Category: April Rocha Happenings

Wednesday was a very sad day for me and for the world. The divine Miss Elizabeth Taylor passed away. There will never be anyone like her. Ever. From her beauty, to her determination, to her humanity.

Elizabeth Taylor once said:

My personal philosophy of beauty is to always believe something wonderful is about to happen.

Ironically I watched the film GIANT for the first time because of James Dean, not Elizabeth Taylor. The film isn’t a perfect film but you cannot deny it’s an epic film. A couple of years ago A&I had an exhibition of Frank Worth’s images shot during the filming of GIANT and an accompanying book of these images entitled AMERICANA. I absolutely treasure this book.

In the beginning of the book there is a two page spread of contact sheets. Oh how I love contact sheets. They tell you so much. The eye of the photographer, how they tell a story, the film they used and in this case one of the cameras Mr. Worth was using that day, a Rolleiflex, of course.

Frank Worth wrote:

Jean-Luc Godard once famously said that cinema is truth twenty-four frames per second, but George Stevens’ Giant is more than this, it’s myth twenty-four frames per second, over three and half hours of playing time. From the first frame to the last, this is fact is simply undeniable; Giant is American myth it its grandest, most operatic, and purest sense of the words.

Thank you Miss Taylor and thank you Mr. Worth.

For information on the book and how to purchase it, click here.