Zack Snyder's Justice League

When Zack Snyder was hired to launch the DC Extended Universe with Man of Steel (2013), his mandate was clear: to create a fully-realized world that would eventually be populated by a roster of superheroes starting with their most famous, Superman (Henry Cavill). The filmmaker would provide the stylistic template for other directors to follow and with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), he introduced Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) (along with brief cameos by the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg) into the DCEU and one could sense he was building to something even bigger, not just a larger threat for our heroes to face but a bigger response.

Justice League (2017) would see Batman recruit the Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Wonder Woman to stop an alien threat of unimaginable danger. Anticipation was high for the movie and then towards the end of production Snyder was confronted with terrible tragedy that forced him off the project. Without missing a beat, the studio brought in Joss Whedon to do significant work and complete it in time for its intended release date. This version pleased few and was savaged by critics, underperforming at the box office.

That should have been it. Rumors, however, persisted among Snyder’s dedicated fanbase that a cut of his version existed and support for it began to gradually gather traction over time until the studio finally took notice. They were launching a new streaming app and not only needed content but a big and splashy title that would garner a lot attention and, more importantly, subscribers. Negotiations began with Snyder and he was given enough time and money to complete his version of Justice League (2021), a massive, four-hour epic that concludes his DCEU trilogy.

 

The movie begins with an ending: Superman’s death that we saw at the climax of Batman v Superman only now seeing how the literal aftershocks of his demise are felt all over the world by other mighty beings such as himself. Fearing that Doomsday, the villain of that movie, was only the beginning, Bruce Wayne seeks out other powerful titans with little success, initially. People like Aquaman are content to protect their own pockets of the world until, that is, a portal appears in Themyscira, and hordes of aliens led by Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds) appear seeking the Mother Box, an “indestructible living machine,” as Wonder Woman later puts it, that when united with two others, can manipulate great power.

This is only the tip of the iceberg for if Steppenwolf can unite the Mother Boxes and summon his master, Darkseid (Ray Porter), this will unleash a destructive power that universe has never seen. Only when it becomes personal do the heroes feel compelled to band together and stop this overwhelming threat.

After the Frankenstein-like pastiche that was Justice League, this new version feels and looks much more consistent with Snyder’s other DCEU movies, in particular, Batman v Superman. Given the creative freedom he was reportedly given, he really cuts loose as evident in the sequence were Wonder Woman recounts a story about how Darkseid and his minions arrived on Earth thousands of years ago to conquer it only to be repelled by an alliance of Gods, Amazons, Atlanteans, humans, and a Green Lantern. This allows Snyder to do what he does best – show powerful beings smiting each other in slow motion only on a much grander scale than he has ever done before. Imagine the epic battle scenes from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films with Snyder’s own 300 (2007). This battle is Zack Snyder at his most Zack Snyder-ist with almighty gods having it out with ancient aliens on a massive scale all to the strains of a vaguely operatic score.

 

Snyder certainly has a knack for staging action set pieces and where his trademark slow motion/speed up technique is used most effectively is the introduction of Barry Allen a.k.a. the Flash when he applies for a job only to save a woman from a deadly car accident that he locked eyes with moments before all to the strains “Songs of the Siren” (hauntingly covered by Rose Betts) that is hypnotically and as visually arresting a sequence as anything in the filmmaker’s canon.

Of course, having this kind of creative freedom allows Snyder to indulge in his some of his more indulgent tendencies that feel a tad out of place in a movie like this, such as moments of ultraviolence when Wonder Woman takes out a group of terrorists in a museum in London, England. She doesn’t just dispatch the baddies, Snyder makes sure we hear them slam hard against walls with a sickening thud and accompanying blood splatters. Wonder Woman straight up murders these guys, literally exploding the ringleader at the end and then, without missing a beat, turning around to a little girl and giving her some aspirational pearl of wisdom. It’s not like she hasn’t killed people before in other movies but it is the way they are depicted in Justice League, which is so disturbing.

Like a lot of contemporary CGI villains, both Steppenwolf and Darkseid lack personality and whose motives are the same old tired clichés we’ve seen a million times before. Marvel broke the mold with Thanos in the Avengers movies, coming the closest to almost making us forget he was a completely digital creation. The baddies in Justice League look exactly like they are and, as a result, we don’t really feel that tangible threat or sense of danger as we know these are purely digital beings. That being said, they aren’t really that important to the story beyond being a catalyst to get the heroes together.

 

The most significant change from the theatrical version is how Snyder’s version acts as a backdoor origin story for Cyborg, placing him and his relationship with his father (Joe Morton) at the movie’s emotional core. In Whedon’s version, his character was relegated to almost an afterthought. In fact, he plays a pivotal role in the movie’s climactic moment.

