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Avert your eyes - more James Dean love coming up. But rest assured (or saddened), it's the last of his three. That he only made three is a tragic loss, though at least he went out with one of the best hit rates in history. And he managed to avoid that terrible slide of other figures of similar standing from the period - I'm looking at you, Marlon Brando.
Giant is big by name, and big by nature. The last of Dean's performances (after East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause) it picked up his second consecutive posthumous Oscar nomination - I'm pretty sure that's a feat no one else has achieved, and probably never will. Surely helped by the fact that he died shortly before production had even wrapped (some of his lines ended up being dubbed by another actor), and that the film spent a solid year in the editing suites. It released 14 months after he died.
Giant is a three hour plus epic, and the story is pretty huge, so I'm not going to be able to do it justice. Briefly, Rock Hudson plays Texas rancher Bick Benedict, who falls in love with and marries young Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor) when he goes to buy a horse off her father. She struggles to win over Bick's sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), who runs the ranch, for a long time, as Luz feels replaced. Bick and Leslie have a couple of kids, Jordan (Dennis Hopper) and Luz II (Carroll Baker), neither of whom seem too keen on taking over the extensive ranching operation the family has built up over years. To add insult to injury, Jordan goes off and marries a Mexican immigrant.
Running parallel is Dean's story. Shortly after the arrival of Leslie, Jett Rink (Dean) is reminded that he was fired. Luz, however, has affections for him, convincing Bick to let him stay on, despite his drinking problems and the fact that, well, he's just a bit of a prick. After Luz dies (thrown by the horse that Bick bought off Leslie's father), she bequeaths to Jett a small parcel of land. Bick tries to buy it off him, but Jett honours her wishes and sequesters himself on the pocket, building a house as he continues his desperate slide into alcoholism. Suddenly, however, he discovers oil, mining his land for all that it is worth and making an absolute fortune. He tries to lease Bick's ranch, to put down rigs that would see Bick pocket a very tidy sum of money (the word 'billion' is thrown around - and this is back around the time of the war, so you know that's a hell of a lot of money), but Bick refuses, stating that his ranch will never be an oilfield, though it's reasonably obvious that it is primarily due to his dislike of Jett. Jett doesn't worry, instead building a vast empire. The Benedicts and Rink are both very wealthy, but Rink is fast descending into alcoholic madness, though it does not stop him from pursuing Luz II, much to Bick's disdain. Finally, however, Jett collapses at the feet of the destruction he has sown for himself.
Yep, that's the short version. And it sounds like Jett's side of the story is the major one, but really it's a subplot, and his being nominated for Lead Actor reeks of category fraud that may actually have cost him an Oscar he deserved, instead pitting him against costar Hudson and probably splitting the vote. All of the performances in the film are superb, masterfully handled by director George Stevens (the only person to pick up an Oscar for this film, despite nine other nominations.) Stevens in fact manages to craft a solidly and consistently compelling film from start to finish - as mentioned it is very long, and at the time I thought I was too tired to watch it in one sitting. Wrong. I couldn't stop, and just dealt with my fatigue the next day. And it was worth it. A great score, beautiful lensing from William C. Mellor, and editor William Hornbeck should be handed an Oscar for managing to wade through the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of feet of film Stevens shot. That he managed to create a film as long as this that never once dropped the ball or seemed to contain an extraneous frame is truly laudable.
As a curtain call for the icon that would be James Dean it is very fitting. Epic, despite the short life led by the star, it pulled in so much beauty and talent as to be a fitting tribute to someone who could have gone on to even better things. Imagine what a few more years under his belt could have done for him. If he could pull these performances out with the experience of only three features, give him another ten years and, if he had managed to stay on the rails, he would have been unstoppable. But, as it were, his legend will always remain, however succinct, as glorious. 5 stars.
Oh, James Dean. I would sit here and weep for you, would it not seem absurd to weep for someone who died a solid thirty years before I was even born. So I will weep for you with words instead.
East Of Eden, by Elia Kazan, was Dean's first of three major motion picture appearances, netting him his first of two posthumous Oscar nominations for Best Actor, and indeed the first posthumous Oscar nomination ever. He followed on with the acclaimed Rebel Without A Cause and his final performance in Giant. He received the nomination for playing Cal, son of Adam (Raymond Massey) and brother of Aron (Richard Davalos.) With a staunchly religious father, Cal is the black sheep of the family, unable to do good in the eyes of his father, vastly different from his brother who shines with his family allegiance and with his blossoming relationship to Abra (Julie Harris), loved by Adam.
Adam has an entrepreneurial plan to harness the burgeoning world of refrigeration in the shipping of lettuces from their home on the Californian coast across the country, betting pretty much everything he is worth on its success. When it doesn't succeed, an outcome accepted stoically by Adam, Cal plans to invest in the growing of beans in the pre-WWII market, banking on America joining the war, therefore pushing the price of beans skyhigh, netting him a tidy profit that he can return to his father in the hope of receiving the love and respect he so craves. To finance his entry into the agricultural market he goes to his mother Kate (Jo Van Fleet), who Cal and Aron have been brought up believing is dead, but whom Cal has recently discovered is alive and well, running a brothel in the neighbouring town of Monterey. She agrees to co-investing with him, financing his involvement, on the understanding that her existence remains a secret out of respect to Adam.
