THE AVIATOR (PG-13) ****
Directed by Martin Scorsese. 168 minutes.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda, Gwen Stefani, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Adam Scott, Kelly Garner, Danny Huston, Brent Spiner, Ian Holm and Rufus Wainwright. Released by Warner Brother Pictures.
Martin Scorsese’s 21st feature film is a spectacle, if I have ever seen one- a bio film about a man who bordered on genius and insanity with stunning aerial photography and effects, a cast to die for and an epic length of just under three hours. The Aviator focuses much of its attention on Howard Hughes’ madness, though it neither delves into his later years when he really lost it nor does it give us an in-depth look at the man’s life, as A Beautiful Mind did for John Nash. Scorsese, still the best director working in America, likes to deconstruct his mythic figures and give them some humanity, but since there is no telling how deep the insanity of Hughes ran, the film opts to give us a half-view of how the public saw the man and some strong scenes of his failures in his personal relationships and his phobias and how they began to control him.
Though I much preferred Gangs of New York, which was my favorite film of 2002, Leonard DiCaprio gives a better performance here as Hughes than he did in that film. Hughes was such a public figure that it is a difficult role to pull off- he must seem so composed, at first at least, while also struggling to contain his eccentricities. An early scene in the film is repeated at the end in which he is bathed completely nude by his mother. In the first viewing of the scene, he is being taught by his mother some life lessons that would later ruin his life. In the later scene, he makes mention of his ambitions. It would seem that his younger years were equally important in molding his dreams and his madness that would plague his adult years.
There are some phenomenal scenes here, ones that a director
like Scorsese, whose films are so personal, would not seem likely to be able to
pull off. In other words, they are the results of mass amounts of money. The
first is a scene in which Hughes the film director is shooting scenes for his
over budget film, Hell’s Angels. He
says he needs clouds for the background for his aerial scenes and he makes a
poor
The other great scenes in the film are the result of the great chemistry between the characters. One such scene is when Hughes, having spent possibly weeks or months locked away in a room by himself going mad, is called upon to appear in court to defend his decision to start TWA Airlines. He engages in a verbal spar with Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), who is attempting to prevent the eccentric billionaire from opening the airline because of his loyalties to Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) and Pan Am Airlines. The scene rivals Jack Nicholson’s “You Can’t Handle the Truth” sequence in A Few Good Men. When Cate Blanchett shows up at Katharine Hepburn, she dominates every scene she is in, giving her heart and a great impersonation of the great actress.
Hughes is an interesting man, not necessarily a likeable
one: he fires people left and right due to his paranoia, he lets his madness affect
his relationships and spies on people, from his girlfriends to his employees. The Aviator does not give us the full bio
of Hughes, but more than enough. Scorsese, like many great directors, does not
find it necessary to tell us the whole story, but just enough for us to see
what element of a story fascinates him. Yes, Hughes went on to act more
peculiarly as the years went on. Yes, I’m sure that Hughes spent more time
around