Snyder is an impressive visual stylist and before Justice League his movies often felt hampered by miscasting in pivotal roles and uneven screenplays with clunky dialogue that sometimes failed to understand their source material. This obscured his distinctive directorial vision. The script for Justice League, written by Chris Terrio, is the first one since James Gunn’s work on the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, that matches Snyder’s visual prowess. With Justice League, he wanted to make something grandiose and mythic – after all he’s dealing with both ancient gods and contemporary beings with god-like powers – and with the help of Terrio’s script he successfully achieved that goal.

DC didn’t want to copy the look of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and hiring Snyder made sense as he brought an epic, operatic feel to his entries in the DCEU. His movies are decidedly darker in tone and look, which divided comic book fans, especially those of Superman who felt that Snyder went too far in reinventing the character. Where the superheroes of the MCU are relatable to one degree or another, Snyder’s superheroes are god-like Übermensches wrestling with living among mortals and having to assume alter egos so that they aren’t persecuted by a public at large that either doesn’t understand or fears them.

 

The central thesis of Snyder’s DC movies has focused on the power that superheroes like Superman wield: how they choose to use it as opposed to how they use it to help the greatest number of people. In Justice League, Batman makes the decision to activate the remaining Mother Box, attempting to resurrect Superman thereby putting the entire planet at risk as it will bring Steppenwolf and his army to them. Fortunately, the gamble pays off but this strategy contains more than a whiff of Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s philosophical system where the most significant moral purpose of human life is to pursue happiness over everything else, even if it means disregarding the needs of others. Batman takes it upon himself to assume that he knows what is best for everyone and executes that plan consequences be damned.

If Batman v Superman posed the question, should these super-powered being be held accountable for their actions then Justice League was a resounding no. They are going to do whatever they think is right whether that aligns with the greater good or not. It certainly provides a fascinating spin on the superhero mythos and is one of the many things that makes Snyder’s DC movies stand out from others in the genre. If Justice League is to be his swan song for the studio and for the genre he certainly has done so in spectacular fashion.

Prince of the City

In a New York Times article about Night Falls on Manhattan (1996), the fourth film in Sidney Lumet’s police corruption quartet, Edward Lewine observes that the central question in these films is can a good person remain good within the system? In Serpico (1973), Frank (Al Pacino) starts off as a clean-cut recruit fresh from the academy and is immediately faced with accepting payoffs from local criminals. In Q & A (1990), Al Reilly (Timothy Hutton) prosecutes his first case knowing that an esteemed cop (Nick Nolte) is dirty. In Night Falls, Sean Casey (Andy Garcia) is an assistant district attorney that must choose between adhering to the law and releasing a cop killer or making a dishonest deal to keep him in prison.

In Lumet’s masterpiece, Prince of the City (1981), corrupt police detective Daniel Ciello (Treat Williams) tries to redeem himself by ratting on his fellow police officers. As Lumet said in an interview, “The picture is also about cops and how pressured they are, what they have to live with day in, day out and how they try to keep some sort of equilibrium, whether it’s staying honest or not becoming cynical.” This is the central thesis for his police corruption quartet, realized so masterfully in this ambitious, sprawling film with its 130 locations, 280 scenes and 126 speaking parts, all of which Lumet handles with the assured hand of a consummate professional.

Danny is the leader of a team of narcotics detectives that work in the Special Investigations Unit of the New York City Police Department. They are a tight crew that work mostly unsupervised and hang out together in their off hours with their families. They are known as “Princes of the City” because of their impressive reputation for busting crooks. They also skim money from said criminals and give informants drugs in exchange for information. These guys live by the credo, “The first thing a cop learns is that he can’t trust anybody but his partners…I sleep with my wife but I live with my partners.”

Lumet has several scenes that show the camaraderie between Danny and his partners. They have a shorthand and joke with each other like life-long friends. There’s an ease and familiarity to these scenes that is believable. The filmmaker knows how cops talk to each other and how to depict it authentically. We often feel like flies on the wall, observing the conversations that only occur behind closed doors. Lumet does just enough to humanize Danny and his crew by showing them at work and with their families in unguarded moments, which demonstrates that, in many respects, they are regular working guys.

Danny and his crew live well off the spoils of their busts and carry themselves with confidence and swagger as typified by Danny’s arrogance. It’s the way he carries himself and the belief that he and his crew are untouchable. Lumet illustrates this in a scene where Danny helps a dope-sick informant in the middle of the night by busting another junkie and giving the stash to his stoolie. He takes the junkie back to his home – a grungy, squalid hovel – and listens to him beat his girlfriend (a young Cynthia Nixon) for shooting up his stash. The look on Danny’s face says it all, as he feels ashamed at what he’s done. The shame is eating him alive, so much so that he spills his guts to Richard Cappalino (Norman Parker) and Brooks Paige (Paul Roebling), federal prosecutors investigating police corruption. It’s interesting that Danny’s junkie brother (Matthew Laurance), who points out that he’s no different than the crooks he busts, initially convinces him to approach Internal Affairs, but it isn’t until he listens to one of his informants beating his girlfriend that he commits to ratting out dirty cops.

