Lambie Reviews Giant

Year: 1956
Accolades: Oscar for Best Director (George Stevens) (No, it didn't win Best Picture like they all do these days.)

It's time to try something a little different. From now on I'm going to make many of these reviews a little more regular and in depth. I'll still do those smaller, couple-of-paragraph reviews for films I don't have much to say about, but I'll compile them all and do those a little less regularly (perhaps as a bonus roundup at the end of the year). It means you don't always have to wait around for two months for this blog to update.

So our longer reviews start with the three hour long 1956 film that won director George Stevens the Oscar for Best Director. It was nominated for a slew of other awards (including Best Picture and Acting nominations for Rock Hudson and James Dean) but failed to win any. It is also notable for being James Dean's last on-screen performance before being tragically killed in a car accident. Some of his lines had to be dubbed by another actor, Nick Adams, because he was killed so early into post-production.

The performances from Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Dean are all wonderful, but there are times when each of the characters got on my nerves. Jordan 'Bick' Benedict Jr. (Hudson) can be extremely stubborn to the point of potentially traumatising his children, his wife Leslie Benedict (Taylor) is the most open-minded when it comes to the plot elements dealing with racism and sexism but sometimes ends up expressing those views in the rudest and most insulting way possible, and when Jett Rink (Dean) strikes gold he becomes an unlikable arrogant business man who ends up rich but an alcoholic. Despite these traits, I ended up warming to the Benedicts a little as they got older, and Rink has his own tragic downfall that warrants sympathy.

It's a pity that with such good performances I can't actually describe the plot meaningfully or tell you what the title of the film refers to. The film is essentially just a bunch of stuff that happens to this family, with a focus on Hudson and Taylor's characters. The different plot elements jump around, seemingly end prematurely, or are forgotten for long periods of time before being picked up again.

The film starts with Bick traveling to a ranch or something to pick up a stallion he has decided to buy. While there, he meets Leslie, they fall in love and get married. Then about twenty minutes later the horse throws and kills a rider and has to be shot because it broke a leg. So just when you think the film will focus on the two leads and their new horse, the plot element ends. Rink gets his plot of land from the will, and then he disappears from the picture for a while, only to strike oil, and then disappear for more time. And so on. At one point the film feels like it's nothing but at least one of the Benedict children crying.

Don't get me wrong - some parts are interesting. The problem is that other bits are dull. It certainly shows it's novel-based roots as a family saga, which would explain why all those plot elements pop up and die down every so often. Being a family saga, the film takes place over a period of about 25 to 30 years, which highlights another potential problem with the film. It doesn't handle the transitions from one time period to the next all that well. In one scene Leslie announces she is pregnant, and in the next they suddenly have two kids. Every transition in time is like this, and we the audience are left to figure out how far forward we've gone each time, if we've moved forward in time at all. It's a minor issue, but one that can become a huge problem when you're trying to figure out what's going on.

For me, the everlasting impression I will take away is James Dean's last scene as oil tycoon Jett Rink, dubbed "The Last Supper" by his fans since it was the last thing he shot before his death. (This is the scene that was dubbed by Nick Adams.) He is framed in a long shot, isolated at the head table in a huge but empty dining hall after all his guests have left. He is drunk, in the dark, rambling about how he has always loved Leslie. It's incredibly shot, beautifully directed, and masterfully acted. It's also a brutally frank scene, especially as one of Leslie's daughters, who was infatuated with Rink, is watching unnoticed and finally has her perfect illusion of him shattered. All the issues I had about this film were momentarily forgotten when I saw this scene.

It's a pity that a few minutes later it's followed by a dated looking punch-up in a diner.