Dennis Hopper, a movie giant

I was startled and saddened to read of Dennis Hopper’s death — in part because I had just watched “Giant,” the actor’s breakthrough 1956 film, which was given short shrift in his obituaries. Of course “Easy Rider” and “Blue Velvet” are landmarks, but so too is “Giant.” In today’s world, the movie’s powerful message of ethnic and racial justice could not be more timely.

In “Giant,” Hopper portrays Jordan Benedict III, son of a Texas cattle baron, who chafes at his father’s expectations. As a child, he sobs when his dad, Bick, swaggeringly portrayed by Rock Hudson, forces him to ride a pony — preferring instead to play quietly with his plastic doctor kit. He abhors the way white ranchers view Mexican immigrants, as if they were less than human. Jordan does indeed become a physician, not, as his father might have liked, one of the macho, rock-star surgeons for which Texas would later become known. Rather, he joins other unsung doctors in the Western border states who struggle to bring healthcare to migrant workers and the poor.

Hopper’s character marries a Mexican woman, a radical choice in the 1950s. In 1837, Texas outlawed interracial marriage — a law that endured until 1967, when the Supreme Court declared all anti-miscegenation state laws to be unconstitutional. Lest we Californians be tempted by smugness, our history is not much better. Our state imposed a ban in 1850 and lifted it in 1948. (In light of Arizona’s recent immigration law, I became curious about that state’s history with miscegenation. In 1865, Arizona banned interracial marriage, but after a challenge to its law in 1942, its state Supreme Court issued a striking opinion: People of mixed race should not be permitted to marry at all.)

Based on an Edna Ferber novel with the same title, “Giant” reminds us that the battle for civil rights did not just involve African Americans. In Texas and California, it was a struggle for Latinos as well. In the film, Jordan’s polar opposite is Jett Rink, a parvenu oil tycoon memorably portrayed by James Dean. At Rink’s explicit behest, the beauty salon in the hotel he owns refuses to serve Jordan’s wife. “She should have gone to Sanchez — where they do her people,” the beautician says.

The film emphasizes Hopper’s diminutiveness. When he sits on the arm of a sofa, his feet don’t touch the floor. But when his wife is slighted, he explodes — stalking Rink through a thunderstorm, his fury undampened by the downpour.

Jordan finds Rink at a black-tie dinner in Rink’s honor. Dripping, in a goofy belted khaki trench coat, Jordan stands apart from the sea of taffeta and silk. Hopper excelled at conveying intensity. In some of his later movies, directors harnessed this talent to make his villains scarier. Here, however, he is innocent and brave. His body clenches as his indignation grows. His eyes burn with the idealism of youth: noble, incandescent.

Rink, in lavish dinner clothes, taunts him about marrying “a squaw.” Jordan throws a punch and, of course, Rink decks him. But soggy, short and flat on his back, Jordan nevertheless has won a moral victory.

Which is, in fact, the point of the movie. When other methods fail, a strong man may have to raise his fists for justice, even when he’s not likely to prevail. The movie is about the taming of brutality with empathy. And in a way, it is about the feminizing of the American West, as Jordan’s dad, through time, embraces the compassionate values of his mother, Leslie Benedict, portrayed with grit and sensitivity by Elizabeth Taylor.

Over the years I met Hopper in a variety of contexts and savored nearly all of his films. But the image of him that will stay with me — and one that I hope more people will discover — is the scene in which he challenges Rink. Although physically smaller than his antagonist, Hopper was undeniably bigger: in conscience, in spirit, in spine. He was, you could say, giant.

M.G. Lord is the author of “The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice,” scheduled for publication next year.