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In 1956, the film Giant (based on the 1952 novel by Edna Ferber) took a piercing look at the Texas myth. It traced the rise of power from cattle ranchers to oil barons and examined the tensions between whites and Latinos. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won a best director Oscar for George Stevens.

Now a new documentary airing on PBS tells the story of some of the people represented in the film — not the handyman played by James Dean or Rock Hudson's ranching patriarch, but the Mexican families who were played by extras. The film is called Children of Giant and it was directed by Hector Galn. He says, "[At] the time that George Stevens was filming in Marfa, [Texas,] most Mexican-American communities throughout the Southwest were segregated, and he captured it so perfectly."

According to Stevens' son, George Stevens Jr., the director had a level of creative control that was unprecedented at Warner Bros. in the mid-1950s. He says, "When you think of Giant — which was probably the most expensive film made that year, certainly the most ambitious — it was just so unusual for, at the very center of it, [there] to be this question of identity."

The Burial Of 'Mr. Spanish'

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Giant was based on the 1952 novel by Edna Ferber. Above, (left to right) George Stevens Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and director George Stephens appear on location in Texas. Sunset Boulevard/Corbis hide caption

itoggle caption Sunset Boulevard/Corbis

Giant was based on the 1952 novel by Edna Ferber. Above, (left to right) George Stevens Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and director George Stephens appear on location in Texas.

Sunset Boulevard/Corbis

In the documentary, Hector Galn contrasts the progressive Hollywood vision of an interracial world with the nuanced realities of a border town. "What was happening throughout the Southwest with us — Mexican-Americans, I mean — we were enduring the same type of injustice that African-Americans were, say, in the South," Galn says. "The African-American presence in the Southwest was very, very small, so we're the ones that got it."

Richard Williams also knew that world growing up in Marfa. "I remember people saying, 'Don't go in there. ... Stay away from that store,' or something," he says. "You know, as a child, I didn't know, I didn't care what was going on, but we were instructed to stay out of certain stores or restaurants."

Williams attended Marfa's Blackwell School, a segregated school for children of Mexican descent that was housed in a tiny, drafty adobe building. He remembers how, in fifth grade, the teachers tried to get students to speak only English by marching them outside for a symbolic burial of "Mr. Spanish."

"And during the burying of Mr. Spanish, there was a little mock ceremony of a funeral," he says. "And everybody gathered around the flagpole that was in the middle of the campus. The students were instructed to write a Spanish word on a piece of paper. There was a cardboard box in which we were supposed to drop it in there. And that was a symbolic burying of the language, you know. And I know some of the parents were outraged."

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But Children of Giant producer Karen Bernstein cautions against using a contemporary lens to judge the intentions of Jesse Blackwell, the school's namesake and longtime principal. "In some ways I think what Jesse Blackwell was doing was ... he was trying to provide some uplift," she says. "At least basics about math, you know, all the sort of basic literacy things that you need to live in an English-speaking society."

Today the Blackwell School is a museum, but director Hector Galn says it took a while for old attitudes to change. "Even when Giant left Marfa ... I think it was another 10 years before they shut [the school] down."

The Future Of Texas

At a recent screening of Children of Giant, Anglo ranchers, longtime Hispanic residents and hipster newcomers sat side by side in Marfa's movie theater. But Lucila Valenzuela remembers it wasn't always this way, especially when it came to the rules of West Texas theater owners.

"We would have to go up on the balcony and I used to play this little game. ... I'd come down and go sit in the very front row and [the theater manager would] come and tap me on the shoulder. ... I would spend the whole movie playing cat and mouse with [him]," she says. "And it was just a fact that — why do I have to sit up there? Yeah, we could see the movie much better. But why is it mandatory that I sit up there? No. It was because I was Hispanic."

Back in 1955, when Giant was filmed in Marfa, director George Stevens foreshadowed that Texas would become a majority minority state, which it did in 2011. In the film's crowning scene, Rock Hudson's character — the head of a wealthy ranching family whose son has married a Mexican-American woman —looks at his two grandchildren in a crib: one with light skin, the other with dark skin.

