Stars: Elizabeth Taylor (Leslie Benedict), Rock Hudson (Jordan "Bick" Benedict Jr.), James Dean (Jett Rink), Mercedes McCambridge (Luz Benedict)
- 1 Oscar win - Best Director
- 9 Additional Nominations - Best Picture, Best Actor (Rock Hudson), Best Actor (James Dean), Best Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge), Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Art Direction, Best Music (Score), Best Costume Design
- #82 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
- In 2005, Giant was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Genre: Romantic Drama
Running Time: 3 Hours, 21 Minutes
Format: DVD (Not yet available on Blu-ray)
Odyssey Rating: 3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)
John's Take
John's Take
I was a little apprehensive about watching Giant. This is because, at first glance, Giant looks a great deal like the movie A Place in the Sun. Both films are melodramas (i.e., chick flics). They both star Elizabeth Taylor, and they are both directed by George Stevens. As I have documented earlier, I really didn’t like A Place in the Sun, so let’s just say that I wasn’t expecting much from Giant. Toss in the facts that we had just finished watching Yankee Doodle Dandy, which was a bit of a disappointment, and that Giant clocks in at just under 3 ½ hours long, and I was fairly certain that I was going to be on the receiving end of some snarky comments from Beth. She seems to like to blame me when the movies are not very good – as if I had something to do with making them. I try pointing that fact out to her, but usually I just get “Well, it was your idea to watch it…” in response. In other words, if Giant ended up being as bad as or worse than Yankee Doodle Dandy, I was going to have to put with about a week’s worth of “You wasted six hours of my weekend… Six hours I will never get back…”comments.
Luckily for me, Giant turned out to be pretty good, or at least a lot better than I had expected, and thus I was spared any snarky comments. However, while I was watching the movie, it felt like there were one or two things tugging at me – distracting me, if you will. It wasn’t really until I got ready to write this post, that I finally was finally able make sense of distractions.
The first distraction was the “implementation”, of James Dean’s character Jett Rink. Traditionally in “melodramas”, this character would have the diamond-in-the-rough whose true value as a human being would come to the surface through the love and attention of the female lead, and eventually the female lead ends up with this character. In other words, if the story in Giant had followed the traditional chick flic formula, then the story should have gone something like this:
1. Conservative, sexist, bigoted Rock Hudson brings young, liberal, open-minded Elizabeth Taylor – his new bride – home to his cattle ranch after a whirlwind courtship. There she meets skulking, mumbling James Dean.
2. James Dean instantly has the hots for Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor instantly sees through the uneducated, stalker-like exterior of Dean to his heart of gold and is surprised by how attractive she finds him.
3. Rock Hudson inexplicably senses this and takes steps to separate the two. Hudson and Taylor’s relationship hits hard times due to their differing world views (i.e., Hudson acts like a jerk).
4. Elizabeth Taylor can’t quite seem to shake her interest in Dean, however, and seeks him out. The two talk, and they both feel that there is chemistry between them.
5. Due in part to the encouragement of Taylor and to a series of convenient and fortunate events, Dean becomes just a wealthy, if not more so, than Hudson.
6. Dean arrives during a major fight between Taylor and Hudson. Dean confronts Hudson; rescues Taylor from his sexist, bigoted clutches and Dean and Taylor live happily ever after.
Except that is not what happens.
Oh, don’t get me wrong Giant is most definitely a chick flic, so bullet points one through five go off without a hitch. However, at the point of the film where Dean is supposed to come in and win Taylor away from Hudson, he doesn’t. I mean, he shows up to confront Rock Hudson alright, except he is drunk off his ass and acting even mumbleier, skulkier, and stalker-like than ever before. He flaunts his new wealth to Hudson and is all “Hey, baby – buy you a drink?” to Taylor. In other words, the underdog just won, but instead of riding off with the girl, he acts like such an ass that he permanently pushes Taylor back into Hudson’s arms. This would have never happened if John Cusack had been playing Jett Rink, I assure you.
At this point you are probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking – “Ah, this must be the event that triggers a change in Hudson’s ways.” Nope. Rock Hudson pretty much spends the next two hours of the movie being just as sexist and bigoted as he was at the beginning of the movie. Oh, sure he sort of gets over his anti-Mexican stance once his son marries a Mexican woman and she gives birth to his grandson, but you sort of get the feeling that this change of heart more applies to just Hudson / Benedict’s immediate family in a no-one-messes-with-a-Benedict sort of way than to Mexicans in general. The daughter-in-law and grandson are more than welcome at the house at Thanksgiving, but I suspect that Uncle Pedro showing up might be a different matter. All the while, James Dean’s character just continues to get creepier and more pathetic as the film goes on. And what of Taylor’s character? She just seems resigned to the fact that she is never going to change Hudson and will just take whatever small victories come her way. In short, the film starts off traveling down the well-traveled chick flic highway, only to suddenly swerve off the road into the underbrush of what-the-heck-is-going-here?
