Giant has been described as a movie about race,
specifically one of the first movies to highlight the grim treatment of
Hispanics in the Southwest. No doubt true. But racism in Giant is just
another manifestation of alienation. George Stevens made movies about
struggling outsiders attempting to bust into an imagined mansion of recognition
and love. Jett Rink (James Dean) is the outsider and rebel; however he is just
as much a racist as Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson) before his transformation in
the final reel. And that transformation
integrates Benedict back into his home and family and defines his courage. The
agent of this is his son, Jordan Benedict, played by Dennis Hopper.
This was a major motion picture role for Hopper - - much
more important than Rebel Without A Cause - - and he was appearing with
his new big brother, James Dean, only one picture past from Dean’s
break-through role in East Of Eden. They were four years apart but Hopper saw him as a mentor. This burgeoning influence can be seen all
over Hopper’s tormented characterization in Giant. While Hopper gives
not near as bizarre a performance as Dean’s Jett Rink, there was clearly some deep
communication going on between the actors. It is this tension, between the obedient
young contract player Hopper was and the Method madman that he was becoming,
that powers his performance. One is
reminded of Dean’s great howl in Rebel Without A Cause, “You’re tearing
me apart!”
By using this power, Stevens and Hopper define the agony of Jordan Benedict, who must buck his father’s expectation to become a
doctor, like his maternal grandmother. The civilizing and subversive force of
his mother (Elizabeth Taylor) is pollinated by the anarchic force of Jett Rink, a coupling that cannot occur in actuality but supplies an
endless source of tension on Riata Ranch. Both of the Benedict children reject the destructive and pointless
rebellion that infuses Dean’s character for the more compassionate one of their
mother’s.
This role was essential to Hopper’s development of an actor,
both as an introduction to the Method, which he would directly learn from
Strasburg in a few years, and the completing of what would become his artistic
vision, the torture of the outcast, who can not accept the part in life written
for him, but finds the full degradation of anger untenable. In the end, he
softens the excess of Dean with Taylor’s
deep and fundamental empathy. Although many horrendously difficult times
awaited Hopper, it was this film that gave him the foundation that would redeem
his talent.