Giant (1956)

The Tall Man

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Giant on DVD.

This may be the tallest movie ever made. It's an enormous epic, but it's not shot in widescreen. George Stevens captured the vast space of Texas by using height, not width. It's fascinating to watch. It tells a long story, a story of times changing for better or worse.

With Giant, Rock Hudson graduated from the B-list to the major playerdom. He's good in the role of the cow baron who ages 40 years in three and a half hours. Good, but not great. The fact is, James Dean is in this movie, and he leaves everyone in his dust.

James Dean has become a legend that is inescapable, even 40 years after his death. But the fact is, he was a tremendous actor. On his best day, he could go head to head with Marlon Brando. He reminds one of a young Pacino or De Niro, full of juice and so in control of the screen that they are high on their power, and it makes them all the more interesting. Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking was as good as James Dean. Tremendously physical, totally unafraid of bearing their souls and their most cautious moments. We're very lucky that Dean made one great film with one great director, Nicholas Ray, and Rebel without a Cause.

Dean is too good for Giant, which is not to say that its bad. George Stevens, who won the Best Director Oscar for Giant (an award that Mel Gibson, Tony Richardson and Delbert Mann have won, but that Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks or Martin Scorsese have not), frames each shot for maximum impact, actors in shadows, framed in doorways, symbols in the background or foreground; it's a film student's dream. And the other actors are all passable, but imagine casting Dean and the hyper-dramatized Mercedes McCambridge in the same film.

Dean's best scene is covered in oil, just as his gusher has come in. He staggers, sways, smiles, and gloats at Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and the rest. They can do nothing but watch him, and you can see it in their faces that they're not sure what he's going to do. Is he going to run in the house and smear oil everywhere? Is he going to rub up against Taylor in her beautiful dress? He's like a firework spinning out of control on the ground, and everyone else is helpless.

Giant is big cheese. It's a soap opera that takes itself too seriously, but it contains wonderful treasures that shouldn't be missed. (For a great soap opera, check out another Rock Hudson movie from the same year, Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind).

Starring: Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker, Dennis Hopper, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor
Written by: Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffat, based on the novel by Edna Ferber
Directed by: George Stevens
MPAA Rating: NR
Running Time: 201 minutes
Date: July 31, 1998