Brilliant, sad

Rating: 9/10 (25 January 2005)

Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" is the tragic story of how a man's grand genius practically destroys his mind. It's also a glorious homage to the golden years of Hollywood, and to a man's strength in expanding upon his empire, defeating his criticizers and, most of the time, winning.
The man is Howard Hughes, infamous movie and airplane mogul who got his start directing "Hell's Angels" in the late twenties. The movie opens here, with Hughes begging for just two more cameras, so that he can have twenty-six instead of a mere twenty-four to make the big climactic dogfight scene. Once he succeeds and the movie is nearly done, but then "The Jazz Singer" is released and Hughes decides to re-shoot the entire movie in sound. His assistant Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly) is skeptical. Everyone is skeptical. Hughes ignores them and does it anyway.
These beginning scenes have a breakneck pace and involve Hugh emptying his pockets over and over again. To everyone else this seems like a plan to go broke, but Hughes sees things in the long run, knowing that if "Hell's Angels" is made with sound, more people will see it, more times. He is wise, and knows his plans will pull through in the end; it's his high-strung, nervous demeanor that puts everyone else off.
After "Hell's Angels" Hughes switches from making movies to making airplanesfast, revolutionary airplanes. He makes his planes the same way he makes his movies: dozens of last minute improvements, mind-changing, and lots and lots of money loss. He remains confident; it is his stubbornness and ego that drive him to his accomplishments.
But he has a problem, one few know about. It is severe OCD, though I don't think the phrase had been coined yet. Because of some scarring episodes with his mother when he was a child Howard goes through the rest of his life worrying a lot about germs. Since he is an inherited millionaire he is able to feed his worries: people accept it when he asks for one steak and exactly six peas.
Meanwhile he manages to balance this with a life of womanizing. Hughes was famous for dating many successful actresses, of which Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) and Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) are seen most in the film.
Cate Blanchett does not significantly resemble Hepburn  she probably wouldn't be the first to come to mind for the part  but after seeing her in it I can't imagine anyone else in the part. She is perfectthis girl can act. For anyone else it would be an impersonation but for Blanchett it's a performance. Her scenes are wonderfulthe presence of Hepburn in the movie is not used as a gimmick or a cameo, but as an actual part of the film, a significant part of Hughes' life. She has some very heartwarming and heartbreaking scenes, her performance is a delight, richly deserving her Oscar nomination (and maybe a win too).
Indeed, since most of the cast are playing celebrities, it opens it up for them to overact or impersonate their characters, but all of the actors hit just the right note, like Kate Beckinsale as the proud Gardner or Jude Law showing up as the gaudy, obnoxious Errol Flynn. Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda play Hughes foremost enemies: scheming Panam head Juan Trippe and Brewster, the senator that Trippe has bought.
Both Baldwin and Alda have excellent scenes where they try to play off of Hughes' OCD to throw him off during negotiations: one where Trippe speaks to Hughes through an office room door and blows his pipe smoke through the keyhole into the room and another where during a dinner Brewster places a fingertip on Hughes' glass while serving him nearly raw fish. Hughes reacts to both these situations in a different way, but he is always desperately trying to maneuver himself out from under the schemes of those plotting against him.
Hughes does a different kind of maneuvering, in the scenes where his money pays off (or doesn't) when he flies his planes. One scene in particular, is stunning, when Hughes takes his newest plane for a ride, breaks a speed record, but loses control over Beverly Hills. It would be a sin for me to spoil what happens, but I can say that it is an exciting, scary thrill of a scene.
Martin Scorsese directs excellently, this is one of his best films. Many of his films take place over a span of many decades, but this is the first one I've seen that captures these periods so beautifully. The cinematography is wonderful, filming each decade the way movies were filmed then (just, with colour), not a gimmick but a smart way of creating a flow. Most films are either all style or all substance, but Scorsese is one of the few who can meld them both into an emotionally and visually intriguing film.
Oh, and Howard Hughes is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, not the first actor you'd think of (like, say, Jason Robards). He doesn't look like the man, no, but why should that be an issue with acting? DiCaprio masters the mannerisms, the glory and the madness. It is a magnificent performance, one that takes a person who was a potential genius and follows him through his life. The film ends on the perfect note, which pretty much sums up the remainder of Hughes life. It is a film to see.
8.5/10.