The scene where Danny tells them what he knows is a riveting one as Treat Williams starts off cocky, chastising these men for going after cops and then comes apart at the seams as he tells them how it is for cops on the streets. The actor unleashes all of Danny’s anger and frustration as he ends up breaking down by the end of the scene. Guilt-ridden, he decides to work with Internal Affairs and break up his team but with understanding that he’s not going to rat out his partners. The rest of the film plays out the ramifications of his actions.

Lumet goes deep, showing how Danny wears a wire, recording meetings he has with dirty cops and crooks. He loves it, getting off on the adrenaline rush of the risk of being caught. The scene where Danny is almost discovered by a dirty cop and a crook is full of tension as these guys are ready to kill him. They take him at gunpoint for a walk to the place where they’re going to do it. Danny tries to talk his way out of it until a mafia guy (his uncle) vouches for him. The Feds shadowing him are no help as they get lost trying to find him, as they don’t know the city. This scene shows how close to getting killed Danny was and gives us an idea of how much is at stake.

Aside from Hair (1979) and 1941 (1979), Williams hadn’t done much of note when he starred in Prince of the City, but Lumet saw something in the actor that convinced him that he could carry a film of this size…and he does. Williams does a brilliant job of conveying Danny’s arc over the course of the film as he goes from cocky cop to a man that has lost it all.

The deeper Danny gets the more scared he becomes as he not only has to avoid detection by fellow cops that are corrupt and crooks while also dealing with Feds that alter his deal so that he has to rat on cops that he’s friends with – something that he’s not comfortable with doing. He’s torn between saving his own skin and ratting on his friends. Lumet shows how this takes its toll not just on Danny but his wife (Lindsay Crouse) and his two children. It gets so dangerous that the Feds take Danny and his family up to their cabin in the woods under armed guard, scaring his son and finally reducing his wife to tears one night when they’re in bed. These are ordinary people trying to live under extremely trying conditions.

Writer Jay Presson Allen read a review of Robert Daley’s 1978 book Prince of the City: The True Story of a Cop Who Knew Too Much, bought and read it. It was an account of Robert Leuci, an undercover narcotics cop in the Special Investigation Unit in New York City from 1965 to 1972, making busts and cutting deals with fellow cops. Some SIU detectives were the best in the city and had the ability to choose their own targets and make major busts. They had their own distinct style and wore more expensive clothes than other cops because they had more money. In 1972, the Knapp Commission was looking into police corruption. Leuci met with New York prosecutor Nick Scoppetta and couldn’t live with the guilt of what he’d done, confessing his wrongdoings to the man. He said, “I found myself in a place I didn’t want to be. I couldn’t tell the difference between myself, my partners and the people we were investigating.” Scoppetta convinced Leuci to go undercover and tape his friends and co-workers, testifying against them. He went undercover for 16 months and the trials lasted for four years. The end result saw 52 out of 70 members of the Special Investigation Unit, of which he belonged, indicted, one went crazy and two committed suicide.

She knew right away that it was something Sidney Lumet should make into a film. When she inquired about the rights, Allen discovered that Orion Pictures had bought it for $500,000 with Brian De Palma set to direct and David Rabe was going to write the screenplay with the likes of Robert De Niro, John Travolta and Al Pacino considered to play Leuci. She didn’t think they could do it and called studio head John Calley and told him, “If this falls through, I would like to get this for Sidney, and I want to produce it, not write it.” He agreed and she gave Lumet the book. He loved it but they had to wait until De Palma’s attempt did not pan out. When this happened Lumet told Allen that he wouldn’t do the film unless she wrote the script. She was tired and felt it was too big of a job to take on: “It seemed like a hair-raising job to find a line, get a skeleton out of the book, which went back and forth…all over the place.” She agreed to Lumet’s proposal but only if he wrote the outline.

He proceeded to cut the book up into sections starting with the ending. He highlighted the three critical moments in Danny’s life: when he decides to reveal the names to his partner, when the judges meet to decide whether they should indict him for giving false testimony, and the discussion to retry the most crucial case he had to testify. Afterwards, they sat down and went through the book and agreed on what were the most essential scenes and characters.

Over the next two to three weeks, Lumet wrote 100-handwritten pages, which Allen didn’t like but thought that the actual outline was wonderful. It was the first time she had ever written about living people, which she found daunting. She proceeded to interview almost everyone in the book. Only then did she begin writing, completing a 300+ page script in ten days! When it came to filming, she had the book and all of her interviews to draw from if there was ever a question about something in the script. Lumet compared the script to the writings of famed journalist Norman Mailer: “It’s a news story that becomes fiction in the sense that the dramatic situations are so strong.”

