Overview

Marilyn Ann Moss’s Giant examines the life of one of the most influential directors to work in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1960s. George Stevens directed such popular and significant films as Shane, Giant, A Place in the Sun, and The Diary of Anne Frank. He was the first to pair Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on film in Woman of the Year. Through the study of Stevens’s life and his production history, Moss also presents a glimpse of the workings of the classic Hollywood studio system in its glory days., Moss documents Stevens’s role as a powerful director who often had to battle the heads of major studios to get his films made his way. She traces the four decades Stevens was a major Hollywood player and icon, from his earliest days at the Hal Roach Studios—where he learned to be a cameraman, writer, and director for Laurel and Hardy features—up to when his films made millions at the box office and were graced by actors such as Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Alan Ladd, and Montgomery Clift.

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9780299204341

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Reviews

Moss's Giant represents the kind of scholarship that is enriched by access to special collections and the kind of criticism that no mere poring over memos, letters, and balance sheets can achieve. --Film Quarterly Moss brings a deep sympathy and understanding to her portrait of this sensitive, enigmatic artist whose work speaks so richly to us about American life. She makes fertile use of Stevens's voluminous papers to help illuminate his personality and working methods, while offering fresh and original interpretations of his film, appreciating their complexities as no one has done before. --Joseph McBride, author of Searching for John Ford Exceptionally well-written. . . . Should be part of every academic library's cinema history collection. --Midwest Book Review Biographer Marilyn Ann Moss . . . shows how Stevens was reborn after the harrowing experience of World War II. The director of light comedies returned with a darker picture of human nature and serious intentions as an artist. --Milwaukee Shepherd Express

Moss brings a deep sympathy and understanding to her portrait of this sensitive, enigmatic artist whose work speaks so richly to us about American life. She makes fertile use of Stevens s voluminous papers to help illuminate his personality and working methods, while offering fresh and original interpretations of his film, appreciating their complexities as no one has done before. Joseph McBride, author of Searching for John Ford

Exceptionally well-written. . . . Should be part of every academic library s cinema history collection. Midwest Book Review

Author Information

Marilyn Ann Moss is a film historian and a scholar of literature. A television critic for The Hollywood Reporter, she lives in Los Angeles.

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