Giant Reviews

A film that lives up to its title, truly grand in scope and (unfortunately) in length. Though it's beautiful to look at and though the acting - particularly by James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor - is quite accomplished, many scenes don't do a lot to advance the plot, and many subplots come off as extraneous. I liked that this was a sort of love letter to Texas, a take-it-or-leave-it account of the frontier spirit and the state's growing pains, and the concern for what happens when that trail-blazing mentality becomes cold competition two or three generations down the line. The film was setting up to be a tragedy, and almost delivered in a way that would've made American Shakespeare of it, but it opted for the anti-racism angle in the end; though I'm sure that broke ground in 1956, assessing it from a story standpoint instead of a social one, the ending - in fact, the last half-hour or more - gets away from what the story was about: ambition. The film is in a way a lot like its central character, falling flat on its face in the end due to its grandiose objectives, but to sustain my attention for over three hours, it had to have done something right. Just compelling enough to not turn off, and something you should make yourself watch, but it's wishy-washy for an epic and it's just not all that it's cracked up to be.

George Stevens is lucky he made this when he did, since I doubt he'd have been able to get away with making a film that favored storytelling over running time in this day and age.

Yeah, that's right, this sucker is 210 gloriously excessive minutes of soapy melodrama on a grand scale, covering the lives of a few generations of rivalry and love between old money Texas cattle barons and new money Texas oil tycoons during the early 20th Century. It touches upon an interesting bit of Texas history, and deals with issues of racism, classism, and female independence as well, although these last three issues don't come as revolutionary like they did in 1956.

This is a sprawling film, and, though it does have some really good moments, I hesitate to call it a classic. It's overlong (in places), really soppy and melodramatic, a bit dated, and doesn't have the weight it could. I sure as hell dug the production aspects though, that's for sure. This sucker as great cinematography, wonderful sets and costumes, decent music, and some excellent shooting locations.

Oh yeah, and the performances are pretty decent, too. You've got young Elizabeth Taylor putting in some solid work, a decent turn from Rock Hudson, and James Dean in his final film (he died a few days after he finished shooting his scenes) knocking it out of the park in a very histrionic performance as the rugged rogue. There's also young Dennis Hopper and scene stealing Mercedes McCambridge.

All in all, a decent film, but nothing truly remarkable beyond the surface. It's definitely deserving of the title epic though, even if it is fluff.

A brave, and epic film for its time. You cannot help but be amazed by its bold message, it's strong acting, and the amount of issues he tackles in this film.

It might not be one of the greatest movies ever made, but it's sure important. While it might appear to be a love story on the outer shell, this is really about class structure and racism. Elizabeth Taylor's crusade as a humanitarian stretches over 25 years, as does her struggle with her marriage and family life. When you look at James Dean's Jett, all he wanted to do was to become as rich and powerful as Bick so he could win the heart of Leslie when that was something she never admired about her husband to begin with. All the side-characters, scenery, thickness and rich storytelling really pays off. You almost feel like a Benedict by the end of the movie. The conclusion in the diner is one of the greatest and most rewarding build ups in movie history.

Epic love stories have to be really tightly strung for me to completely feel it, and Giant does a pretty good job with it. James Dean is excellent, as is Liz Taylor. I like how it covers racism sort of subtly.

Really long and occasionally brilliant, this production lives up to it's name in the scale of the story alone. James Dean's best overall performance.

