Howard Hughes: Descent Into Madness

Rating: 8/10 (19 February 2006)

Martin Scorcese directed Howard Hughes as a cross between Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas in "Wall Street") and Mr. Monk. Does he get away with it?
The movie makers can't seem to decide whether Howard Hughes was a germophobe, suffering from autism or from obsessive compulsive disorder. What they leave out is the addiction to amphetamines and morphine. Scorcese left out a lot of other things too, like the pervasive anti-Black racism and anti-Semitism of the time and the place, including Hughes', just as Scorcese left out the fact that "Gangs Of New York" was essentially about a Civil War era anti-Black race riot. Scorcese also left out Howard Hughes' role in the communist witch hunts of the 1950s, instead portraying him as being the victim of a vindictive and corrupt senator (Alan Alda). Like the racism of the time, the movie forgets to mention Hughes' rabid anti-communism, his firing of a blacklisted writer and his suppression of the pro-labor movie "Salt Of The Earth". The fact that one of Hughes' passenger planes crashes (undoubtedly killing all on board) is mentioned and forgotten, and almost seems to be justified by the fact that Hughes himself frequently crashes his own planes. Unlike in the movie, the real Howard was not born poor to a hygiene obsessed mother (in real life, he actually contracted syphillis, decades before there was a cure for it), but to a father who left him a fortune and an engineering business.
The truth is that Howard Hughes was a rich boy and elitist oligarch, and that the fortune his father made selling a unique oil drill bit in Houston was against the background of Black disenfranchisement, including land theft, in Texas. Hughes made "Hells Angels" during the early 1920s, a time when the klan was reaching its highpoint of popularity, was even finding a willing ear in the White House, and saw the burning down and mass murder of highly successful Black communities in Oklahoma City, Kansas City and other towns by resentful Whites. The only hints of racism come from the all White minstrels doing some kind of exhalted "race music" dance. Why only hint? Because giving us a picture of the real Howard Hughes would have left the movie without a sympathetic lead. Beside being a racist and anti-Semite, Hughes was also a rapist and a bisexual, the former only hinted at by Leonardo DiCaprio's sweet come-on to a surprisingly willing waitress in a restaurant. I guess those were the perks of wealth in the 1920s.
Scorcese's treatment of the Hepburn family, who were social reformers and socialists, also warrants mention. They are portrayed as stuck up champaign socialists, when in fact they were actively campaigning for women's right to vote, and were friends and supporters of Emma Goldman.
Perhaps someone as rich as Howard Hughes could afford not to notice The Great Depression, but that is no excuse for Martin Scorcese to do the same. The start of WWII is not dealt with. Hughes support for the overthrow of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, or his ties to the CIA are not mentioned either.
Now about the movie. Everyone seems to have wanted to be part of this production. Kate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Jude Law, Kate Beckinsale, Willem Dafoe, Gwen Stefani, with Martin Scorcese directing and Michael Mann producing. I'm sure they thought they were in for a rip-roaring tale of great wealth, Hollywood glamor and cutting edge airoplanes, and they were.
The flight scenes are exciting and spectacular (including the crashes).
I give this movie 8 stars out of 10, not for Howard Hughes, but for Leonardo DiCaprio and the movie, which although long, never fails to capture your attention and tells a rather sympathetic, though fictional, tale.