Giant (1956)
Directed by George Stevens

Film Review

The title says it all.  A sprawling blockbuster epic spanning twenty-five years and two generations, Giant is the definitive Texan soap opera.  It was director George Stevens's most ambitious film and Warner Brothers' biggest ever money maker.  Despite its languorous pace, self-indulgent artistry and unsubtle politics, this is compulsive viewing, thanks mainly to the faultless performances of the three lead actors who were all - remarkably - in their twenties when they made the film.

This is the film that convinced the doubters that Rock Hudson could act.  Hudson had already shown his potential in his films for Douglas Sirk - Magnificent Obsession (1954) and All That Heaven Allows (1955) - but, under George Stevens' guiding hand, he surpasses himself and gives the performance of his career as the flawed cattle baron Bick Benedict.  Elizabeth Taylor is also on fine form and is particularly impressive in the second half of the film as her character moves into middle-age.

The third acting legend in this ensemble of talent is James Dean who, whilst appearing in only a handful of scenes, makes a lasting impression.  It is reported that George Stevens did not have a particularly warm relationship with Dean and would deliberately create fiction between him and his co-star Rock Hudson to sharpen their perfomances.  The contrast between Dean's and Hudson's style of acting - the former a graduate of the Actors' Studio, the latter a traditional polished Hollywood performer - is striking in their two main scenes together - the one where Benedict attempts to buy the land that Jett has inherited, the other where Jett  taunts his former employer after having struck oil. 

In every scene in which he appears, Dean grabs our attention and compels us to identify with him, even after his character has become the villain of the piece.  Having given two equally impressive performances in his previous films, East of Eden (1955), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Dean was set to become one of the most important actors of his generation.   It was not to be.   Two weeks before shooting on Giant was completed at Warner Brothers' studios, James Dean was dead - killed in a head-on collision with another car whilst driving his Porsche 550 Spyder down a California highway.  The sudden death of the 24-year-old actor came as a severe blow to George Stevens, his cast and crew and made completion of the film a painful experience.  It is possible that Dean's demise is what made Giant such a success.  By the time of the film's release, he had become an immense cultural icon.

For its time, Giant was a daring film as it deals with two problematic social taboos - racial discrimination and female emancipation.  Even as late as the mid-1950s, women and non-whites had a raw deal in America, particularly in the southern states, and, to its credit, the film tackles both of these issues with blistering sincerity.  The sequence in which Rock Hudson takes on a bigoted restaurateur after the latter refuses to serve a Mexican family is almost absurd in its crudeness but it is searingly effective in showing what an ugly and inhuman thing racism is.   It is impossible to watch this scene and not be deeply affected by what is shown, for all its painful lack of subtlety.

In spite of its daunting runtime (almost three and a half hours) and controversial politics, Giant proved to be an enormous box office hit, grossing thirty-five million dollars and garnering ten Academy Award nominations.  George Stevens picked up his second Best Director Oscar (the first was for his 1951 film A Place in the Sun, which also featured Elizabeth Taylor in a career-defining role).  For a film that cost over five million dollars and took four years to make, this was a result that exceeded even Warner Brothers' expectations.   Giant may not be George Stevens' greatest film, but it is a compelling mix of western, melodrama and social conscience, with some touches of artistic brilliance.  The shot of the Benedicts' vast Gothic mansion set in a vast ocean of desert remains cinema's most enduring visual metaphor for the stark hollowness and sterility of raw capitalism.

Film Synopsis

In the 1930s, Bick Benedict is the owner of a mammoth Texan cattle ranch which has made him one of the wealthiest men in the state.  On a visit to Maryland to buy a horse, he meets a beautiful young socialite, Leslie, and asks her to marry him.  After the wedding, the couple settle at Bick's ranch but it isn't long before the arguments begin.  Leslie is moved by the plight of the poor Mexican workers and insists that they receive proper medical attention, to the disgust of Bick who regards the Mexicans as a lower caste.  Their marriage is strained further when one of Bick's cattlemen, Jett Rink, begins to take an interest in Leslie.  When Bick's sister, Luz, dies after being thrown from the horse that Bick recently bought, she bequeaths a patch of land to Jett.  Bick is incensed and tries to buy the land off Jett, unsuccessfully.  Jett's decision to keep the land soon pays dividends when he finds that it is rich in oil.  Jett's oil drilling company makes the former ranch hand incredibly wealthy and J.R. (as he is now known) is soon at the head of a business empire the like of which Texas has never seen.  Realising that his son has set his sights on becoming a doctor rather than taking over his ranch as he had hoped, Bick has no choice but to follow Jett's example.  The former rivalry between the two men comes to a head when Jett begins dating Bick's daughter...