directed by George Stevens
starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean
I watched Giant over the course of two nights with my grandparents, whose love for this movie was no doubt mingled with memories of the Texas their parents knew - a Texas torn between the old and the modern. But as much as this film captures a specific time, it also displays themes that are timeless: outsider vs. the establishment, old money vs. new money, parent vs. child, sexism, racism, growth and loss.
In some ways the film is outspokenly progressive - the main protagonist gets into a fistfight over the honor of a family of Hispanic strangers at the climax, something that must have been a little less than expected a decade before the Civil Rights movement truly got rolling. Elizabeth Taylor's headstrong wife gets quite a few words in edgewise about the unfair perspective these traditional cattle ranchers have towards women. (These words are, of course, ineffective, laughed at, apologized for, and forgotten in the bedroom, but I digress.)
More than anything, though, this is a movie about people, and the slow road life takes them on from Virginia to West Texas and from ranching to oil. This is the film's strength: excellent characters portrayed by excellent actors, living their lives within breathtaking cinematography, courtesy of the Texan (well, mostly Arizonan and Californian) landscape.
I didn't even mind the 3:20 running time, even if it is north of an hour longer than today's standards. Movies that tell sweeping stories probably aren't meant for one sitting, anyway. Novels are read over days.
My one complaint? More James Dean. The posters are distressingly misleading.
Coming Soon: Hamlet, Never Let Me Go, Notorious, Vertigo
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