"giant" is james dean's final screen presence, perhaps the leastly empathetic one. it's an overlong "masterpiece" of george stevens who brings the dynamic trio of taylor, hudson and dean together to delineate a epic of texas. excessively ambitious, but the plots're teetering after the first hour and it almost flops.

the epic sets off with mighty texasian ranch baron(hudson) who discovers the breathbreaking beauty from the daughter(taylor) of a prestiged family who sells the horse he wants in the east coast. then the dashing baron walks away with the horse as stallion and the daughter as wife. but this woman is more brightful and un-tamed than what he expects, so they quarrel over their perceptions on various local customs. meanwhile the insolent, outrageous worker of his sister's (dean) harbors a severe crush on his lovely wife, and this petite worker inherits a small piece of lean land of baron's according to his sister's will, so this insignificant man gets to be the biggest texasian tycoon to emulate him.

the first one hour of the film is highly watchable for its grappling tension between the trio, and the smoldering covet of dean's character for taylor is a great stimulant to defy rock hudson who is literarily the stance of patriachy. and mercedes maccambridge gives an impressionable cameo as hudson's rough-to-the-bone "cowgirl" sister who wants to teach taylor a lesson of how to be a competent texasian wife, but maccambridge who may be the most interesting character dies too soon to redeem the giant from being a lump of ponderous work.

the gratuitous feast for the eye would probably be the youthful looks of taylor and hudson while james dean's boyish cuteness is shrouded by the muddy cowboy hat. when the trio play out the senile part with grey dust sprinkled over their ebony hair, the movie loses its charm. additionally, it is comically absurd to see james dean in overcoat with oversized shoulder-paddings to dwarf his height. the whole flick remains in a certain interesting light until the character began to age and their kids grow into goofy teenage bores. who cares how those kids are gonna be? give me back the dynamic trio in their glowing beauty.

the first hour passes, the story starts to go flat with all those politically righteous issues, such as racial bigotry, the demise of ranch business and the swarming oil-pumping fever. and it's very corny and contrived to assert racial equality by having the son married to a hispanic woman, then the patriach fistfights in a local restaurant to claim the notion of civil rights. also it attempts to bare the wasted hollowness of the nouveau riche by having dean's character rot in alcoholism an his un-fulfilled yearnings for elizabeth taylor, so the shrewd capitalist who is smart enough to conquer the market insightfully must be pathetic loser who groans like a wretched baby? so the reactionary family, as long as they embrace multiculturalism, could thrive as a whole.

oddly two actors of "rebel without a cause" also appear in the giant, dennis hopper and "plato", the rebel gay who adores dean. unfortunately the james dean formuli cannot fit into the giant, and my private doubt would be, could james dean play any other character except the stretched reflection of himself? it's like, if he seeks an appropriate niche for his idiosyncrasies, he dominates the show, if not, he vanishes into thin air carrying his personal wound to rush toward the merciless highway then passes for good without even bidding a farewell to others.

(ps)

as i pointed out, the james dean pattern would be eternal defiance to paternality or the void of patriachal recognitions. for the giant, it would be his repugnance to rock hudson who symbolizes the authorized patriach who possesses everything he covets but couldn't get as the void of recognition, even he's got everything, he still mourns over the abscence of the beautiful wife of hudson's that he couldn't have.

also, the last shooting of giant is the scene dean serves tea to elizabeth taylor, but he got too god-damned nervous to pull it off, but the whole crew of 2000 men were awaiting him to finish, so he took the necessary means to get riddance of his nervousness: take a piss in front of the 2000 crew!!! dean announces, if he has the courage to take a piss in front of everyone, he would also have the guts to finish his last scene with taylor.

I enjoyed this movie immensely! Although I liked Deans goofy character, Taylor and Hudson made the biggest impression on me.
I don't want to bother you with what the movie is about, but what I can say that it's more than a story about the life of a family, it also covers some very interesting social themes.

This movie had everything that I missed in the Maltese Falcon (which I saw a couple of days ago).
Although it's running time is very generous, it didn't take any effort to watch it all the way through.

The cast are great, especially James Dean and Mercedes McCambridge but I always find it hard going getting to the end of this!

Absolutely 1956 epic about a cattle-ranching family still packs a punch. Although the lead performances by Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean are amazing in their character from 20s to aged "older" with make-up.

Runs a bot long, but the scenes with Dean and Taylor are great.

