The Aviator

“Some men dream the future: he built it.” Those who know anything about the life of Howard Hughes, movie maker, aviator and businessman, will know that this tagline is not strictly true. And neither is the movie itself.

The Aviator only shows 20 years of Hughes’ life, from the 1920s to the 1940s. It focuses on his relationships with beautiful movie stars rather than the slightly less glamorous fact that he was married twice. It ignores his many business and technological failures. And it shows the shy, retiring Hughes as an articulate and confident man.

Only the most exciting parts of Hughes’ early career are picked out and presented from the best possible viewpoint. In doing so however, director Martin Scorsese shows us the most powerful and disturbing parts of the aviator’s personality.

Chief among these is his obsessive compulsive disorder. This is so skillfully depicted it could almost be a case study. The camera takes us into Hughes’ confusion and shows how obsessive thoughts about germs occupy his mind: while other people are talking, Hughes is fixated on a rare joint of meat, or food on someone's lapel, or a man sweeping.

The script, in turn, is full of the compulsive repetition and counting characteristic of someone with OCD. During his breakdown, Hughes’ has to say things a certain number of times and pursue rigid routines. At times of crisis – after he nearly dies in a crash, or when the FBI searches his offices – he copes by obsessing over cleanliness (“They’re touching things”).

But it is Leonardo DiCaprio who shows most powerfully a man caught between sanity and breakdown, power and insecurity. When he repeats himself over and over again, or washes his hands until they bleed, the fear and distress in his face are obvious.

DiCaprio is perfectly cast in the role. Who better to play someone with childish insecurity than someone who still looks 12 years old? He depicts a vulnerable boy in private and a grandiose control freak in public. He even manages to age throughout the film (although his scars from his many plane crashes heal miraculously quickly).

Others in the film are equally well cast. Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn is slightly overwhelming at first, especially with her prosthetic teeth, but soon fits comfortably into the role of a confident woman who shuns Hollywood glamour. Jude Law is the mirror image of Errol Flynn in looks and personality. And Alan Alda is excellent as the oily, smug and arrogant Senator Owen Brewster who, with Alec Baldwin’s sly and manipulative Pan-Am CEO Juan Trippe, tries to bring about Hughes’ destruction.

Only Kate Beckinsale is unconvincing as Ava Gardner, who transforms inexplicably halfway through the movie from superficial dolly to caring nurse.

Nevertheless, the movie looks good. The cinematography is beautiful, with many shots reminiscent of the old 1930s movies: light pans across people's faces and grainy newsreel footage shows DiCaprio in a tickertape parade. The best scenes are those involving power: at the film premieres, when one of Hughes’ planes is unveiled, or in the Pan-Am office. The lines in the shot seem to draw the eye upward in a towering 1930s film-as-spectacle style. The colour and costumes reinforce this grandiose feel.

All in all, The Aviator is a well-shot, well-acted, and well-scripted film, full of powerful scenes and disturbing images. If you’re willing to ignore its liberty with the truth and Kate Beckinsale’s acting, as well as its rather abrupt ending, then it’s a film worth going to see.

Photos courtesy of Miramax Pictures

The Aviator at IMDB