After the comedy Why Would I Lie? (1980) received bad reviews and performed poorly at the box office, a frustrated Treat Williams changed professions, getting a job flying planes for a company in Los Angeles. Six months later, Lumet approached him about Prince of the City based on his work in Hair. He didn’t cast him, however, until after they spent three weeks talking and going over the script. Finally, he had Williams read with the rest of the cast and then decided to cast him as Danny. For research, Williams hung out with cops at the 23^rd precinct in New York City and went on 3 a.m. busts in Harlem: “I saw junkies pleading to go to the bathroom and vomiting and shaking. You see people of the lowest end of humanity and you know if they had a gun they’d probably try to kill the cops.” He also hung out with Leuci and studied him: “Bob has a lot of tension in his shoulders. His toes go in when his foot lands. His walk is in the movie.”

Prince of the City was one of Lumet’s most ambitious projects and he and his crew had to be prepared: “We had to know the one-way streets, the traffic flows, the various routes we could take to save time.” He had planned a shooting schedule of 70 days and finished in 59 days. Lumet planned every camera movement and angle ahead of time. He did not use normal lenses as he wanted to create an atmosphere of “deceit, and false appearances,” and only used wide angle and zoom lenses. In addition, the first half of the film featured lighting on the background and not on the actors while in the middle of the film he alternated between the foreground and the background, and the end of the film aimed the lighting on the foreground only.

Roger Ebert gave Prince of the City four out of four stars and wrote, “It is about ways in which a corrupt modern city makes it almost impossible for a man to be true to the law, his ideals, and his friends, all at the same time. The movie has no answers. Only horrible alternatives.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Prince of the City begins with the strength and confidence of a great film, and ends merely as a good one. The achievement isn’t what it first promises to be, but it’s exciting and impressive all the same.” Pauline Kael was less impressed with the film: “The film has a super-realistic overall gloom, and the people are so ‘ethnic’ and yell so much that you being to long for the sight of a cool blond in bright sunshine.”

As Prince of the City moves into its second hour, the grind of what Danny is going through – the endless court appearances and the revolving door of handlers – affects the viewer as well, wearing us down as we wonder, like Danny does, when is this all going to end? By the end of the film, the system uses and discards him after he’s served his usefulness. Williams manages to make a sympathetic character but Lumet doesn’t let us forget that Danny was the architect of his own demise. He ratted on fellow cops to save his own skin. He lied in court to protect his ex-partners to avoid jail time.

Is Danny a hero? Did he do the right thing? During filming, Lumet wrestled with his feelings about Danny as an informant: “And I think that ambivalence is in the movie, and I think it makes the movie better. Part of it was that it was very difficult for me to separate political informing from criminal informing – a rat was a rat.” Ultimately, Lumet leaves it up to the audience to decide how they feel about the man and what he did. It’s a complex portrayal not just of the man but also the legal system he works in. There’s no good guys or bad guys – only lots of moral ambiguity.

SOURCES

Ciment, Michel. “A Conversation with Sidney Lumet.” Sidney Lumet: Interviews. Joanna E. Rapf. University Press of Mississippi. 2005.

Cormack, Michael. “From Prisoner to Policeman.” The Globe & Mail. October 12, 1981.

Corry, John. “Prince of the City Explores A Cop’s Anguish.” The New York Times. August 9, 1981.

Cunningham, Frank R. Sidney Lumet: Film and Literary Vision. University Press of Kentucky. 2001.

Harmetez, Aljean. “How Prince of the City is Being ‘Platformed.’” The New York Times. July 18, 1981.

Hogan, Randolph. “At Modern, Lumet’s Love Affair with New York.” The New York Times. December 31, 1981.

Kroll, Jack. “A New Breed of Actor.” Newsweek. December 7, 1981.

Lawson, Carol. “Treat Williams: For the Moment, Prince of the City.” The New York Times. August 18, 1981.

Lewine, Edward. “The Laureate of Police Corruption. The New York Times. “June 8, 1997.

Myers, Scott. “How They Write a Script: Jay Presson Allen.” Go Into the Story. May 31, 2011.

Scott, Jay. “Director Sidney Lumet Fears for the Future of ‘Real’ Films.” The Globe & Mail. August 19, 1981.

Zito, Tom. “The Prince Himself.” Washington Post. October 2, 1981.

Once Upon a Time in the West

After making The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone decided to stop making westerns and began work on what would become Once Upon a Time in America (1984), a period gangster epic. Paramount Pictures, however, approached him with a tantalizing offer that he could not refuse: access to legendary actor Henry Fonda to make a western with a substantial budget. Leone had always wanted to work with Fonda – his favorite actor – and accepted the offer. The end result was a cinematic masterpiece – a brooding meditation on the end of the Wild West as symbolized by the construction of a railroad that represented the ushering in of a new way of life. More than any of his other westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West is an unabashed love letter to the genre.

