Gigante

What should you expect from the great Texas saga charting the story of a generation based on the novel by Pulitzer winner Edna Ferber? First off, a big widescreen color film, a screen on which Lizzy Taylor remains for three and a half hours, and James Dean spices it all up. In the 1950s, Hollywood didn't really care much about sets and costumes and how they evolved over time, so it's very difficult to keep track of the time jumps, you can only orient yourself by the cars or the age of the kids, and that’s not enough. Indeed, it's all a foreshadowing of Dallas, as the proclaimed mentality of Texas cattle chasers and oil tycoons is prescribed here in exactly the spirit the series would later build upon. Personally, I would recommend an older film, Boom Town with Clark Gable (1940), if you are interested in a similar theme. This experience with Giant falls into the category of pure reference. (01.02.2020)

A gripping big film, neatly arranged into four fifty-minute acts whose distinct emotional transitions (death, wedding, funeral) divert the story into slightly different motivational and genre paths. At its core, it’s a transitory experience similar to Wyler's The Big Country, where the action takes place on the vast plains of Texas where historical development seems not to apply. Only the mention of oil and a truck that appears after about two hours assure us that we are not watching a western set in the 19th century. Rock Hudson plays a traditional-minded rancher who refuses to see the future as a portfolio of new possibilities – only the future itself will cure him of his feudal and somewhat racist attitude, bringing both war and the bold and personal aspirations of his three descendants. Poor James Dean, on the other hand, looks to the future with hope and becomes Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood. His line doesn't quite mesh perfectly with the central family fresco at the end, but this two-hundred-minute colossus still holds together admirably and offers one of the most beautiful stories of overcoming prejudice and embracing a new era Hollywood has ever created. And the fact that it consistently leaves an aftertaste of where we are actually going and what we are sacrificing for money is another big plus. 90 % (12.08.2022)

Elizabeth Taylor is beautiful here, and there's simply nothing to criticize about her. Moreover, she always knew how to act. Rock Hudson is good, but what James Dean does, especially in the second half of the film, is simply outstanding because you can see that he had a lot of talent in him. However, I wasn't really entertained by the film. It's an interesting saga, especially in terms of the length of years it spans, but it's not exceptional to me. (09.01.2015)