The Aviator
Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Leonardo Di Caprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate beckinsale, John C Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Ian Holm, Danny Huston, Gwen Stefani, Jude Law, Brent Spiner, Edward Herrmann, Willem Dafoe, Matt Ross, Adam Scott, Kelli Garner, Rufus Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright
Running time: 170 minutes.
Reviewed by GREG KING
Most people who know anything about maverick multi-billionaire Howard Hughes remember the almost pathetic image of the eccentric recluse living in isolation in a Las Vegas hotel, hidden from the world at large and controlled by his numerous phobias. Scripted by John Logan (Gladiator, etc), and directed by Martin Scorsese, The Aviator is an ambitious biopic which attempts to flesh out the early life of Hughes, about which much less is known. The Aviator concentrates on the period from the late 1920's to the mid-'40's, when the maverick businessman, film maker and aviation pioneer was one of the most famous figures in America, before his increasing sense of paranoia, obsessive compulsive disease, failing sanity, and phobias drove him from public life.
The film opens with the young Hughes (played by Leonardo Di Caprio), then barely out of his teens, spending an unprecedented $4 million of his own money to produce the film Hell's Angels and take on the established studio system that dominated Hollywood. The film painstakingly follows Hughes' daring exploits as he establishes himself as a legendary aviation pioneer, and then his corporate battles to consolidate his fledgling airline TWA in the cut throat business world of post-W.W.II America. It also charts his playboy life style and his romantic conquests with a series of Hollywood starlets, including Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), who was considered box office poison at the time, the fiercely independent Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and pneumatic blonde bombshell Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani).
Initially The Aviator seems like a strange choice of material for Scorsese, who cemented his cinematic reputation with hard hitting and grittily realistic films like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas, but his passion for the material is obvious. Scorsese's usually muscular direction is more restrained than normal, although the sequence where a plane crashes through several Beverly Hills homes is superb and gets the adrenaline racing.
The film is lavishly mounted and technically well put together, and its recreation of glamourous Hollywood in the 1920's is superb. Even the visual style subtly changes throughout the film to keep pace with the times, with pastel hues giving way to glorious Technicolor tones.
Ultimately though, The Aviator suffers from the same failing as other recent biopics like the overblown Alexander and the overlong Ray, in that it merely scratches the surface of its subject and fails to give real insight or understanding into its flawed and complex central character. Di Caprio gives a fine performance here as the brash young Hughes, although his array of nervous tics and mannerisms still fail to reach the heights of earlier dramatic performances, like What's Eating Gilbert Grape? or This Boy's Life, which still remain his best work.
Scorsese has assembled a stellar supporting cast to bring the characters to life, although many get lost in the mix, like Jude Law's fleeting cameo as Errol Flynn and Willem Dafoe. Only Blanchett, who captures Hepburn's steely spirit and strength, and a wonderfully smarmy Alan Alda as a corrupt senator trying to discredit Hughes, leave any sort of lasting impression.
**1/2
reviewed by Peter Krausz
Martin Scorsese's film of aspects of the life of Howard Hughes is a conflicted and compromised tale, partially based on fact and partially a fantasy, using selected periods of his life and eschewing any attempts to provide a deeper, more incisive depiction of the iconoclast. Part of the problem is the tendentious screenplay by John Logan (who also wrote the wildly variable:Gladiator (00), Last Samurai (03), Time Machine (02), RKO 281 (99) and Any Given Sunday (99)). Logan ignores some key aspects of Hughes life, such as his virulent anti-communist views and his support of the House Unamerican Activities Commission, plus his involvement with other films and actors. Instead, Logan concentrates on the laborious making of Hell's Angels (30) and his constant reshooting and transition to sound, plus his obsessive-compulsive behaviour, which is very simply sourced to his mother&'s attitudes when he was very young. Scorsese overlays Hughes' infatuation with Hollywood and his love of flying (hence the title) but does little to illuminate the underlying motivations and contradictions of the man.
Oddly enough Scorsese's films generally do become deeply insightful revelations of their characters, especially ones that fight against societal expectations or personal turmoils, with such triumphs as: Raging Bull (80), Taxi Driver (76), Last Temptation of Christ (88), Age of Innocence (93), Goodfellas (90) and Casino (95). Yet Scorsese is also capable of making major misjudgements, such as Gangs of New York (02), which used potentially exciting material on New York as a 19th Century melting pot, and yet he turned that into a seriously flawed revenge melodrama that wasted some good ideas. This is reflected in The Aviator, a film redolent with narrow perspectives, anachronistic time shifts, and a witheringly superficial and glossy approach to Hughes' life.
It is worth exploring some other filmic depictions of Hughes: the much more broadly scoped and more incisive Amazing Howard Hughes (dir: William A Graham, 77); the rarely seen film set predominantly on the film set of Hell's Angels, Hughes & Harlow: Angels in Hell (dir: Larry Buchanan, 77); the sweetly made Jonathan Demme take on Hughes later life, Melvin and Howard (80); and One of the Hollywood Ten (Karl Francis, 00) which focuses on the screenwriters and filmmakers blacklisted during the 50s and the way Hughes supported these events. There are certainly good production values and some great special effects in The Aviator, especially the use of two-tone technicolour to mimic the process used by Hughes for Hell's Angels.
Scorsese loves Hollywood, and his representation of the "party" town and some of the stars at the time is joyous to watch, despite his playing fast and loose with time (for example Hughes meeting with Ava Gardner, well played by Kate Beckinsale could not possibly have occurred during the time period those scenes were set in this film).
Leonardo DiCaprio does a reasonable job playing the driven and disturbed Hughes, while John C. Reilly is excellent as Hughes' right hand man, Noah Dietrich, as are Alec Baldwin as Juan Trippe, owner of Pan Am and Alan Alda as the corrupt Senator. Gwen Stefani is given little to do as Jean Harlow, while Jude Law's Errol Flynn serves no purpose to the story apart from "being" Hollywood. Cate Blanchett is superb playing Katharine Hepburn (quickly leaving the initial caricature to one side) as a strong woman sympathetic to Hughes. It is a great shame that a brief scene of Hepburn and her upper class family, including Frances Conroy who is excellent as her mother, which reveals so much about 1930s US pretensions, politics, class and culture is not developed, as this scene provides the kernel for something Scorsese is usually quite adept at presenting, but clearly John Logan considered that scene peripheral.
However the overlong sequences showing the making of Hell's Angels, the obsession with Hughes as a flying fool, and his degeneration due to mental illness remain as superficial and far too indulgent, which mitigate against any deeper or more insightful depiction of Hughes. Considering the film has 170 minutes to play with, it is a great shame that most of them seem padded and don't add up to much.
Score: 5/10