This was another film that I didn't take notes for during the three and a half hours that it took to unspool on Reel 13 a few weeks ago. It's not because I didn't have anything to say, but I have seen the film several times, including recently during my assignment two years ago to watch films from 1956 (along with previous Reel 13 entries LUST FOR LIFE and MOBY DICK). On the contrary, I might be able to write a whole essay on this film alone. It is the best of those three films (though not even close to being the best of 1956) and one of the most fascinatingly flawed movies I've ever seen.
The primary thing that jumps out to me about GIANT is the disparate performances styles. The mid-fifties, in general, were a time in which performances were shifting from the bigger, theatrical style (Judy Garland, Susan Heyward, et al) to the quieter, more naturalistic process that we take for granted today. At the time, this style was mostly defined by the "Method" actors, many of which were students of the New York-based Actors Studio. The poster boy for this transition was, of course, Marlon Brando, but the tragic hero of the movement was James Dean, one of the stars of GIANT. Overall, this transition was an uneasy one with many naysayers and old schoolers eschewing the reported histrionics behind Method acting and nowhere was this schism in philosophy more transparent than in GIANT. It's almost as if director George Stevens were purposefully waging a war between the two styles. On the one hand, James Dean, Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker represent the burgeoning new method, their scenes bristle with vitality with one great, informed choice after another. On the other hand, Rock Hudson, Mercedes McCambridge and many members of the supporting cast maintain their larger-than-life movie star approach. From a modern viewpoint, they might as well be doing Shakespeare. They feel extremely out-of-place, especially when in a scene with one of the newcomers.
Oddly enough, the glue that holds all this together is Elizabeth Taylor, who while she doesn't seem to subscribe to either theory, still manages to give a magnificent, layered, important performance. She never seems to be wholly natural – part of Method acting is a warts-and-all approach and Taylor never loses that movie star glamour, in spite of the dusty conditions of her surroundings. At the same time, she responds to Rock Hudson's large blustering with intelligence and restraint, making smaller choices that belie Hollywood's historical approach. In addition to her approach, Taylor's choices manufacture a truly modern feminist heroine. She leaves behind the starry-eyed children of her past and the damsels in distress that populated so many similar films before it. She is a truly strong woman without ever losing her feminine qualities. She is willful without being overbearing or devious – simultaneously assertive and sexy.
The other intriguing aspect to GIANT is the style of director George Stevens. There are so many well-thought out, well-designed, beautifully framed images throughout the film that add detail and texture to the sprawling story. In spite of what I assume was a hands off approach with the actors (how else do you explain such a wide range of styles?), he truly seems to understand the characters and shows us with his choices of lighting and framing. He masterfully balances the multitude of supporting roles and subplots without ever losing focus on the primary narrative. Furthermore, the pace of the film is actually quite brisk, which is quite an accomplishment given all the ground there is to cover. With all that said, perhaps the most impressive thing about Stevens is how frequently unobtrusive he is with his camera and his direction, that is, UNLESS he has something political on his mind.
And that's where GIANT takes another weird turn. There are several points that Stevens' seems to want to make at various points in the film – the most blatant of which is anti-racism. He highly accentuates a point that the book only hints at, using Texan prejudice against Hispanic-Americans as a substitute for the bigotry that permeated much of the country during the beginning of the civil rights struggle. It's at moments like these in the film where Stevens seems to lose all sense of subtlety with zooms into the face of a Hispanic baby or a sign that reads "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone". He over-makes his point time and time again, leaving the viewer frustrated, particularly during the second half. He takes a similar approach to mocking the nouveau riche of Texas – people who stumbled onto billions of dollars through the oil business, most notably in a scene where he plays cowboy music and makes the windows burst open as a large party of rich white people are literally herded out of the room like cattle. It's another moment that is amazingly unambiguous in a film that was so carefully crafted and understated for the two and a half hours prior.
All of these elements add up to a wholly uneven, but still mesmerizing film. There is great beauty, great art, great ideas mixed in a bowl with sloppiness, preaching, theatricality and misguided notions. Either way, it is an indelible experience that I think everybody needs to go through. One can learn great filmmaking as well as what not to do, all in one sitting.