Matthew Bernstein to speak on the Atlanta premiere of “Gone with the Wind”

Gone with the WindMatthew Bernstein is Chair of Film and Media Studies at Emory University and a major authority on American cinema, the Hollywood studio system, and Southern cinema. His books include Screening a Lynching: The Leo Frank Case on Film and Television and Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent. On December 5, Bernstein will visit the University of Georgia deliver a talk titled “‘Selznick’s March’: The Atlanta Premiere of Gone with the Wind” at 4 p.m. in the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Libraries auditorium.

The world premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta was the culmination of months of anxious and complicated negotiations between producer David O. Selznick, distributor MGM, their staffs and the city of Atlanta. Bernstein offers an in-depth look at the challenges of staging the December, 1939 premiere in a segregated southern city and the ways in which the Atlanta premiere crystallized many of the issues Selznick faced in making the film.