Review of Giant (1956) by Nate W — 21 May 2012

Like a "Gone with the Wind" for the 20th Century Texas crowd, George Stevens' "Giant" runs deep with themes of conflicting ideologies from conflicting times, conflicting places, and conflicting sexes.

Suffice to say, there's a lot of conflict in the film, as in most narrative features, but so much so that it becomes weighed down by its own epic ambition. At three and a half hours, Fred Guiol's and Ivan Moffat's screenplay, transcripted more than adapted from Edna Ferber's massive novel, could have used some serious paring down and honing in.

A focus of attention on any one of the central story lines would have made a more compelling drama than the long-winded one we ended up with. It still gets by on a trio of star performances and several strong ones on the periphery.

Rock Hudson effortlessly slips from his typical role of magnanimous leading man into the more prickly part of a chauvinistic cattle heir caught in the middle of a generational paradigm shift. Liz Taylor, ever the glamourous Southern belle, is a natural as the saucy interloper who tries to subtly civilize him - and by extension the society from which he hails.

But it's James Dean of course, with his devotion to acting method, who steals the show as the brooding loner with bigger plans for the land than mere beef feed. It's unfortunate that these spitfire performances are done a disservice by sloppy editing and sub-par sound recording.

At least in its pre-production, the movie is well designed. The sets (built from the ground up) and sweeping location photography organically define the evolving environs of Reata over several decades.