The film begins with three men waiting for a train to arrive at a desolate, crudely constructed station. In typical Leone fashion, there is very little dialogue with only atmospheric sound, which creates a sense of impending dread as it becomes apparent that they’re waiting for someone to arrive and kill them. The director expertly plays on our expectations as we know what’s going to happen but he delays it for as long as he can, milking it for every ounce of tension. It isn’t until their target finally disembarks that music is finally heard and it is that of a lonesome harmonica as played by the mysterious man – latter dubbed Harmonica (Charles Bronson) – who efficiently dispatches them but is also tagged by one of their bullets.

Frank (Fonda) is an amoral killer that guns down a man and his three children in cold blood because the land they’re on is very valuable to Mr. Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), a railroad tycoon that employs him. Unbeknownst to them, the man’s beautiful wife, Jill (Claudia Cardinale) arrives in town to start a new life with him. Leone uses her first appearance to beautifully orchestrate the introduction of the town of Flagstone that has been built up around the railroad via a tracking shot that follows her from the train to the station and going right into an establishing shot of the town with Ennio Morricone’s soaring, evocative score all in one smooth camera move.

Jill’s trip to her new family’s homestead gives Leone a chance to show the breathtaking vistas of Monument Valley, immortalized in so many John Ford westerns. Leone masterfully shows the scale of this famous landmark as he juxtaposes its size against Jill’s miniscule horse and buggy. En route, she crosses paths with a grungy bandit named Cheyenne (Jason Robards) who has been framed by Frank in the killing of Jill’s family. She is told to build a railway station and a small town on her property by the time the track’s construction crew arrives or she loses the land. The rest of the film plays out her struggle, Cheyenne’s desire for revenge and Harmonica’s mysterious motivations that involve Frank.

One of the things that separates Once Upon a Time in the West from Leone’s other westerns is that it is a meditation on violence. Whereas The Good, The Bad and the Ugly featured many people being gunned down rather indiscriminately, Leone dwells on the effects of it in Once Upon a Time in the West as evident in the scene where Jill arrives at her new family’s ranch only to see their dead bodies laid out. Leone lets the scene breathe, lingering on Jill’s reaction as she takes it all in. Claudia Cardinale’s acting in this scene is impressive as she has to rely on her expressive face to convey Jill’s emotions. As a result, we empathize with her and care about what happens to Jill throughout the film. We are invested in her plight.

Jill is the heart and soul of Once Upon a Time in the West – quite a significant development for Leone as all of his previous films featured male protagonists. She manages to not only survive in the harsh environment of the west but also navigates the treacherous waters of a male-dominated society. Cardinale instills Jill with a formidable inner strength and a strong will that allows her to endure evil men like Frank and gain the respect of men like Cheyenne and Harmonica. The actress does an excellent job of conveying the arc of her character as Jill goes from widow to savvy businesswoman.

The most underrated performance in the film is that of Jason Robards as the ne’er-do-well bandit Cheyenne. Initially, he seems to be out for himself but he does have a code that he follows – he doesn’t kill children – and this absolves him of the death of Jill’s family. Robards has a memorable moment with Cardinale in a scene between their characters where Cheyenne says to Jill, “You know, Jill, you remind me of my mother. She was the biggest whore in Alameda and the finest woman that ever lived. Whoever my father was – for an hour or for a month – he must have been a happy man.” There’s a bit of the lovable rogue in this character as evident in the impish way he takes out three of Morton’s henchmen on the man’s train that is as clever as it is deadly (I also love how he calls Morton, “Mr. Choo-Choo.”).

Perhaps the biggest revelation is Henry Fonda’s performance. Known mostly for playing moral, upstanding men in films up to that point, he plays an irredeemable killer that has no problem gunning down women and children. It is all in those piercing, cold blue eyes of his, which Leone captures in close-ups to chilling effect. Frank is at his creepiest when he rapes Jill, speaking to her seductive tones as he toys with keeping her alive. He plays the dastardly villain that you can wait to see get his comeuppance.

Watching Once Upon a Time in the West again was a potent reminder of how good an actor Charles Bronson was in the right role. Much like contemporary Clint Eastwood, he had a limited range but knew how to work within it. Harmonica speaks little in the film but doesn’t have to because he works best as an enigmatic figure. For most of the film we don’t know why he wants to kill Frank except for some past offence that gradually comes into focus as the film progresses until all is revealed during the climactic showdown. Harmonica’s storyline represents the repercussions of violence for he is the living embodiment of karma as he reminds Frank of all the people he’s killed over the years. He’s the one time that Frank let someone live – a mistake he didn’t make again – and it has come back to haunt him.

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul and Leone certainly understands this with the many close-ups he has of actors’ faces, lingering on their expressions, from weathered hired guns to the fresh face of a beautiful widow, and, most significantly, the ways to convey what their characters are feeling.

