Brilliant Film Making, Unsympathetic Storytelling.

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2005)

The Aviator.
A somewhat hard picture to judge. Overall I would say I enjoyed it. But then again, most Scorcese stuff will never be garbage, or never really be uninteresting. To be honest I thought The Aviator was a more interesting story than Raging Bull. Maybe because stories about boxers never interested me. Maybe that's why I think The Aviator was a far better film than Million Dollar Baby.
So the Aviator is a sub-par epic, by an incredible filmmaker and storyteller. The production values, acting, etc etc are excellent. The story of Hughes is just too sad and screwed up to be as memorable as something like Goodfellas or Taxi Driver. The movie isn't just well done because its a Martin Scorcese movie and people automatically give it props, it is definitely worth seeing. He's mastered elegant, original storytelling, I just think the angle to take on someone like Howard Hughes was the only misstep in the film.
Maybe I have a weird lust for long epic movies, but the ending just felt so unsatisfying. Because the movie makes his character seem to interesting, and the film just ends when he's what? 40. If you become engaged in the story (as I did), You end up thinking..." do I have to read a Howard Hughes biography to know what madness, and ridiculously admirable ambition and...more madness came to this guy for the rest of his life??!?" I guess so.
I think the ultimate annoyance people had with the movie is...its ability to showcase Howard Hughes massive weirdness, but nobody really feels empathetic to it. It's like watching some ranting homeless guy downtown rant on about the government and society. You know that he might actually be making some sense, and he might be right, but you still want to beat him until he shuts up and stops acting so ridiculously strange. There's a very minute audience that kind find empathy for germaphobes. The empathy for his struggle against pretty obvious government misconduct in his business, is diminished by our lack of empathy for his eccentricity.
DiCaprio was fantastic though. Probably the strongest performance of his career. Scorcese not winning the Oscar seems...unfair but almost just. The academy has a very stubborn manner of reflecting its honors on those who are making their best work, not work of brilliance, but declining brilliance. Clint Eastwood was making his best work as a director, and Scorcese well...his work in Goodfellas was worth two Oscar's...but his work on Aviator wasn't quite worth one.