Hey Brad Pitt! James Dean called and he wants his persona back. Seeing where Pitt's Thelma & Louise character came from is just one of the many treasures hidden in this good, often brilliant, epic. A few others: a wonderfully staged fist fight between Rock Hudson's Bick Benedict and Sarge, the racist owner of a diner. Fifty years later, they still don't make fist fights any better; the iconic scenes of the Mexican boy's return from war and subsequent funeral. Set up with the jubilant return of the white son-in-law, this is Riefenstahlesque in its capturing of American and Texas patriotism. When Bick hands over the Texas flag, try as you might you will have a lump in your throat. And all because Stevens is a master at withholding information. He shows Bick earlier at the flag case, but we don't know why. He shows the folding and presenting of the Stars and Stripes to the soldier's mother, then, without fanfare, Bick walks up and presents his Texas flag. Powerful, beautiful stuff; the scene in which Bick's tough-ass sister tries to break Liz Taylor's horse is a triumph of film-making, alternating between quick edits of the spurs digging in and a long shot of the horse bucking on the dusty ranch. The acting is too melodramatic, the film is too long and occasionally the anti-racist theme is a too obvious, but the tremendous film-making here makes up for it. An interesting comparison piece would be The Searchers. Ford obviously watched Giant and learned from its faults.
Review of Giant