If Cheyenne, Frank and Harmonica represent the old way of doing things – through violence and intimidation – then Jill represents the new way – building something from nothing through an honest day’s work. There is an important exchange between Frank and Morton that illustrates the transition from the old way of doing things to the new as the tycoon says, “How does it feel sitting behind that desk, Frank?” The gunslinger replies, “It’s almost like holding a gun. Only much more powerful.” This scene shows that Frank is self-aware; he knows that his way of dealing with problems is on its way out and that big business, as represented by men like Morton, are the future.

Once Upon a Time in the West is a more somber film than The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, which is a triumphant celebration of the western, while the former is a eulogy of the genre. With it, Leone took it as far as he could. By showing the end of the Wild West, of a certain way of life led by men like Cheyenne, Frank and Harmonica, the filmmaker was saying goodbye to the genre. If those three men represent “something to do with death,” as Cheyenne pufgvcvfts it, then Jill represents life and so it is rather fitting that the film ends with her giving the men working on her station water, providing them with sustenance so that they can continue building a soon to be thriving town out in the middle of nowhere.

Of course, Once Upon a Time in the West wasn’t Leone’s last western as he went on to direct Duck, You Sucker! (1971), a fine film in its own right, but after the masterpiece that was the previous effort, it feels a tad unnecessary. Leone would finally make his last film, the gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America, where he did for that genre what he did for the western – make it completely his own in a way that feels like a personal, artistic statement.

Giant

“It is a saga of America…Though the film chronicles the rise of a great Texas cattle and oil dynasty and its relationship to the rest of the community, it could be the story of any section of the United States, confronted with parallel problems. It is Americana.” – George Stevens

Years ago, when Paul Thomas Anderson’s historical drama There Will Be Blood (2007) was released, I came across a review that compared it to George Stevens’ Western epic Giant (1956) and went on to say that the former was a prequel of sorts to the latter. This comparison intrigued and stayed with me for years, making me think of Stevens’ film in a new light. Like Anderson’s film, Giant chronicles the emergence of big oil in the United States only on a much larger scale. It depicts the trials and tribulations of a Texas family from the 1920s until after World War II.

Adapted from Edna Ferber’s 1952 novel of the same name, it was directed by Stevens who had made the masterful Western Shane (1953), and starred three young actors in their twenties: Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor – both of whom had already made several films – and James Dean, who was appearing in only his third film but already had an Academy Award nomination and would receive another one for his performance in Giant. Unfortunately, he died before it was completed. The film went on to become a big commercial and critical hit and is rightly viewed as a cinematic masterpiece even though it isn’t talked about as much anymore.

We first meet Jordan “Bick” Benedict Jr. (Hudson) en route to Ardmore, Maryland where he intends to buy a horse he plans to put out to stud. He’s the head of a wealthy Texas ranching family and ends up falling in love with the horse owner’s beautiful daughter Leslie Lynton (Taylor). Bick is a confident man that becomes strangely uncomfortable when talking about the size of his ranch but once he meets Leslie, he can’t stop thinking about her and is unable to get to sleep. She is also a confident person in her own right and is smitten with Bick, reading a book about Texas after meeting him. Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor have a fantastic chemistry together, which makes Bick and Leslie’s whirlwind romance believable.

Leslie is not afraid to speak her mind by first telling Bick how the U.S. stole Texas from Mexico and then asking if he’s married. This angers Bick and we get an amusing shot of him glaring at Leslie while she playfully chews on a piece of bacon, pretending to ignore him. After exchanging longing glances between each other while looking at the horse he just bought, it is obvious that they are madly in love.

They are soon married and she goes back with him to Texas. They arrive on his land and Stevens does a wonderful job capturing the epic grandeur of Texas as he shows Bick and Leslie driving home through an expansive, desolate landscape in a long shot that makes their car look so small in comparison to the spread of barren land. We also get the first real indication of the rampant racism inherent in the state when Bick casually criticizes a Mexican man at the train station. A few minutes later, Bick refers to his Mexican maids as “those people” and chastises Leslie for simply asking them their names and being nice. Elizabeth Taylor radiates warmth and decency as Leslie doesn’t quite understand Bick and his older sister Luz’s (Mercedes McCambridge) attitude towards Mexicans.

Stevens gives James Dean’s Jett Rink a wordless introduction, letting the actor express himself through his laconic posture. Not surprisingly, Dean makes an instant impact when Jett meets Bick and Leslie, getting into an argument with the former and then shyly extending his hand to the latter before awkwardly withdrawing it and leaving.

Stevens uses the Benedict picnic to give us a slice-of-life look at Texan culture with an emphasis on its cuisine and the weather, which Leslie hasn’t adapted to yet but she’s a quick learner and acclimatizes herself to their way of life much to the chagrin of Luz who feels threatened by the new young bride. Stevens also gives us a window into how a cattle ranch is run, including the branding of calves and some of the environmental dangers, like rattlesnakes.