Then there was the second thought / distraction that kept buzzing around in my head. Have you ever seen the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of original Star Trek series? It is the one where, due to a transporter malfunction, evil duplicates of Spock, etc. are brought to the Enterprise from a parallel universe. Well, that is what Giant is. It is the Mirror Universe version of Gone with the Wind. Yes, I know that it will take you a moment to wrap your head around that concept. It took me a little while to work through it as well. Let me run through some of the evidence and I think you will see that I am right.
Take Scarlet O’Hara and Leslie Benedict, for example. Both are the female leads of their respective movies, and both come from rich families, but where Scarlet is self-centered, greedy, and culturally insensitive; Leslie is kind-hearted, generous, and concerned for the well-being of those around her. Scarlet marries for gain, all the while pining away for the man she can’t have. Leslie, while perhaps a bit hasty in her choice of husbands, works hard to make family work and never spends much time worrying about “what if”. Put a goatee on Vivian Leigh and you definitely have “Evil Leslie”.
Then you have Rhett Butler and Jordan "Bick" Benedict. Rhett is devil-may-care roguish charmer, where Bick is the uptight stuffed-shirt. Rhett has a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer, where Bick would always be a perfect gentleman. Rhett was the black sheep of the family where Bick was always the heir-apparent. Rhett was usually kind to those less fortunate than himself. Bick would have a hard time even seeing them. Rhett leaves Scarlet. Leslie leaves Bick.
Now let’s compare Jett Rink and Ashley Wilkes. It is safe to assume that Ashley was educated at the best schools, while Jett is self-educated. Ashley is noble and gentlemanly. Jett is, well, creepy. Jett wasn’t afraid of hard work, while Ashley never worked a day in his life. Ashley started out life rich but ended up relatively poor. Jett started out poor but ended up ridiculously rich. Ashley couldn’t get Scarlet to leave him alone, and Jett can’t get enough of Leslie’s attention.
I could go on and on. One movie takes place in the green, relatively fertile lands of Georgia while the other takes place in dry, dusty lands of Texas. One movie has a happy ending, the other one doesn’t. It is as if someone sat down with a copy of Gone with the Wind and proceeded to write a second story by making all of the characters and situations nearly the exact opposite of those in the original work. I am not crazy here. If you think about it some, I am sure you will come up with even more parallels. I think Giant may in fact be physical proof of parallel universes and it has been sitting right here under our noses for over fifty years now.
Luckily for me, Giant turned out to be pretty good, or at least a lot better than I had expected, and thus I was spared any snarky comments. However, while I was watching the movie, it felt like there were one or two things tugging at me – distracting me, if you will. It wasn’t really until I got ready to write this post, that I finally was finally able make sense of distractions.
The first distraction was the “implementation”, of James Dean’s character Jett Rink. Traditionally in “melodramas”, this character would have the diamond-in-the-rough whose true value as a human being would come to the surface through the love and attention of the female lead, and eventually the female lead ends up with this character. In other words, if the story in Giant had followed the traditional chick flic formula, then the story should have gone something like this:
1. Conservative, sexist, bigoted Rock Hudson brings young, liberal, open-minded Elizabeth Taylor – his new bride – home to his cattle ranch after a whirlwind courtship. There she meets skulking, mumbling James Dean.
2. James Dean instantly has the hots for Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor instantly sees through the uneducated, stalker-like exterior of Dean to his heart of gold and is surprised by how attractive she finds him.
3. Rock Hudson inexplicably senses this and takes steps to separate the two. Hudson and Taylor’s relationship hits hard times due to their differing world views (i.e., Hudson acts like a jerk).
4. Elizabeth Taylor can’t quite seem to shake her interest in Dean, however, and seeks him out. The two talk, and they both feel that there is chemistry between them.
5. Due in part to the encouragement of Taylor and to a series of convenient and fortunate events, Dean becomes just a wealthy, if not more so, than Hudson.
6. Dean arrives during a major fight between Taylor and Hudson. Dean confronts Hudson; rescues Taylor from his sexist, bigoted clutches and Dean and Taylor live happily ever after.
Except that is not what happens.
Oh, don’t get me wrong Giant is most definitely a chick flic, so bullet points one through five go off without a hitch. However, at the point of the film where Dean is supposed to come in and win Taylor away from Hudson, he doesn’t. I mean, he shows up to confront Rock Hudson alright, except he is drunk off his ass and acting even mumbleier, skulkier, and stalker-like than ever before. He flaunts his new wealth to Hudson and is all “Hey, baby – buy you a drink?” to Taylor. In other words, the underdog just won, but instead of riding off with the girl, he acts like such an ass that he permanently pushes Taylor back into Hudson’s arms. This would have never happened if John Cusack had been playing Jett Rink, I assure you.
