CHILDREN OF GIANT features the making of GIANT, the 1956
film that took the small West Texas town of Marfa by storm. Film greats Elizabeth
Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean, along with a Hollywood cast and crew
invaded the town, and recruited locals, landmarks and issues to provide a
multicultural landscape that was unseen in film during that time.
“It was a revisionist look of Texas,” said J.E. Smyth,
author of Edna Ferber’s Hollywood:
American Fictions of Gender, Race, and History.
GIANT changed the landscape in Marfa, both in the
physical and the communal sense. Residents played bit roles in the film, and
the town was bustling with excitement about the idea of having film stars and
crew-members in their small town. As for the representation of Texas, it was
still very much country western driven but tackled issues of race, gender and
class.
Texas is described as “wind and dust, and blowing
tumbleweeds,” which is a stark contrast of Elizabeth Taylor’s character Leslie’s socialite upbringing. However, Leslie is the character who questions the living
conditions of the Mexican workers in the town. She also examined controversial
topics such as feminism, and often participated in political discussions while
openly expressing her opinion.
Director and producer George Stevens wanted to make a
film that engaged people, and gained awareness of the current state of the
world. A pivotal scene in the film was the Sarge’s Diner scene, which captured
the experience of how Mexican Americans were depicted in that time. The film
examined the color line in Texas, and featured the discrimination in the
Southwest.
CHILDREN OF GIANT told a fascinating tale of a film that
broke barriers, and examined issues that often were not discussed in the
1950s. With the talented trio of Taylor, Hudson and Dean (which was his last
film as a leading actor due to his death) and the town of Marfa, GIANT was a
film that left a lasting impression on viewers past and present.
