DirectorGeorge Stevens was born at the end of 1904, “predated by only months theopening of the first nickelodeon” in the U.S. In Giant: George Stevens, a Lifeon Film (Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press), biographer Marilyn AnnMoss prefaces her account by linking his birth to the arrival of Americancinema. But more interestingly, she shows how Stevens was reborn after theharrowing experience of World War II. The director of light comedies returnedwith a darker picture of human nature and serious intentions as an artist.
Stevenswas already turning the hand crank on cameras for Hal Roach in the early 1920s.During the ‘30s, he graduated to directing; his most remembered movie from thatdecade, Swing Time, was a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rodgers musical. The one othersignal accomplishment completed before America’s entry into the war was theKatherine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy comedy Woman of the Year. Moss argues thatStevens was pro woman amidst the male-oriented narratives of classic Hollywood,giving his female characters agency—despite the putdown of Hepburn’s strong,intelligent character in the end. She makes the case that Stevens’ agenda wasto put down the Europhile Hepburn in favor of Tracy’s all-Americanprotagonist—this in light of the looming war. Interesting, yes—but even iftrue, still a put down of smart, self-starting women.
Thedirector’s trilogy of great Hollywood films—A Place in the Sun, Shane andGiant—began when he returned from the horror of liberating Dachau. Moss’biography forces awareness, however, that throughout his career Stevens stroveto be an auteur (even before he learned the word), working hard to put hisstamp on movies that might otherwise have been anonymous product.
