Giant (1956)
Directed by George Stevens
Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
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But it's in this segment that Giant's objective--to redefine masculinity for Bick as something not founded on chauvinistic principles--surfaces, leading to a thoughtful denouement that, like the epilogue of Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth , shows "'til death do us part" from a comforting angle.
Released during a time when films were seriously vying for attention against television, Giant stands apart from the other consequences of dire studio measures besides gargantuan length (widescreen, quadraphonic sound, more location work) by devoting its two-hundred-and-one minutes not to religion (The Ten Commandments, also 1956) or war (The Bridge on the River Kwai) but to the lives of an extended family--an ensemble ethic that had gradually fallen out of vogue following 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives.
That's exactly what you'll get with the new DVD release of George Stevens' Giant, which Warner Brothers spins as their equivalent to Gone with the Wind.