"My own grandson don't even look like one of us, honey," he says to his wife. "So help me he looks like a little wetback"

Hector Galn says that is what Stevens and novelist Edna Ferber saw in their story: The future of Texas.

A tiny independent movie has been picked by one of Hollywood's biggest moguls to promote his latest venture. Robert L. Johnson created BET and now, the Urban Movie Channel — an online channel that's being called the black Netflix.

The first original film it has acquired is a gay interracial romance set in the Deep South. In Blackbird, the main character Randy is in high school. Everyone thinks he's gay, and they're totally fine with it.

Randy, 18, is fervently religious. Even though his best friend is gay, Randy's in denial about his own sexuality.

Director Patrik-Ian Polk says Blackbird is a movie he has wanted to make ever since he left Mississippi for college and found himself in the gay and lesbian section of a Boston bookstore.

"And there was one book on the shelf I could tell had an illustration of a black person on the cover," he recalls. "I could see illustrated brown skin on the spine."

The book was Blackbird by Larry Duplechan.

"It had changed my life," Polk says. "I'd never read anything that was told from a gay black perspective."

That perspective informs everything Polk's made for the past 20 years, including his groundbreaking cable series Noah's Arc. When Polk finally adapted Blackbird, he sent the script to actor Isaiah Washington

Washington recalls: "I said, 'So, sorry I said have to be part of this — this is an amazing story. Coming from me, I know it's going to raise eyebrows.' "

That's because seven years ago, Washington was accused of using an anti-gay slur in an argument on the set of the show Grey's Anatomy. In Blackbird, he plays Randy's loving father.

All the drama around what Washington might have said on the Grey's Anatomy set did not concern Polk.

"Two actors having a spat on set — which happens all the time — and unfortunately in this media age that we live in now, that gets blown up," he says. "And suddenly he's labeled, you know, homophobe, and that's all people remember."

Polk says the label sticks with Washington even though other actors like Alex Baldwin, Jonah Hill have used gay slurs, apologized and moved on.

Since the Grey's Anatomy incident, Washington has worked in a lot of small independent films. He starred in the critically acclaimed but little-seen Blue Caprice, where he played the Washington, D.C., sniper John Muhammad.

Washington's recent films reflect his range and fearlessness, says Marcella De Veaux. She's a media relations expert who follows entertainment issues. But she was still surprised to see Isaiah Washington in a movie with a lot of gay teenage sex — some of it during church.

"If I were guiding him, I would have suggest something maybe not so controversial, maybe not so provocative," she says. "I might have said, 'Play it safe.' "

Blackbird is also opening in a small number of theaters across the country this weekend. De Veaux is impressed that it's the Urban Movie Channel's first original acquisition

"It's terrific, I mean, it's Bob Johnson," she says. "He takes chances. Why tiptoe out of the gate?"

As it happens, this is also the first movie out of the gate for actress and comedian Mo'Nique since she won an Oscar four years ago for her role in the movie Precious. Mo'Nique says she got branded as difficult, partly because she turned down every single script she was sent.

"Not only did it not touch me, it just didn't make financial sense," she says. "You know, some of the offers that I was getting, I was offered less money after I won the Oscar than before I won the Oscar."

With Blackbird, Mo'Nique is executive producing. So is Washington. That gives them a kind of power over their narratives — both on screen and off.

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European leaders attended a ceremony marking the centenary of the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I, as German lawmakers risked triggering a diplomatic row with Turkey by voting to acknowledge the historical event as "genocide" –- a charge Ankara has strongly denied.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande were among those gathered today in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to mark the day generally regarded as the start of the massacre, carried out by Ottoman officials who feared that Armenian Christians would side with their enemy, Russia, during World War I.

"We will never forget the tragedy that your people went through," Hollande said.

(For a history of the issue, NPR's Krishnadev Calamur has a primer here.)

The vote by the German parliament "marks a significant change of stance for Germany, Turkey's biggest trade partner in the European Union and home to a large ethnic Turkish diaspora. Unlike France and some two dozen other countries, Berlin has long resisted using the word," according to Reuters.

