind without making it a suicide mission? Perhaps that's why no one had done it yet, and perhaps no one ever will. Something's best left untouched, and this American Civil War drama is arguably on top of that list (one sequel had failed miserably). But it doesn't mean we cannot dream. If we can have countless versions of Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations, can't we have just one imaginary remake of Gone with the Wind? And if it were to be remade, who should helm it and who can fill in the (big) shoes left by Ms. Vivien Leigh and co.?

It's worth noting that even back in the days, the production of the original Gone with the Wind was a troubled one. Filming was delayed due to the filmmaker's determination to get Clark Gable, and they interviewed 1,400 actresses for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. The original director George Cukor was fired shortly after filming had begun and was replaced by Victor Fleming, whom himself was also temporarily replaced by another director at some point. Suffice to say the off-camera drama was almost as intense as the plot line of the movie itself. So the first thing for the remake is perhaps to pray for a much smoother production.

So who exactly do I want to direct this remake? Since the original one itself was a colorful movie, with lots of fancy costumes and luxurious sets, I'm thinking that no one better than Baz Luhrmann to recreate such beauty. He, for sure, will bring along his wife cum longtime collaborator Catherine Martin for the production and costume design. Both of them had created two Oscar-winning out-of-the-world lavish productions in the name of Moulin Rouge! and last year's The Great Gatsby. Mr. Luhrmann himself is no stranger to extra long epic tale which he had directed Australia (seriously underrated) and last year's The Great Gatsby. Though the finished product might be subjected to divisive reviews (as all of his previous outings proved), we will surely have a visually stunning film.

While Mr. Luhrmann likes to work with actors and actresses he's familiar with, one might expect him to choose from a string of previous collaborators to be the main players in this film. Most recently, he worked with Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby. These two talents were actually on my consideration list, giving the age appropriateness. However, on second thought I didn't think Carey Mulligan can pull off Scarlett O'Hara convincingly. First, I don't think she speaks American accent well, and she lacks that head-strong quality in her look. She's more a gentle and soft-spoken type of elegant beauty. And then there's Leonardo DiCaprio, which I don't think has the cunning and street-smart quality of Rhett Butler. He's not the type to use the war for his own benefit. He's also not macho enough to succeed Clark Gable. It's just wrong for Leo.

So who do I want for the roles? I'm thinking Emma Stone and James Franco. Yes I know, Emma Stone has not exactly established herself as a serious actress apart from one film called The Help (even in that film she wasn't the spotlight), and she's not the typical beauty. But Scarlett is not exactly a beauty, as the opening line of the novel proclaimed: Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. Emma Stone, in my opinion, has the "I want to survive no matter what" quality, and in my mind I already can imagine her stubbornness, her fight with Rhett Butler, and her sharp-tongue reading of her lines.

As for James Franco, I think he's macho, he has the look and the vibe that attracts female and most importantly, he would be more believable than Leo when he utters "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn". He has the kind of enigma that makes girls love and hate him at the same time, and that's an important criteria that makes Rhett Butler irresistible to Scarlett.

Of course, we still need to find another two key players: Melanie Hamilton and Ashley Wilkes. Melanie is a gentle soul. She understands people, she is the only one standing by Scarlett throughout the whole movie. Even the stubborn Scarlett listens to her. For this role, of course at first I'm going back to Carey Mulligan again. But then Amanda Seyfried suddenly came to my mind. I wasn't sure why but I immediately thought she is a good fit. Her role in Les Miz kind of convinced me of this point as well. And while we're speaking of Les Miz, I would also put another actor from that musical, Eddie Redmayne, as Ashley Wilkes. Ashley is straight-faced, no-nonsense and sometimes wooden, but he is a gentleman nonetheless. I can picture Eddie Redmayne doing this in his sleep.

There are two other key roles in the film I think worth mentioning: Mammy and Prissy, two house servants. The formal won actress Hattie McDaniel an Oscar, so I'm thinking of another Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer for the role. She certainly can pull off the sharp-tongue but kind-hearted servants. It's kind of obvious, is it not? As for Prissy, a house servants that sometimes can be annoying, I would like the newly crowned Best Supporting Actress Lupita Nyong'O to play her. Yes, she had done the slave role once, it's a dangerous typecasting if she goes that territory again, but Prissy is a different kind of role than Patsey so I think it should not be a big problem. It would be a much better role than the one she has in Non-Stop.

And that's it. My dream of a Gone with The Wind remake. If this is a go, surely we'll have the word "Oscar" written all over it even before it starts shooting. However, the result would remain a mystery (and might forever remain that way). For the time being, we can always revisit the classic original version.