This is the way of Scorsese, the way of Scorsese, the way of Scorsese, the way of Sc...

Rating: 10/10 (31 March 2011)

It doesn't have the look, the style, but when the movie is over, you realize this is a cinematic experience like only Marty could have provided: a huge and dazzlingly decadent celebration of the American Dream from the mature -but never cynical- perspective of a true patriot. This good American is no one else but Howard Hugues, a precocious pioneer who has everything: he's rich, he's an aviator and a real one -this is no Frank Abagnale- and he's handsome. And no one but Leonardo Di Caprio could have embodied these 'no contradictions', and made me so doubtful that such a story would inspire me I'm glad I was wrong
The thing when you're a fan of Scorsese, you try to find a bit of Travis Bickle or "Goodfellas" in every film he made since, especially the latest ones  movies whose masterful confidence in the directing and flamboyant ambition in the story almost worked as obstacles for the Scorsesian touch. When I was watching the scene where Howard Hugues, the handsome playboy, makes Jean Harlow literally melt of desire, I totally forgot about the first scene, where he was spelling the word QUARANTINE with his mother (?), probably the origin of his obsession with cleanliness. I forgot about this scene and I thought, okay, here he comes, the handsome guy will get the pretty doll, pretty dull, isn't it? Leo would play Leo all through the film, whose only redeeming qualities would be the beautiful and convincing recreation of Hollywood's Golden Age, and the incredible characterization of Katharine Hepburn by Cate Blanchett. Thankfully, these fears didn't last, when I realized how truly Scorsesian was our lead character, and that the success story is less due to luck, or gift, than to a sublimated obsession.
Obsession, this is what drives Howard Hugues, not ambition, because in a way, ambition admits the possibility of failing. But the obsession of Howard is not to fail, it's to win, it's to build the best planes and to make the best movies. Don't call it perfectionism, this word is absent from his vocabulary, for nothing can be too perfect for him. It's simple; either Howard Hugues is the craziest character ever or the most inspiring. When the movie starts growing on you, you realize he's both, and that each of these sides of his personality drives the other. Scorsesian characters have this in common; they look straight-forward to escape from that thing behind, haunting them  The source of the psychological torment, always rooted in the spirit of the character, creates either noble or despicable motives, but in both cases, everything has a point, and everything has a reason. The question is: where will this lead? To the top, or to the fall  Let's just say, that "Aviator" is the story of a character whose Scorsesian condition leads to the top, literally
The inspirational aspect of "The Aviator" is how it reconciles with the idea, almost a cliché, that whatever doesn't kill you makes you strongest  and that your very flaws or so-called weaknesses shall never be hidden or repressed because they might be the key of your personal accomplishment. Your difference is your strength. The film is about the transcending craziness into an gigantic ambition, so out of proportions, that only in America, it can work it's the idea that nothing is impossible. It's almost pretentious, as if Scorsese defended the idea that only tormented men made the world, but is he wrong? Let's face it, for goodness or badness, this world has been built by men with visions  and Howard Hugues had these visions, this extra sensibility that transformed his paranoia into a prophetic capability.
And these obsessions, tormenting the mind of Howard Hugues: cleanliness, perfection, repeating the same sentences, were not an invitation to label him as crazy. Calling him this way is missing the point, he's not crazy, he's simply alienated by his obsession of perfection, the idea behind Howard Hugues' story is that when we want to become something, that something finally becomes us. Clean, perfect, efficient, everything must obey to a total physical and spiritual harmony and it does drive you crazy  this is the maddening yang of the successful yin. For each construction, there is a destruction, a gargantuan plane flying has cost many others to crash, for every kiss with a star, Jean, Kate, Ava or Jane, there was a rib broken, or a burnt skin. If it wasn't for all the flash, and all the distracting Hollywood's portrayal, this would probably be the deepest and most philosophical Marty's film.
I reckon I felt immediate empathy to Howard Hugues as soon as I got the gravity of his obsession, because I could put myself in his shoes, and I liked him, even more because I hated him first, I was jealous, it's like I wanted him to get a comeuppance for a fault he didn't commit. But this strengthened my empathy even more, and the more he got hit, the more enthusiastic I was, when I could see him hit back. Because he illustrated the struggle of the mad but inspiring visionary facet of the American dream to overcome its most perverse aspect: thirst for monopoly and financial power. It's not TWA vs. Pan Am, its two American philosophies confronting each other in a Scorsesian arena.
It's almost a referential film, as if Scorsese uses this character as a therapy to justify how his own obsession with a certain idea of film-making, was the key for his personal salvation, and a blessing for Cinema  I felt like feeling the spirit of the 70's Marty  and even Leo kind of reminded me of Robert De Niro at one point, in a performance that blew me away  "The Aviator" is one of Marty's greatest films!