The Associated Press notes that France "is home to a sizeable Armenian community. Among the French Armenians at Yerevan was 90-year old singer Charles Aznavour who was born in Paris to a family of massacre survivors."

Most historians regard the events a century ago as genocide, but Turkey has vociferously rejected that label, arguing that the death toll has been exaggerated and that most of the victims died during unrest and civil war.

On the eve of the anniversary, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again denied that the event constituted genocide. Earlier this month, Ankara froze relations with the Vatican after Pope Francis publicly referred to the Armenian "genocide."

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The House Select Committee on Benghazi announced plans to call Hillary Clinton to testify next month, right around the time her campaign was reportedly going to shift into high gear with a mid-May campaign kickoff speech.

At the same time, a new book about the Clinton foundation is generating the kind of headlines and news coverage no presidential candidate wants to see.

"Bill Clinton Cashed in When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State," was how ABC News put it, referring to the former president's speaking fees shooting up after his wife joined the Obama administration.

"Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company," was from The New York Times.

The story also dominated cable news.

"She's now saying that they won't take foreign donations if she becomes president," said Jo Becker, the co-author of The New York Times piece, on NPR's All Things Considered Thursday. "But what the story really underscores are the special challenges when you have a foundation that's raising money from foreign interests, that couldn't contribute to an American political campaign, by the way, but can contribute to these kinds of foundations."

The Clinton campaign declined to comment, but a campaign spokesman published a five-point rebuttal to the Times article, which was based, in part, on the forthcoming book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, which is due out May 5. The spokesman, Brian Fallon, charges that the facts in the Times' own reporting undermine the innuendo in the piece.

"Ironically, buried within the story is original reporting that debunks the allegation that then-Secretary Clinton played any role in the review of the sale," Fallon writes, adding, "The facts drawn from the Times' own reporting undermine the innuendo in the Times story about Hillary Clinton's role in this matter."

Earlier this week, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta offered a own pre-buttal to the book in an interview with Al Hunt on PBS's Charlie Rose show.

"It's a book that's written by a former Bush operative, who's a reporter for that august news institution Breitbart.com — or has been in the past," Podesta said of the book's author, Peter Schweizer, who worked for former President George W. Bush and was a foreign policy adviser to Sarah Palin in 2011.

That is classic political rapid response — question the source, blame the opposition.

Schweizer also wrote the book on Congress and insider trading that helped lead to the STOCK Act of 2012, "Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison."

Schweizer also tells Bloomberg's Josh Green he is coming out with a similar book on Jeb Bush's finances to be published this summer.

Podesta, though, not only questions the author's motives, but, more importantly, his conclusions.

"He's cherry picked information that's been disclosed and woven a bunch of conspiracy theories about it," Podesta said on PBS. "The facts, there's nothing new about. The conspiracy theories, I guess we'll get to judge when we read the book."

For Clinton, this is hardly a new experience. She and her husband have been at the middle of so many political firestorms over the years it's almost hard to keep track. On the Today Show in 1998, Clinton famously dismissed the attacks and accusations.

"The great story here for anybody willing to find it, and write about it and explain it is this vast right wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day that he announced for president," she said.

As for the Benghazi committee, Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who heads it, seems to be trying hard to avoid having his effort portrayed as a partisan witch hunt. He insisted Wednesday that he wasn't slow-walking the investigation to overlap with the presidential campaign season.

"I want it done before 2016," he said on Fox, adding, "We're trying to accelerate it, but I've got to have the documents."

In a letter to Clinton's lawyer, Gowdy said he wants the former secretary of state to testify the week of May 18th, which happens to be right around the time when Clinton's campaign has said she is going to make that bigger "kickoff" speech for her campaign.

That Benghazi committee hearing will deal mostly with her use of a private e-mail server for public business. Gowdy released 136 likely questions; eight of them are about Benghazi.

Once Gowdy is satisfied he has all the documents, he plans to call a second hearing where the committee can ask Clinton about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

That means while Clinton tries to campaign for one job on Pennsylvania Avenue, she is going to be facing questions from the other side for quite some time.

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