At this point you are probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking – “Ah, this must be the event that triggers a change in Hudson’s ways.” Nope. Rock Hudson pretty much spends the next two hours of the movie being just as sexist and bigoted as he was at the beginning of the movie. Oh, sure he sort of gets over his anti-Mexican stance once his son marries a Mexican woman and she gives birth to his grandson, but you sort of get the feeling that this change of heart more applies to just Hudson / Benedict’s immediate family in a no-one-messes-with-a-Benedict sort of way than to Mexicans in general. The daughter-in-law and grandson are more than welcome at the house at Thanksgiving, but I suspect that Uncle Pedro showing up might be a different matter. All the while, James Dean’s character just continues to get creepier and more pathetic as the film goes on. And what of Taylor’s character? She just seems resigned to the fact that she is never going to change Hudson and will just take whatever small victories come her way. In short, the film starts off traveling down the well-traveled chick flic highway, only to suddenly swerve off the road into the underbrush of what-the-heck-is-going-here?
Then there was the second thought / distraction that kept buzzing around in my head. Have you ever seen the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of original Star Trek series? It is the one where, due to a transporter malfunction, evil duplicates of Spock, etc. are brought to the Enterprise from a parallel universe. Well, that is what Giant is. It is the Mirror Universe version of Gone with the Wind. Yes, I know that it will take you a moment to wrap your head around that concept. It took me a little while to work through it as well. Let me run through some of the evidence and I think you will see that I am right.
Take Scarlet O’Hara and Leslie Benedict, for example. Both are the female leads of their respective movies, and both come from rich families, but where Scarlet is self-centered, greedy, and culturally insensitive; Leslie is kind-hearted, generous, and concerned for the well-being of those around her. Scarlet marries for gain, all the while pining away for the man she can’t have. Leslie, while perhaps a bit hasty in her choice of husbands, works hard to make family work and never spends much time worrying about “what if”. Put a goatee on Vivian Leigh and you definitely have “Evil Leslie”.
Then you have Rhett Butler and Jordan "Bick" Benedict. Rhett is devil-may-care roguish charmer, where Bick is the uptight stuffed-shirt. Rhett has a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer, where Bick would always be a perfect gentleman. Rhett was the black sheep of the family where Bick was always the heir-apparent. Rhett was usually kind to those less fortunate than himself. Bick would have a hard time even seeing them. Rhett leaves Scarlet. Leslie leaves Bick.
Now let’s compare Jett Rink and Ashley Wilkes. It is safe to assume that Ashley was educated at the best schools, while Jett is self-educated. Ashley is noble and gentlemanly. Jett is, well, creepy. Jett wasn’t afraid of hard work, while Ashley never worked a day in his life. Ashley started out life rich but ended up relatively poor. Jett started out poor but ended up ridiculously rich. Ashley couldn’t get Scarlet to leave him alone, and Jett can’t get enough of Leslie’s attention.
I could go on and on. One movie takes place in the green, relatively fertile lands of Georgia while the other takes place in dry, dusty lands of Texas. One movie has a happy ending, the other one doesn’t. It is as if someone sat down with a copy of Gone with the Wind and proceeded to write a second story by making all of the characters and situations nearly the exact opposite of those in the original work. I am not crazy here. If you think about it some, I am sure you will come up with even more parallels. I think Giant may in fact be physical proof of parallel universes and it has been sitting right here under our noses for over fifty years now.
So, are all these things bad things? No, not really. They did upset my concept of how chick flics are supposed unfold, however. The characters end-up acting a little sort of like real people – attitudes are not changed, just tempered; the underdog doesn’t get the girl; being poor doesn’t necessarily make you the good guy and being rich doesn’t necessarily make you the bad guy; etc.. I expected something very cliché and ended up watching something just slightly different. As ridiculous as it may sound, however, those moments of “realism” did prevent me from enjoying the movie as much as I would like. I found the tiny, tiny bits of reality mixed into a stereotypical Hollywood melodrama to be a bit distracting at times.
I may need to see this movie again to really determine exactly what my “final ranking” for this movie is. However, since I went to see Letters to Juliet recently and there is a small possibility that Beth is going to force me to see Sex and the City 2, I will probably hold off on that lest all my testosterone be completely drained from my body. In the meantime, Giant will just have to settle for a ranking of 3 Stars from me.
John
I may need to see this movie again to really determine exactly what my “final ranking” for this movie is. However, since I went to see Letters to Juliet recently and there is a small possibility that Beth is going to force me to see Sex and the City 2, I will probably hold off on that lest all my testosterone be completely drained from my body. In the meantime, Giant will just have to settle for a ranking of 3 Stars from me.
John
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