I've heard the legends that giants roamed the earth before the days of Jesus, and if I didn't believe those legends already, I certainly don't now, because I didn't see one giant in here. In case you're among the countless who don't get it, director George Stevens went on to do "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (Hence the "Before Jesus" bit), yet that film and this one aren't his only classic hits, as the boy also went on to do, and before this film, he did "Shane". Before that, there may as well be one big blank on his filmography, because after years in the industry, Stevens was only able to had those three aforementioned films and this one for people to remember him by, and even then, a good couple of people still don't know about these classics. It's sad how it took Stevens so long to create a considerable legacy in film, and he was relatively lucky, and meanwhile, James Dean got his legacy through only three non-extra filmography entries... and a tragically early death, so maybe Steven' story of acquiring a legacy isn't the saddest in the world. Poor James Dean may look a whole lot like James Franco, yet he was, for obvious reasons and in many more ways, more along the lines of a Heath Ledger of his time, in that he was such a pretty face, yet had much more to offer to film than just movie star looks, and wasn't about to let you forget it, delivering one good performance after another until he finally delivered one particularly sharp show-stealing performance that he never got the chance to see. Of course, the only difference is that, while the great Mr. Dean is pretty sharp in this film, he's certainly not making as stunning of an exit as Heath Ledger did (Of course, who could?), and yet, this film is still considerably better than "The Dark Knight"... you overrating nerds. Still, as much as this was a good note for James Dean to go out on, as well as a good second entrance in George Stevens' all too brief legacy-setter streak, this giant production doesn't make it very far before it starts hitting some bumps.

Running at only 201 minutes, it's to be expected that this film gets hurried in its flow quite often. Wow, not even I can fully tell whether I'm being sarcastic or blunt, as hurried exposition was such a common occurance with films of this type and era that not even the longest of films could bail out of it, and sure enough, this film can't escape from the clutches of hurried storytelling, and it's that clutch that nearly drives this film into submission. Immediate development is scarce and progressive development is hardly a compensation, as very major pieces of exposition go hurried, if not just plain glossed over, while much of the minor pieces of exposition that would have smoothed out the story flow go neglected. This considerable blow to exposition leaves many story shifts and character turns, of which there should be many, to feel jarring, if they can be felt at all, as the tone of the film is over consistent to the point of repetition. There's not much slow-down to this whopping picture, making it all too overactive, with little meditation and subtlety in the way of story substance, made all the worse by a considerable lack of exposition, so where we could have enjoyed the compelling experience of watching business flourish, family grow and everyone mature, both in good and bad ways, the should-be central aspects find themselves standing as though they were mere side notes, and there's no other focus for this film to center around. A film that boasts a story as worthy as this doesn't stand much of a chance to every being mediocre, much less bad, yet with that story going tainted enough in execution, you better hope that there is at least "some" compensation. Well, sure enough, that's exactly what you get with this film, compensation for all of the fault, and enough to where this film towers as a generally satisfying film, with style that is consistently satisfying.