With Cal's sudden change into a good son, Adam is impressed and Cal and Abra start developing a close relationship, noticed and not particularly liked by Aron. Abra and Cal plan a surprise birthday party for Adam, where Cal plans on giving the money to his father, but Aron trumps him by announcing his engagement to Abra, something that takes both Cal and Abra by surprise, especially considering their growing attraction to each other. Adam rejects Cal's offer of money, accusing him of war profiteering, something that Cal sees as another rejection from his father, this one all the more painful due to the effort, thought, time and risk he put into it. Abra follows Cal as he runs from the house, in turn followed by Aron, who orders Cal to stay away from his fiance. Devastated and furious, Cal takes Aron into Monterey, where he introduces his brother to their mother, throwing the door closed behind them.
Cal returns home alone, bearing the news of where Aron is at that time to his father. Shortly the sheriff arrives to alert the family to the fact that Aron has drunkenly enlisted in the army to go off and join the war that Cal has profited off, with his train leaving early the next morning. The shock of this causes Adam to suffer a stroke, leaving his life touch and go in the balance.
It is a beautiful story of two very different father and son relationships told in the same family, where closeness is apparent, but where vast chasms of disappointment and hostility run deep. Dean's performance gives Cal an incredible depth, offering up his continual pain at the perceived rejection of his father in favour of his brother, but also giving us his optimistic fervour, his unsuppressed desire to win over his father no matter what the cost. The performances of his supports are somewhat less rounded, though effective as somewhat one-dimensional catalysts for the progression of Cal onwards. While Harris as Abra is probably the weakest point, never truly delving into what her character is feeling, Van Fleet as their weary mother with so many secrets allows us into her every thought with the most subtle movements and affectations, making her one of the more memorable characters without much time on screen at all, netting her a deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Kazan, probably best known for his work bringing Marlon Brando his first Oscar nomination and later his first win for his two powerhouse performances in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront respectively, pulls it out again with the watershed that was Dean's performance. He tender handling of the delicate father/son relationships shown here also delve into a world not often seen on film, that of the distance between men and the hurt that can cause.
An excellent film, stopping just short of extraordinary. 4.5 stars.
Is there any late actor as repeatedly imitated as James Dean? In terms of attempted artistry in photo spreads of the newest up-and-comer playing something approaching bad-boy status, or who's just so damn pretty and talented, that look is always going to come out somewhere along the way.
The only Dean film I've seen is Rebel Without A Cause - though he only made three major films, so that's a whole third of his primary output. I do also plan on correcting that to encompass Giant and East Of Eden as soon as I can lay my hands on them.
I first saw Rebel Without A Cause at an underground cinematheque of sorts in inner-Sydney back in... what, 2005? Projected onto the wall of a room underneath a cafe in Surry Hills from an old 16mm print I think from the National Film And Sound Archive. I'd obviously been aware of James Dean for years before, had been in love with him from naught but his photos and tragic story (nothing like a tragic story to get me crushing - Mr Dean, River Phoenix, the list could go on but it's just going to get to much for our little hearts to bear.)
RWAC (as it shall now be known to save on typing) is the story of Jim Stark (Dean), a perpetual new kid on the block whose family decides to move every time he gets in trouble - which seems to be often. Finding himself in his new town, he only has to turn up to school to get into trouble - he steps on the school seal, which everyone else walks around on the way up to the front door. Stark has already met a couple of the kids from school by the time his first big fight happens later that day, at a field trip to the planetarium. Judy (Natalie Wood) lives down the road from him, going out with tough guy Buzz (Corey Allen), but you can tell from the get-go that Stark enthralls her. John, known as Plato (Sal Mineo) is a complete outcast, an apparent homosexual, lusting (completely understandably) for our protagonist. The fight between Stark and Buzz at the planetarium sees a challenge to a game of chicken that night, whereby Stark and Buzz get in stolen cars, race them towards a cliff's edge, and whoever jumps out first is the chicken. Except Buzz never manages to get out.
As the film continues, with the famous scene between Stark and his parents, Stark's discontent and angst-before-angst-was-in becomes more and more apparent, and Stark, Plato and Judy all become closer and closer, finally spending time in an old abandoned mansion where they are set upon by Buzz's old crew (including Dennis Hopper in an early and very minor role.) The film comes full circle, finishing at the Planetarium, with police involvement.
Dean is electric, though Wood and Mineo got the Oscar nominations. The script is fantastic, spawning so many quotable lines that have entered the lexicon to the extent where I'm certain it is quoted without most people having any idea where these words come from. Director Nicholas Ray keeps the film taut and trim, allowing the easy beauty and dynamism of the young cast to flow through every scene, and Dean's ability to bring humanity to a role that so easily could have been completely loathsome, or at least purposelessly antagonistic, keeps you feeling for all three when, by rights, you should be on the side of the law. But at the end of the day, Stark just wants to try and find his place in the world, find how he fits in, but he doesn't want to hurt anyone. And once he finds love, all he wants is contentment that seems to completely elude him.
A true classic of cinema, let alone American cinema. And testament to the reason James Dean has remained so prominent in the eyes of the world over half a century after his death. 5 easy stars, and sometimes I wish I could add an arbitrary sixth.
