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(More customer reviews)The 1956 film is aptly named; everything about it is huge. Three years in the making, and a full 202 minutes long, it's the sweeping story of a Texas family that starts in the 1920s. Elizabeth Taylor is the young bride from East who, after a whirlwind romance with Rock Hudson, comes to his huge 595-acre Texas ranch. Here, she finds his unwelcoming sister, prejudice against the Mexican servants, and a condescending attitude to her as a woman. James Dean is here too, a sullen ranch hand who yearns for her as well as wealth. She's feisty though, as well as beautiful, and the rational center of the film, which spans a quarter of a century, as she and Rock Hudson quarrel, make up and raise their three children. Texas changes too. James Dean, the ranch hand, is the first to discover oil, and all of their lives change dramatically then. After a while all the land in the area is gushing oil wells where cattle used to roam.
During the course of film the makeup changes to show the cast aging, and Elizabeth Taylor, who was only 23 at the time, is shown as a mature woman. Dennis Hopper plays her grown son and Carol Baker her daughter. There's even a small part for Sal Mineo, who plays a grown up Mexican-American boy. By then the story is a family saga with the son choosing to be a doctor and the daughter finding the older James Dean an attractive man. This is the stuff of soap opera, which I usually don't like. But somehow, I was completely captivated by this film, which shows how everyone's character develops through the years.
I was impressed with the quality of all of the actors, including Mercedes McCambridge, who has a small role as the sister. Sometimes I forget how talented Elizabeth Taylor is as an actress and even Rock Hudson, who is known for his rather stilted performances, was able to show some real feelings. James Dean, however, stood out above all the rest. The scenes he had with Elizabeth Taylor in which he showed his awkward vulnerability were ripe with nuance. It demanded mastery of his craft. His performance was indeed outstanding.
However, it is almost half a century since the film was produced. I now know what Elizabeth Taylor really looks like as a mature woman. I have to smile at her gray-haired persona in the film, in which she remained slim and elegant. I can't help thinking about Rock Hudson's super masculine image as he dukes it out in a diner when his Mexican-American daughter-in-law is refused service. And I'm saddened to think of poor James Dean, who died tragically in a car accident at the age of 23 shortly after the film was made. His movie image of aging alcoholic millionaire is the only hint we have of what he might have looked like if he lived. The film even brought out thoughts of our own President Bush, himself a product of a Texas background and his own mixed Mexican-American family.
The video consisted of two reels, and included about an hour's worth of features in addition to the more than three hours of the film itself. I stayed up late into the night to watch it all, including a short documentary about the small town in Texas in which part of the film was made, an interview with Dimitri Tiomkin who wrote the music for the film, an interview with the son of the director, George Stevens, and a long telecast of opening night both in Hollywood and New York with Jayne Meadows interviewing different stars as they entered the theater. Although the film itself was in color, all of these features were in black and white and brought back memories of live television shows, bouffant hairdos and mink stoles.
I never saw "Giant" when it first came out. Videos and DVDs were years away in the future and, in those days, if you didn't catch a film in the theaters when it first was released, that was that. I'm so glad that this film was so easily available all these years later because I totally enjoyed the experience of spending a evening watching it. I was able to sit back, relax, and return to a time, place and cinematic point of view that doesn't exist anymore. The world is changed now. And so have I. But I absolutely loved this film. Highly recommended.
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Giant is a movie of huge scale and grandeur in which three generations of land-rich Texans love, swagger, connive and clash in a saga of family strife, racial bigotry and conflict between cattle barons and newly rich oil tycoons. It's also one of the most beloved works of director George Stevens, who won an Academy AwardO* for this film, one of 10 Oscar nominations** the film earned.
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