A Truly Underrated Oscar Nominee

Rating: 9/10 (27 February 2005)

While most critics and Academy voters saw it fitting that The Aviator should receive a Best Pic and Best Director nod, it seems most of America's film-going public felt another way about it. "Overblown" "too long" and "not perfect" were words I have heard used to describe it. In the Scorcese vs Eastwood debate, many claimed they'd rather see Marty win for a better film. But this is, without a doubt, one of Scorcese's finest. Though perhaps too similar in scale to the similarly dismissed "Gangs of New York", this is one swift, cunning piece of directing on the part of Mr. Scorcese.
Depicting those years where Howard Hughes teetered on the edge of sanity while achieving so much in so little time, the film's most touching moments are the quietest, when the camera and the actor and director all seem to try and calm down a minute, take a breath, regain control.
Shot and edited like the way Hughes lived, it has a frenetic, implacable chemistry, jumping from extreme excitement to terrifying emotional scares. A credit to Leo DiCaprio as an actor, the sequence at the Coconut Grove bathroom is one of the film's finest, and sloppiest in a way. And that's the way the whole film plays. It almost feels improvised. It has the storytelling of a nine-year-old boy out of breath from a great adventure. And you can't help but connect it's hair-brained energy and logical flow to its anchor, Howard Hughes. And while I won't stay up too long lamenting Scorcese's fifth loss at the Oscars, I will note that he went down with another of his best films. Hopefully, someday very soon, he'll find the connection to his art that Clint Eastwood has found at age 74, and see there's so many more of his own stories to tell. But still, the Aviator is one of those too, and please look into it more closely before you blow it off.