Giant - James Dean -2-disc Special Edition [DVD] [1956]

Film I had seen many yrs ago, & was very pleased to get to view again

This DVD is very good, was better than I was expecting having read the other comments.Giant like Gone with the Wind is a real classic!

Good quality and quick delivery

Really poor sound and picture quality and in places out of sync. Was a pressie for husband, very disappointed.

Excellent film. Well worth watching.

It was no sound and Chinese subtitles

The sound on this dvd is the worst I have ever known . I have over 1000 and none of them is as bad as this. The movie itself is o k but not as iconic as I was led to believe.

We had bought 'Giant' several years ago, on DVD (Warner Home Video’s 2003 2-disc Special Edition), and there was a big glitch on the disc, so we never finished it. I bought the Blu-ray version (Warner Home Video’s 2015 All Region in 1080p HD) to ensure there was no repeat of the problem. It was well worth it.This is really rather a strange film. It is big and sweeping, and is set largely in very barren, bleak rural Texas, from the 1920s onwards (although it could actually be any time).There are 3 big performances, from Liz Taylor, who looks gorgeous and stands up valiantly for women's rights and also for minority rights; Rock Hudson who very soon becomes the sort of husband that any woman would be glad to walk away and leave; and James Dean, who bizarrely was Oscar-nominated for a rather gruesome bit of over-acting. Some of the lesser performances are actually noteworthy, especially the wonderful and reliable Chill Wills as Uncle Bawley. It is also interesting to see a very young Dennis Hopper as Hudson and Taylor's son.The film begins as a lush Maryland-set romance, which looks as though it will turn into a sort of modern Western. There is an early villan(ess), Hudson's sister Luz. But then she dies after only a brief spell of screen-time, and it then looks as though it might become a 'love triangle' story. But no, not that either.The big clue is that very early in the film, Taylor challenges her future husband over the history of Texas. She tells it as she sees it, and he is furious. The film is actually about the huge ironies and imperfections of Texan society, the inequalities and anomalies. This is a land stolen from the Mexicans (as Taylor says at the beginning), and they are now second-class citizens, an underclass who live in poverty and who act as servants, cleaners and ranch hands, but who cannot eat in cheap diners run by whites, or have their hair washed in a salon staffed by white women in a posh hotel. They can however, fight and die for the good old US of A, though few will turn out to honour them back in Texas. The film is also about the fact that women are only fit to look good and have children if they are wealthy, or be your servant if they are poor. The film spares no punches on either issue. It is also about the most gross and vulgar forms of conspicuous consumption for the new oil tycoons of Texas.There is redemption, and evidence that some, at least, can learn the hard lesson that none of this behaviour is acceptable.As a historical document, this film is well worth sitting through the long running time. It is well-done, but not always a comfortable watch.