I don’t care what the American Film Institute says: despite Clark Gable’s and Hattie McDaniel’s charm, Gone With the Wind is a middlebrow, boring, Southern-fried mess. But I do admire the blocking in this scene — which is set at Twelve Oaks, during a barbecue party.

The assembled belles are taking a rather cramped siesta, while the menfolk downstairs argue about the coming war. The idealistic, romantic plantationers insist that the war will be short and glorious; Rhett Butler (Gable) suspects otherwise.

In fact, the war will be devastating and grisly. Bodies will be stacked together on battlefields like so much cordwood… or like so many napping belles.