IT FLIES, BUT IT DOESN’T SOAR

THE AVIATOR
Directed by Martin Scorsese; written by John Logan; cinematography by Robert Richardson; editing by Thelma Schoonmaker; original music by Howard Shore; production design by Dante Ferretti; art direction by Martin Gendron, Robert Guerra, Michele Laliberte, Claude Paré, Réal Proulx, and Daniel Ross; set decoration by Francesca LoSchiavo; costume design by Sandy Powell
With: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Ian Holm, Danny Huston, Gwen Stefani, Jude Law, Matt Ross, Kelli Garner, Frances Conroy, Edward Herrmann, and Willem Dafoe. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual content, nudity, language and a crash sequence. Running time: 169 Minutes



Reviewed by Joel Johnson

Toward the end of Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s visually rich, music-filled film about Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio), there’s a dramatic set-piece where Hughes is conducting a test flight of his huge amphibious plane dubbed “the Spruce Goose.” It was, at the time of its construction, the largest plane ever built, and metal shortages had necessitated that it be made using wood. Hughes is, in effect, trying to prove that he was genuinely developing a transport plane for the U.S. military and not engaging in war profiteering. This sequence becomes a metaphor for the entire film. Scorsese’s huge film—lavishly overfilled with people, places, events, and accomplishments from the period from 1927 to 1947 during which Howard Hughes was a high-profile force in business, aviation, and entertainment—gets airborne. But just barely.

There’s a mesmerizing quality to Scorsese’s film based on John Logan’s cluttered screenplay. The film bounces back and forth between the literally high-flying world of aviation, the figuratively high-flying world of Hollywood filmmaking, and Howard Hughes’s literally and figuratively high-flying personal life, wooing, among others, some of the most famous women of that era. While the action moves quite quickly, the pace may be somewhat disorienting for the typical filmgoer because most will only have a limited familiarity with Hughes’s life. The director has put in some captions to identify a few very specific times, but huge segments of the film sweep by without context.

DiCaprio throws himself fully into the role of Howard Hughes, and his energetic performance certainly deserves to be considered for Best Actor honors. It is an intense portrayal that holds our attention and our sympathy, though DiCaprio is unable to make us fully understand Howard Hughes. His rapid-fire, multitasking lifestyle keeps us from feeling that we know what makes him tick. DiCaprio portrays Hughes as a man with an acutely active mind constantly appraising and reappraising his many projects and staff. Barking a series of orders, he delegates assignments, unwilling to accept that something he wants could not be done—even if it might eventually cost a king’s ransom to accomplish. We also see the gradual onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that would eventually turn this highest profile of businessmen into a bizarre recluse.

The cast features a veritable who’s who of major stars—some in relatively small parts. The star power of this cast is similar to the prestige casting done for TV miniseries in the 70s and 80s (prior to the onset of “Reality TV”) with similar artistic results. Inevitably, major stars in minor roles lead to the audience spending more time spotting celebrities than seeing the portrayed characters in the context of the drama being told. This is because the stars have little opportunity to establish a character that supersedes their face recognition.

Alec Baldwin as business rival Juan Trippe, the head of Hughes’s TWA rival Pan Am Airways, and Alan Alda, as Maine Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, Trippe’s senatorial go-for, are the only actors that have enough to work with so that they are able to develop a character. John C. Reilly, Matt Ross, Ian Holm, and Danny Huston have the unenviable roles of seemingly being “yes men,” even though the men they portray were the key lieutenants that made Hughes’s business operation successful. John C. Reilly is one of the best character actors around, providing memorable supporting work in several films including Boogie Nights, The Anniversary Party, Magnolia, The Hours, Gangs of New York, and Chicago. Here, despite considerable screen time, he seems to have little to work with and comes off flat. Matt Ross’s aeronautic engineer Glenn Odekirk is another flat portrayal. Danny Huston’s Hollywood gadfly Jack Frye comes off as a one-note playboy. Ian Holm’s meteorologist does get one terrific scene as he tries to explain why Jane Russell’s cleavage, abundantly displayed in the Hughes-directed The Outlaw, provides no more titillation than the décolletage of several other Hollywood stars.

Although the film spends quite a bit of time on Hughes’s relationships with women, one cannot help but feel that the full story has not been told. Though Scorsese is very coy about actually showing any sex, Hughes appears to have had a very active sex life featuring a variety of aspiring Hollywood starlets. This, of course, keeps these sexual partners from appearing as real people and minimizes any acknowledgement of harm these predatory sexual behaviors might have caused. Most of these women are alluded to and do not even get the cameo appearance that Gwen Stefani receives as Jean Harlow.

A few actresses do get a chance to shine. Cate Blanchett does a fine job portraying the young, independent-minded Kate Hepburn, who the film suggests may have been the love of Hughes’s life. They seemed to be virtually living together and clearly appeared headed for the altar. Things begin to go south with a disastrous visit to the Hepburn family enclave in Connecticut. Frances Conroy presides over a Hepburn family that seems even more dysfunctional than her family in the HBO show Six Feet Under. Kate Beckinsale impresses as the brash young Ava Gardner. Hughes clearly tried to court the North Carolina beauty whose Hollywood career began with her picture being seen in her brother-in-law’s New York photo studio, but Ava resists his efforts to “buy” her as he had done with so many others. It is unclear how romantic their relationship was. Kelli Garner plays fifteen-year-old aspiring actress Faith Domergue, a Hughes protégée after he purchased her contract, who was convinced Ava Gardner was a romantic rival and whose jealousy over it results in her smashing his car.

The film is entitled The Aviator so it comes as no big surprise that Hughes’s strongest passion seems to have been aviation. We see him flying his own plane, making a movie about World War I fighter pilots, repeatedly demanding more aerodynamic plane designs, developing business plans for his airline, and defending himself and his aircraft business from a Senate investigation. The film features the dramatic “Spruce Goose” test flight and a spectacular aircraft accident that demonstrates the incredible verisimilitude available through computer generated visual effects.

Hughes is a worthy subject of a film, and Scorsese deserves credit for shining cinema’s light on this colossus of the twentieth century. He clearly was a man of incredible ambition, a man of keen intelligence, a man afflicted with a mental illness that would draw a shroud around his life, and a man fortuitously blessed with a spectacular inheritance. It might be tempting to discredit Hughes accomplishments due to starting life with wealth, but that would discount the dynamism that he brought to his passions. Still his wealth certainly did give him a head start in his business dealings and allowed him to buy the services of talented help to manage his diversified businesses—especially when his OCD would have interfered with his own capacity to do that. The film about him is a sweeping epic as befits his larger-than-life personality. Scorsese’s film is beautiful to experience, with tremendous effort being made to recreate the world Hughes lived in, but the overall impression is that the film is unable to provide clarity on the events of his life and reveal his unique personality. It flies, but it doesn’t soar.

 

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