Giant
Giant on the IMDb
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Warner Brothers 2-disc Special Edition. Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker in a George Stevens film. Here's another classic that I'd never seen until I picked up the DVD, and I tell you, I was far more impressed than I had expected to be. Granted, many of the smaller plotlines had obvious set-ups and were very predictable, but the big overall picture did surprise me, and by this I mean the character arcs of both the Rock Hudson and James Dean characters. I found this to be by far Dean's most impressive performance, as I've never personally cared for Rebel and thought that he tended to overact in East of Eden. Here he was perfect, and far and away stole every scene he was in--unlike Eden, where at times I thought he took scenes away from other actors just by going so far over the top, in Giant he slyly picks off scenes with a much more natural interpretation of his character. Rock Hudson and Liz Taylor are strong, young Carroll Baker is charming and Dennis Hopper turns out a fine performance. Having only watched this for the first time I was surprised by how much camera time Hopper had and how little Sal Mineo had. They are basically evenly billed in the opening credits. It's impressive how Stevens takes what starts out seeming to be a pretty simple epic melodrama and little by little, scene by scene, layers deeper messages about race and tolerance into the story ultimately making them the main point of the picture. Having never read the Edna Ferber novel that the film is based on I don't know for sure how much of this is Ferber and how much is Stevens, but I'd lay my money on Stevens. This 2-disc set is packed with extra features which I plan to watch soon and talk about here.
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