Realizing that Leslie doesn’t share the same views about Mexicans that Bick does, Jett takes her to the impoverished slums where they live and Stevens shows rundown shacks and hovels populated with sick children and a decent-sized graveyard located in the middle that is a real eye-opener for her (and us). This scene must’ve come as quite a revelation for American audiences in 1956 as racism wasn’t depicted so openly in mainstream Hollywood movies.

The earliest indication we get of the coming oil boom is at Luz’s funeral when a neighboring family tells Leslie how they struck it rich thanks to finding oil on their land. In her will, Luz leaves a small amount of land to Jett. He epitomizes the self-made man by starting off with almost nothing and becoming very wealthy when he discovers oil on his land in a scene that is paid homage to in There Will Be Blood. Like Daniel Plainview in Anderson’s film, Jett starts off with one oil well and builds a vast empire, becoming a ruthlessly rich man, much to Bick’s annoyance who harbors bitter resentment over failing to acquire such oil-rich land while he stubbornly continues on with his cattle ranch. Stevens shows how this wealth corrupts Jett, bringing out his worst tendencies, causing one of Bick’s friends to say, “Bick, you shoulda shot that fella a long time ago. Now he’s too rich to kill.”

The years pass and Bick and Leslie have children and watch them grow up while they get older and become domesticated homebodies, sleeping in separate beds – a shadow of their younger, vibrant selves. Jett continually attempts to buy Bick’s ranch in order to expand his oil empire and to stick it to the man he used to work for when they were younger. The aging makeup on Dean, Hudson and Taylor isn’t all that realistic-looking but does just enough to not be distracting either. The actors compensate by the way in which they carry themselves and act, even altering the way they talk in subtle ways.

“You are an odd one, aren’t you, Jett?” Leslie says to him at one point and it could sum up his character and Dean’s Method performance, which is in sharp contrast to the classically trained Hudson and Taylor. It is all the little, eccentric flourishes that Dean makes, like the way he tilts his cowboy hat forward on his head or his disjointed way of speaking that sets him apart from the rest of the cast. One feels that he’s working off instinct and living in the moment and it sets him apart, much like Jett from the rest of the characters.

Rock Hudson isn’t afraid to play a man who is a product of his environment and with that comes a racist attitude towards Mexicans. Bick is also a questionable father, forcing his little boy to ride a pony when the child is clearly terrified of doing so. He gets his child-rearing skills from his strict father and is obviously more skilled at ranching. Bick ends up a bitter old man while Jett is a pathetic old drunk. However, the former learns to be more tolerant of Mexicans, even getting into a fight with the owner of a diner who insults his Mexican daughter-in-law and refuses to serve a Mexican family that comes in. Even though Bick loses the brawl, his willingness to fight for the rights of other shows how far he’s come since the beginning of the film.

Elizabeth Taylor plays a character full of life and the actress absolutely radiates unbridled energy that is infectious. She delivers a charismatic performance that is riveting to watch. Leslie is a progressive character that addresses the sexist attitudes of the times in which she lives, in particular Texas, in a tense scene in which she insists on listening in on Bick and his friends talk politics, much to his chagrin as she makes him look bad in front of them. He believes that women should know their place and it’s implied that it is at home cooking and raising children, which doesn’t sit too well with her. If she is supposed to know her place at home then she finds other ways to make a difference, like bringing in a doctor to improve the health conditions in the Mexican village.

Two of Dean’s Rebel Without A Cause (1955) co-stars – Dennis Hopper and Sal Mineo – make memorable appearances with the former as Bick’s rebellious grown-up son and who has a fantastic scene with Hudson late in the film where the two men have it out, and the latter delivering a wordless performance as a wide-eyed local boy that goes off to meet his tragic fate in World War II.

Edna Ferber’s Giant was first serialized in the Ladies’ Home Journal before Doubleday published it in the fall of 1952. It depicted the turbulent lives of three generations of a Texas family and proved to be very popular if not somewhat controversial with its depiction of racial tensions and an interracial marriage. Naturally, Hollywood came calling. After all, they had already adapted ten of her books.

Initially, Ferber kept the studios at arm’s length and this tactic backfired when they began to lose interest. Not filmmaker George Stevens who was intrigued by the controversy around the novel and felt it was ripe for a cinematic treatment. He was also drawn to its love story: “So many of our romantic pictures just lead up to the altar and leave you with a general assumption of inevitable happiness. But this is a story about the hazards of the marriage relationship.”

Stevens teamed up with producer Henry Ginsberg who made an offer to Ferber for the movie rights to Giant in December 1952. Ginsberg decided to form a production company with Stevens and Ferber to produce and distribute adaptations of the latter’s works starting with Giant. The next challenge was to find a studio to bankroll it. Shane had not yet been released and Stevens was considered something of a commercial risk. That is, until Shane was released and became a critical and commercial hit. Warner Bros. agreed to back it, advertise and also distribute it in December 1953. The budget was set at $1.5 million.