Being that this was 1956, don't expect William C. Mellor's cinematography to have aged terribly gracefully, yet it remains impressive in its relative quality, with enough scope in its capture of the environment to produce an epic sweep - even with the material being of limited sweep potential - and set an effective atmosphere. That atmosphere goes further augmented by the remarkable location choices, which are handsomely simple and supplementary to the film's themes of wealth and progress transcending limited opportunity, yet not always in most entirely fruitful fashion. It's good that we at least have the locations to emphasize the themes, because lord knows neither the storytelling or script are going to do it, as the film's progression is just so messily tossed together into one straight line of limited dynamicity and little room for investment to go evoked. However, while that is typically the mark of death, or at least total disappointment on a film, although there's no getting around this film's squandered potential of being more subtle and comfortably loose, director George Stevens all but makes up for his glaring faults in story progression with a generally striking degree of depth in his handling what aspects are meditated upon. Sure, considering the sensibilities of the time, there's not a tremendous amount of emotional meditation or depth, yet there is enough resonance in the air to give a sense of the time and place, extracting enough of both the intrigue and, most of all, the charm of the subject matter to make the film consistently entertaining and engaging. The performers help in this resonance, with the lovely Elizabeth Taylor pulling her classic move of messing up one line delivery after another, yet shockingly making up for that with an effective and layered presence, while Rock Hudson delivers sternness and vulnerability in presence of a proud yet flawed man and the late, great James Dean posthumously stealing the show with his inspired portrayal of a nobly simple, yet unflinching charmer slipping into complex corruption as fortune falls upon him, a role horribly betrayed by the faulty exposition, yet still executed well enough by Dean to earn your investment and show just how great of a loss the death of such a talent was. Were the film looser and more comfortable in its meditation and progression, it could have been immensely more affecting, yet where the film could have fallen flat because of its unrealized potential, it succeeds with the help of style, charm and deph within what thoroughly explored aspects there are, of which, there's enough for the film to stand rewarding and enjoyable.

At the end of a lifetime, which is apparently a day by this film's sense of time, the drastic rushing of potential affecting meditation and exposition taints the film's subtlety and depth, while a constant tone of limited dynamicity and slow-down render the film repetitious and potentially fall-flat, only for a handsome and theme-supporting sense of style and production to stand as supplements to the degree of depth and consistently engaging charm set by director George Stevens and the inspired performers, ultimately leaving "Giant" to stand as a tragically under explored epic, yet still tower as an entertaining and mostly satisfying effort.

3/5 - Good

Hang in there for the whole 3 and a half hours because this is truly an epic. This is the end for Jimmy Dean but is he not memorable here? Don't suspect Rock Hudson's secret with this performance.

When I borrowed this movie, it did not say "Side A" it only said "widescreen" so I thought that the other side would be full screen. I ended up watching the entire movie from middle to end (and it was looooong!) I didn't realize that I missed the whole first half until the movie was over and I looked at the front cover of the DVD and thought, "Hey, I didn't see Elizabeth Taylor with black hair or James Dean with brown hair. They both had gray hair. That's strange..." So I flipped it over and started to watch the beginning. I was like oooooh man I just ruined the whole movie for myself but now things are really starting to make sense that didn't make sense before like the part where the guy I just met died and they made a big deal out of his death and I didn't know why because I didn't know who he was. The movie stinks because I saw it backwards but maybe if I come back to it in the future, it will make more sense!

Although it may not have the graceful structure of a masterpiece like Gone with the Wind, I consider Giant to be a great film in its own right. The scope of the picture is enormous, and although it isn't always ideally handled, the strength of the material radiates through its flaws. Making powerful statements about racial intolerance, sexism and class differences, this is a film that touches on a lot of themes. It's a piece full of rapturous visual appeal, filled with memorable set pieces and performances. As a finale to his three-picture career, James Dean is particularly brilliant. For fans of classic Hollywood epics, this is a must-see.

James Dean is in and out of the screen.The respective leads flash in an instant and if the terrific direction won't shun you,family epics aren't your thing.Stevens reaches pinnacle and as the sparkling tension of American civilized attention processes,we can always diminish those criticisms and enjoy the ruthless catapults of ranchers,crooks and brawlers.

A great modern epic.

A really neat epic film. I really loved Dean's performance in this film. Really enjoyied this film.

Sweepingly engrossing, boldly ambitious, dramatically soaked, and featuring a spectacular final performance from James Dean, George Stevens's "Giant" remains a hallmark in the long line of epic cinematic pictures and a successfully atmospheric portrayal of early/mid 1900s Texas.

A modern day "Gone With The Wind" set in the cattle ranches of Texas. Taylor, Hudson and Dean are at their best and they convincely play their characters as they age through the years. The fact that it lost Best Picture to "Around the World in 80 Days" is a big surprise. Don't mess with Texas.

Grade: A