The Aviator

The Aviator is the latest in a string of biopics released this year. Compared to the other films this is a king among men much like the film’s central character Howard Hughes. The film portrays approximately twenty years in the life of the brilliant recluse spanning his days of creating motion pictures, building aircraft, and dating Hollywood starlets from the 1920s through the 1940s. It also shows the darker side of Hughes, his propensity for manic depressive behavior as well as his obsessive compulsive tendencies that drove him away from the public eye and into seclusion.

Leonardo Dicaprio plays the scamp Hughes to great effect. Since this is a biopic the film hinges entirely upon his performance and it is easy to say that this was his best and most intense work to date. Dicaprio seems equally adept at escorting a bevy of beauties like Jean Harlow or Ava Gardner as he does completely naked, ranting in the semi-darkness, making inane demands.

Howard Hughes life seems ready made for a film. The son of wealthy Texans he came into his parents’ estate, including the Hughes Tool Company, at eighteen. Hughes was not a well educated man; though he was sent to some very good schools he never finished high school and took only a few college courses. He went to California to partake in the Hollywood dream spurred on by an uncle who was a screenwriter. The film picks up in the late 1920’s, Hughes wrote and directed the film Hell’s Angels starring Jean Harlow. The film was the most expensive to date in Hollywood costing roughly 4 million dollars. There are some really great scenes here where the team checks footage, only Hughes has the vision of what this film should look like, a World War I aviator story. In the light of the stock market crash and the release of The Jazz Singer Hughes reshot much of the movie for sound before its eventual release in 1930. The film was a success at the box office though it still lost Hughes more than a million dollars. What the film shows best is Hughes mania; the film allowed Hughes to fly planes, his passion in life, and it also gave him the impetus to start a little company known as Hughes Aircraft. The films makes little use of Gwen Stephani as Jean Harlow, she is barely seen in the filming scenes and appears mostly as arm candy for Hughes at the film’s premier.

In films Hughes continued to push the envelope during the Hayes code era releasing the ultra-violent Scarface (1932) only after threatening to sue the censors was the film released. The Aviator takes more interest in focusing on the making of The Outlaw, a 1941 western starring Jane Russell’s breasts. There are two magnificent scenes that show the way Hughes could think like lightening and manipulate a room. First during a reel screening he is discussing a design for a nose for a spy plane and switches gears abruptly to design the half cup bra to highlight Russell’s cleavage. The second scene features a befuddled Professor Fitz, a meteorologist played by Ian Holm, tasked with scientifically explaining the use of cleavage to the censor board. The scene is hilarious as a bunch of well heeled men discuss various Hollywood stars’ mammaries. Though Hughes owned the RKO movie studio from 1948 to 1955 the film changes tacks at this point moving from his movie interests to his interests in airplanes.

The film is aided by beautiful cinematography embracing Hughes’ enjoyment of flying and his interest in movies not only in their beautiful moments but in their terrifying moments when the planes crash and the films cut Hughes off from real life. The lush apartments and beautiful women are accessories to the film and to Hughes himself in much the same way, they exist as props. Add to that a dense score by Howard Shore and the film is all around magnificent.

The film delves into Hughes fascination with racing planes and his desire to pilot these test planes himself. Hughes built and personally test-piloted the world’s most advanced plane, the H-1. On September 13, 1935, he set a new speed record, taking the plane to 352 mph. Over the next two years, he set two new records with transcontinental flights. Between July 10 and 14, 1938, Hughes piloted a special Lockheed 14 with a crew of four on a flight around the world. Of course all of this personal success was hard on Hughes. The film shows that not only did he shy away from the glare of the spotlight, but his relationship with Katharine Hepburn was hurt by this competition for fame. This part of the film is perhaps the most normal and shows Hughes in the sanest light. Here Hepburn, played beautifully by Cate Blanchett is his grounding force who reassures him that they are not normal and accepted in the world but that it is alright. Now much has been made of Blanchett’s take on Kate and I have to say, as a great Kate fan that though I thought Blanchett’s performance good, it seemed she missed something in her portrayal. Some of the snide expressions were there and there were a number of her trademark hand-near-the-face poses, but they seemed a crutch and a hindrance to Blanchett’s performance. Perhaps I am too harsh as I found Kate Beckinsale’s portrayal of Gardiner to be less obtrusive so it is likely that I am just more aware of Kate Hepburn’s persona.

The secondary cast is exquisite from John C Reilly as Hughes often exasperated though loyal and trusting business manager Noah Deitrich to Alan Alda’s smarmy sanctimonious Senator Ralph Owen Brewster who is in the pocket of TWA. And that doesn’t even take into account the exquisite Kates, Blanchett and Beckinsale playing Kate Hepburn and Ava Gardner respectively. The second part of the film focuses on Hughes’ fight with TWA’s Juan Trippe played by a wonderfully unscrupulous but understated refined Alec Baldwin who after years of making questionable film choices seems to have hit his stride in the past few years. Ii have to mention one small role, Jude Law appears in a cameo scene as the lecherous Errol Flynn and he plays the character with relish and to perfection that sweeps the scene away from the rest of the stars populating it.

The film also highlights Hughes failed military contracts and his battle with Trippe and Senator Brewster. Hughes’ company had difficulty getting contracts during the war because of Hughes’ unconventional processes. His secrecy employed during manufacture and his use of non approved methods and materials did not make him a favorite of the war department. In fact, Senator Brewster led a 1947 investigation of Hughes’ activities during the war and painted him as a war profiteer on the basis of two important Hughes Aircraft contracts. One major faux-pas was for a spy plane; a contract which was cancelled after Hughes nearly died, and killed two others, when the plane crashed during a test flight over Lake Mead. This scene was riveting showing the cocky master player dragging himself from the plane’s wreckage and the terrible damage it did to him that he suffered from for the rest of his life. The other was a contract to build three ‘flying boats’ for $18 million in three months which proved an impossibility. Hughes did succeed in building the largest aircraft then known, and he built it out of wood, but the aircraft was derided by the public and dubbed ‘The Spruce Goose’ The final scenes of the film involve him flying the plane himself. Though this is viewed as a success, the plane was never flown again.

The most intense portion of the movie is here, after the dissolution of his relationship with Gardiner and the spy plane crash that nearly killed him Hughes disappeared from sight completely emerging only when confronted by the Congressional investigation. This predicts things to come when Hughes all but disappeared becoming unrecognizable to his employees. Here DiCaprio is let loose on the character. I didn’t see a resemblance to Hughes physically until DiCaprio was naked and scarred standing in from of a projector in a dark private theater ranting. The intensity of these scenes and the acting of DiCaprio make him an easy nomination for the Oscar.

The Aviator is an intense look at a man who dreamed big and lived opulently but could not escape his own inner demons. DiCaprio turns in the performance of his career and the elusive Oscar just might belong to Scorsese for this massive undertaking. Not only is this a beautiful film but it is an excruciating look at a man whose life is a mystery, who did not fall victim to many of the common vices of wealth of gambling and drink but to his own inner dementia. It is a chilling look at the triumphs and struggles of a lion of a man who was able to imagine and create the impossible.