Before watching it, I only knew of Giant as being the last James Dean film. I’d seen Rebel Without a Cause recently, and been thoroughly underwhelmed, so had high hopes for Giant, as surely this, or perhaps East of Eden, were the reason that Dean is now such a cult icon, a supposedly defining character for a generation. Also, by looking at the cover for this film, I expected Dean to be the star of the film, his image appearing no less than five times on the cover, with Elizabeth Taylor appearing just once, and Rock Hudson not at all. It was with some surprise then that I found the stars to be Hudson and Taylor, with Dean a supporting character (granted, the most important supporting character, but supporting no less).
Having now watched the film, it shall be filed alongside the previously reviewed the Jazz Singer as an important film, just not a great one, though this time for being the last film of James Dean, rather than the first feature length to include audible dialogue. Giant documents the life of a young couple, Hudson and Taylor, from the day they meet and through the next 25 years of their lives. Even with an epic run time of almost three and a half hours, the plotting is generally fast, with major events such as their marriage and the birth of their children skipped over, pausing to show the more landmark occasions, for example the dismay of Hudson’s Jordan Benedict as Jordy, his son, cries when set upon his first horse. Along the way, Jordan’s life is besieged at every turn by Dean’s Jett Rink, a ranchhand who, upon inheriting a small patch of land, becomes a billionaire when he strikes oil. Dean overacts to his heart’s content, failing to draw any compassion within his rags-to-riches arc.
There are two main points that I took from the tale. Firstly, that some things never change, and some things do. This seems a fairly pointless ethos, but shown in the films context takes some form, as the menfolk gather to discuss business as the times change around them, but Benedict’s initial negative feelings towards his Mexican ranchhands are subdued when his son, an excellent young Dennis Hopper, marries and produces a son, both Mexican and Benedict. Secondly, the film shows the dramatic effect a small act, in this case purchasing a horse, can have on the rest of your life. So, essentially, Giant is the Butterfly Effect without the nosebleeds.
Choose film 6/10
Rain Man usually, and justifiably, receives plaudits for Dustin Hoffman’s performance as the autistic Raymond Babbitt, a role for which Hoffman won his second Oscar (after Kramer vs. Kramer), but it is the performance of Charlie Babbitt by Tom Cruise that should receive accolades too. His Charlie is wound up a little too tightly by the wishes of his recently deceased father to leave his fortune to Charlie’s brother Raymond, a brother Charlie didn’t know he had. He’s angry at his father, angry at his brother, and everyone around him as he struggles to come to terms with the aftermath of his father’s death. I don’t mean to underrate Hoffman’s performance at all, his is the stronger of the two, and it is the little moments that make it so, such as the moment of childlike confusion on the escalator.
Life Vs Film 