Psychogram of American society fails to offer the correct diagnosis

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2005)

The Aviator is an impressive piece of cinema, and shows Scorcese pulling out all the stops in terms of cinematic technique. The film is lush, glossy, glamorous, but beneath this shiny carapace lies a completely different inner reality. Scorcese's earlier work anatomised the darker side of the American metropolis through the broken lives the individuals obliged to live in the belly of the beast. In The Aviator, he takes the life of Howard Hughes in all its technicolour pain and glamour, and offers it up as an iconic portrait of those twin-born wraiths, the American dream and the American nightmare.
Hughes suffered from an extreme form of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), a condition which expressed itself in various forms, such as repeatedly washing his hands, being terrified of dirt, and being haunted by horrific thoughts which would occupy his mind for days and weeks at a time. Equally, he was a man of incredible energy, who got what he wanted, and succeeded where better-adjusted individuals would have failed to make headway. It seems to me that the film therefore suggests that the boundless drive to succeed and to win are themselves akin to other forms of mental illness. What surprised me was that the nature of Hughes' illness was not mentioned in the credits. I am sure that there will have been people in the audience who also suffer from OCD, whether they know it or not; explaining that the condition is now better understood and treatable would have been a thoughtful gesture on the part of the director.
Despite this reservation I would say that the film is a fine one, in large part thanks to the excellent performances by Cate Blanchett and Alec Baldwin, though Leo di C. also turns in a respectable effort.