If you missed my first post where I explain what this is and how I’m scoring things, here you go.
I am nineteen movies into this project, and there are moments where I kind of question if I am really the right person to be doing a project like this. Sure, I think I have at least average intelligence, and I like to think I have a decent understanding of how criticism works, since I have taken multiple college-level courses on it. However, there are just films that I have watched where I feel like I am missing something. Or, more specifically, maybe I recognize the statement the movie is trying to make, but because of when I’m watching it, or the lens I’m watching it through, something just misses the mark. Other times I actually question if I understand movies well enough to properly do this project. If a movie was at one point considered one of the 100 best ever made, it has to be good, right? Then why is it when I watch some of them, I don’t think they are good?
The movie that brought this week’s existential crisis was Giant, a 1956 film starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean. It might be best known today for being James Dean’s last film before he tragically died in a car crash while the film was in post-production. The film is centered around Hudson, who plays Bick Benedict, the owner of a cattle ranch in Texas. He falls in love with Taylor’s character, Leslie, while making a trip to her home in Maryland to buy a horse from her father. Dean plays one of Benedict’s ranch hands, Jett Rink, who is despised by Bick, but his sister leaves him a chunk of their land upon her death. The film deals with Jett and Bick’s rivalry, Leslie’s difficulty fitting into the misogynistic Texas culture, and the poor and racist treatment of the Mexican workers on the Benedict’s ranch.
There are a number of things that just didn’t work for me with Giant, and I’ll get into more of them as I go through my scoring categories, but maybe my main problem with it is that it’s about a bunch of rich white people. Maybe you are reading this at some point in the distant future where rich people are cool again or whatever, but here in 2023, rich people aren’t necessarily the people we want to sympathize with in any way, shape, or form. For Giant to completely work for you, you have to watch rich white men be jerks for 90% of the movie’s runtime before there is any sort of payoff at all for any of it. And the payoff isn’t even all that satisfying. I’m sure that in 1956 it was making some bold statement about the capabilities of women and how we should treat people well, but today these statements are so surface level it actually upset me. I don’t know.
Ok, let’s score this thing:
Entertainment Value- 1/2
I’m actually proud of myself for not saying anything about this sooner, but this movie is three hours and twenty minutes long. 200 minutes. It legitimately took me three different sittings to get through it.
Normally, that would be enough for me to just give this a zero and move on with my life, but I’m giving this some credit because Hudson, Taylor, and Dean were all magnetic performers and just beautiful human beings. It really was hard to take my eyes off of what was happening, especially in scenes where Taylor and Dean were together. It made me care about their characters as much as I could, given the circumstances of who they each were in this story.
Correctness- 0/2
This whole movie is supposed to show the growth of Bick Benedict over 25 years, and how he learned to treat people, especially the Mexican men and women who work for him, with kindness and respect. All of this is great, and I think I would have forgiven all of the, uh, less sensitive elements of the film if they would have actually landed the plane on this correctly. However, in his grand speech where he is talking about how he sees the value in everyone, he refers to his grandson, who is half-Mexican, as a derogatory slur, which actually is where I got the most angry at this movie, and maybe any movie I’ve watched for this project so far. It was so close to making the previous three plus hours worth it, and they just blew it. I could sit here and list a number of points where there were insensitive things happening or things that we’d consider in poor taste now, but it was that one moment at the end of the film that really did it for me.
Influence- 1/2
I’m giving a point here because Giant really goes out of its way to make Texas look ridiculous. The men are all racist and misogynistic. The land is brown and gross. Making fun of Texas is still funny, even if it’s maybe a little too easy sometimes.
“Rewatchability”- 0/2
If anyone would like to be the proud owner of a 4K copy of Giant, hit me up.
Technical Score- 2/2
Ok, this movie is great to look at, and there are cool shots of the scenery, so it has that going for it. The acting, as I mentioned before, is also great. Pretty easy 2 points here.
Overall- 4/10
The streak of movies I really liked is over. This movie tried to crush my goals like the Giant it is, but onward I go.
You can rent Giant from the service of your choice.
Hasta luego,
Josh
Up Next: #81 Modern Times