THE AVIATOR (****)
There is no director in the history of cinema that has captured the lives of tragic figures as masterfully as Martin Scorcese. From champions (RAGING BULL) to criminals (GOODFELLAS), from small-timers (MEAN STREETS) to high society (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE), from the blue-collar (BRINGING OUT THE DEAD) to the glamorous (CASINO), from Travis Bickle (TAXI DRIVER) to Jesus Christ (THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST), he shows weary individuals near defeat, struggling to fight back, revealing what it means to be human. And if there was ever a beaten American icon, Howard Hughes would fall squarely into that category. He was a record-breaking pilot, a visionary engineer, a daring filmmaker, and an industrial tycoon. Only to be shrunk by an illness few people knew about, reducing him to a recluse. Scorcese and Hughes were made for each other.
It is said that people only remember our faults and not our contributions. Perhaps Mr. Scorcese knew this, for in THE AVIATOR, he correctly focuses on Howard Hughes’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) triumphs. Those who know of Mr. Hughes recall him as eccentric who withdrew from society and died alone. In my youth, I remembered him as the creator and pilot of the Spruce Goose, the largest aircraft ever built. But as flight records are continuously broken, technology improved upon, and fortunes continuously amassed, one loses perspective on his stature and significance. The movie recreates his context as vividly as any great biographical film ever has.
And what an adventurous context it was. The movie’s first foray into his young adulthood dives headlong into the production of his most expensive film, HELL’S ANGELS (1930). We see Hughes meet Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly of CHICAGO), who like us is sort of taken aback by Mr. Hughes’s youth, smarts, decisiveness, and daring. Here are I am at 30 writing about movies, when at 7 years younger, Mr. Hughes was filming (while flying), directing, and producing a World War I epic with 24 cameras shooting his own private aerial squadron. He did so over the course of three years, sparing no expense for every activity (and inactivity) needed to complete his picture. It makes the Orson Welles’s effort behind CITIZEN KANE miniscule in comparison.
While HELL’S ANGELS does well at the box office, we get to meet the women in Mr. Hughes’s life. We get brief glimpses of Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) in his company. But it is Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) who seems to have meant most to him during her pre-Spencer Tracy years. She is drawn to his boldness, and is thrilled when allowed to pilot his plane over the Inglewood landscape. There is something to be said about a rich and handsome bachelor not content to have just any beautiful woman. The fact the he was able to woo some of the most formidable and attractive movie actresses of his time, speaks of his ambition and confidence.
While in love with Ms. Hepburn, we see Mr. Hughes’s small symptoms of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). And as she discovers Spence to be the love of her life, while Mr. Hughes becomes a tabloid target due to several female “associations”, his bouts become more and more debilitating. All while trying to take control of the sky, in his business battles with Pan Am president and founder Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), and Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda) who was in Trippe’s pocket. Both adversaries knew the profitability of world travel, and Mr. Hughes was determined not to get shut out of it. In the process of duking it out, he would help build the framework of international flight.
And it gets worse. Whoever coined the phrase “crash and burn” to denote dramatic failure might have seen Mr. Hughes’s fabled crash-landing into a Beverly Hills neighborhood. His maiden flight of his XF-11 spy plane designed for the Army, nearly killed him, and left him with disfigurements internal and external. It is virtuoso sequence that is both harrowing and spectacular, teaching us certain harsh realities about smashups that we barely get to consider in most action films. His psychological decline afterwards is a slow descent into madness. How painful it is to see a man seemingly lose not only his life's work, but his mind as well.
It is in these scenes of weakening where Mr. Scorcese shows us the nature of being human, showing suffering and tribulation. But the worst thing about a man’s life can also bring out the best. And to see what happens towards the rest of the film’s way is proof to what man can accomplish, regardless of his ailments. To say that Mr. Hughes fights back is actually belittling his accomplishments. Like a cornered animal, he brings out all the stops, not so much to win, but to overcome. And like most of Mr. Scorcese’s opuses, the end will not be rosy and sweet, because real life hardly ever is.
Aside from the affecting sensibility of his themes, Mr. Scorcese also provides a wondrous period for our senses to dwell in. Together with Art and Set Directors Dante Ferretti and Francesca LoSchiavo (GANGS OF NEW YORK), with Cinematographer Robert Richardson (JFK) and Costumer Designer Sandy Powell (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE), he has created one of the most captivating American wartime period pieces ever made. He does so not only using locales and equipment pertinent to the time, he also uses film techniques used during the same period.
For instance, if you notice a club scene where Mr. Hughes meets Errol Flynn (Jude Law), you would notice peas on a plate with a hue of turquoise instead of green. This is exactly the way peas would have appeared in the primitive two-strip Technicolor process used during that same period. As Mr. Hughes ages throughout the film, the color becomes richer and more textured. This results in a vibrant film, alive in its look as well as its story.
Composer Howard Shore (THE LORD OF THR RINGS Trilogy) provides the film with one of the most memorable short compositions I’ve heard in quite a while, one that emerges every time Mr. Hughes seems to have a new idea. It’s an enthralling piece that makes you long for it whenever Mr. Hughes is in desperate straits.
The film also has one awesome sequence showcasing Mr. Hughes’s aerial direction of HELL’S ANGELS, where he motions and records all of the planes flying about him, while he himself is flying. Seeing this magnificent CGI spectacle convey the daunting task of filming astounding aerobatics without special effects, has to be the ultimate irony.
Of the film’s acting, two notable performances stand out. Cate Blanchett does a courageous act as Katherine Hepburn. But her feat is not merely an impersonation. She takes this movie icon and converts her into a fairly believable version of the Ms. Hepburn we know. Her best scenes are not when she evokes Ms. Hepburn’s mannerisms, but when she shows a genuine concern for Mr. Hughes. Watching her here is to witness a great actress playing a humanized great actress.
Leonardo DiCaprio has never been more intense or been more focused than he is here. He embodies the sure-footedness, concentration, and obsession that flowed through the young Howard Hughes, a supremely confident man, sure of his vision, and unconcerned with the vanities that come with his territory, but cursed with growing afflictions, all of which are evoked compellingly.
This is not a feel-good biopic where we are shown the wonders of what one has done with one’s life, ending happily ever after. It is a testament to the radiance of the human spirit, even in defeat. Though we see the darkness of Mr. Hughes misery draping around him near the end, we must remember that it was his obsessions that pushed him to the sky and to greatness. If only they hadn’t pushed him too far. THE AVIATOR is one of the best films of 2004.