When it came to the screenplay by Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat, Ferber was quite critical of it, giving Stevens notes about various drafts that were largely ignored. She wrote to Stevens, “I want to only say this: I know nothing about the making of motion pictures. I know about writing. I know about dialogue, characterization, situation…As a writer, I find some of the Giant speeches wooden, unvital, and uncharacteristic.” She offered to write a draft and flew to Los Angeles on June 20, 1954, working a six-day-a-week schedule with Stevens, Guiol and Moffat. She finished her draft on August 8 and Stevens ended up using the script that he, Guiol and Moffat wrote instead.

When it came to casting, Stevens initially toyed with Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. Even though he didn’t resemble Bick, Rock Hudson wanted badly to play the role. Stevens’ secretary told her boss to screen a small Western that Hudson had made that required him to age. Stevens did so and was impressed, casting Hudson without even meeting him! However, the actor was under contract with Universal Studios who refused to lend him out. Hudson fought the studio and won out.

Stevens felt that Elizabeth Taylor was too young for the part of Leslie and approached Hepburn who turned him down. Stevens briefly considered the likes of Grace Kelly, Jane Wyman, Rita Hayworth and many others. He really wanted Kelly but MGM refused to loan her out. Once she heard that Kelly wasn’t available, Taylor begged MGM to loan her out and pursued the role, eventually winning Stevens over. Over the course of the film, the actress would befriend Hudson and Dean, staying close to the former for the rest of his life.

For Jett Rink, Stevens wanted Robert Mitchum but he had a conflict with another project. He considered Anthony Quinn, Rod Steiger and Montgomery Clift among others. Dean was friends with Guiol and got into the habit of hanging around Stevens’ office. The director felt that the actor didn’t physically resemble the character but was swayed by Dean’s skill as an actor.

Principal photography began on May 19, 1955 on a 77-day schedule in Charlottesville, Virginia where the scenes that involved Bick and Leslie meeting and falling in love were filmed. From there, the production moved to Marfa, Texas with a crew of 250 people descending on the small town. To drum up word of mouth about the film, Stevens allowed the public to watch filming with an average of 300 onlookers during the week and 700-1,000 on weekends.

It soon became evident that the estimated $1.5 million budget would not be enough, nor would the proposed schedule. The budget was increased to $2.5 million with 35 days added (the eventual budget was $5.4 million). Due to the nature and scale of the film as well as Stevens’ habit of shooting too much footage, by the end of June the production was eight days behind schedule and $200,000 over budget. Where did the money go? In ambitious shots like a massive herd of Longhorn cattle. Stevens’ scouts managed to find the nearly extinct breed and shipped them all to Marfa at a considerable cost. The façade of the Benedict house was built in Hollywood and shipped to Marfa on flatcars. It was erected in the corner of the Worth Evans ranch.

To make matters worse, Taylor was frequently ill and studio executives became so worried about these delays that they considered taking the film away from Stevens. Dean and Stevens had a turbulent relationship with the actor refusing to hit the marks that the director wanted him to and defiant acts like showing up late for filming or sometimes not at all. This tested Stevens’ patience but fortunately Dean was doing brilliant work in the role. After Marfa, all the interior scenes were shot on soundstages at the Warner studio back in Hollywood with filming ending on September 30, 1955. The most unfortunate incident that plagued the production was when Dean was killed in a car accident before the film was released. All of his scenes had been filmed but one was inaudible and needed to be looped in post-production. His former roommate and best friend Nick Adams was hired to loop Dean’s dialogue.

We watch Bick, Leslie and Jett grow up and it’s fascinating to see how they’ve changed towards the end of the film from how they were when we first met them. One gets the feeling that their lives hadn’t quite turned out as they imagined they would. Sure, they have vast wealth and large families but are they truly happy?

Giant is an epic saga about the dark side of the American dream and how one man (Jett) comes to embody it and another man (Bick) is embittered by it. Stevens’ film spans decades as it chronicles the lives of three people through good and bad times, through the birth of children and the death of a dear friend. The film is both intimate and epic in the sense that it depicts their personal lives on a large scale with the sweep of American history as the backdrop. It is as much a story about America as it is about these people as they are part of the country’s very fabric.

SOURCES

Gilbert, Julie Goldsmith. Ferber: Edna Ferber and Her Circle, a Biography. Applause Books. 2000.

Hyam, Joe with Jay Hyam. James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Warner Books. 1992.

Kelley, Kitty. Elizabeth Taylor, the Last Star. Simon & Schuster. 1981.

Moss, Marilyn Ann. Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film. University of Wisconsin Press. 2015.

Rosenfield, John. “Texas-Sized Giant.” Southwest Review. Autumn 1956.