George Stevens sits firmly among my favorite directors and he's responsible for some of my favorite pictures, including The More The Merrier, Shane and Giant.
The film Giant stands as big as the Reata, the Texas cattle ranch owned by the Benedict family the film follows for two generations.
Jordan (Bick) Benedict (Rock Hudson) meets his future bride, Leslie, (Elizabeth Taylor) while visiting Maryland buying prize horses. Her home state is green and luscious and when she arrives in Texas as Mrs. Benedict she is welcomed by brown and dust.
They love and respect each other, but Leslie is always quick to challenge the expected social mores of the times. Everything from men "talking politics" to the segregation between the whites and hispanic, which often stirs the pot between husband and wife.
James Dean plays Jett Rink, a cattle hand who inherits a small piece of land from Bick's sister after she dies. Jett is the first person to show Leslie, although reluctantly, the poor condition of the hispanic people living on the ranch. Later, once he is a land owner, he builds an oil well. Finally, he sees success, but he falters under it, becoming a jerk and a drunk.
Bick and Leslie have three children, none of whom want to take over the ranch, much to Bick's dismay. To make matters worse for Bick his son, Jordan, marries a hispanic woman, Juana.
I think that Giant is ultimately about us as a society and how we are changing to be more accepting of all races and equal in gender relations, epitomized throughout the film by Bick and Leslie. In one of the final scenes of the film we see Bick and Leslie in a restaurant with their Hispanic daughter-in-law, their daughter, and each woman's toddler. The owner of the restaurant does not want Juana and her son in his establishment, but after words with Bick he allows them to stay. But shortly after this a group of elderly hispanic people enter the restaurant and the owner asks them to leave. And here Bick intervenes and he and the owner go back and forth in a knock down toe-to-toe fight. Bick fights hard, but ultimately looses the fight. But what he wins is all the better!
Early on Jett has his friendship with Bick's sister, Luz. But after her death he is ultimately alone. His life becomes a pursuit of money (not family like Bick and Leslie) and that is where and why he fails as a person.
If there is any faults in the film I can only think to call out its length. I'm not sure where to cut, but at nearly three hours is a pretty long viewing.
James Dean died in a car accident just days after shooting wrapped on Giant. Oh what roles would he have gone on to act for us? We'll never know. I will close here by mentioning two memorable moments of his acting in this film. Remember the scene where he pulls up in his rickety truck to the house at Reata after striking oil? And the scene where he's just inherited the land and is out strutting about eventually ending up on the water tower? Brilliant, just brilliant. Baby, that's good acting.
