The Films I Own (1) : The Aviator

The Films I Own.

I’ve decided that during this period of social distancing that I’m going to start going through all the films I own, either on DVD or Blu-Ray and write up a quick summary and review for each of them.

So here we go, choosing at random first up we have;

The Aviator

Leonardo DiCaprio’s second project with Martin Scorsese is biographical film of the life of Howard Hughes. After a brief opening scene featuring a young Hughes and the root of his later germaphobia we pick up in the early twenties as Hughes works on his film Hell’s Angels having already amassed his fortune with his tool company.

We get an early sense of Hughes drive to achieve perfection unafraid to do things differently and risk everything he has as he seeks to break into Hollywood and become a power player. Alongside that we are given a sense of the charm he is also capable.

In this opening sequence we are shown the character traits that would combine to make Hughes life as unique as it was but also led to the many complications and dramas tracked by the film.  In fact the completion of Hell’s Angels which takes up the first fifthteen or so minutes of The Aviator pretty much encapsulates Hughes. 

We are then introduced to Cate Blanchett’s fantastic take on Katherine Hepburn which is both performance and impression. Whenever she is on screen there is a fantastic energy to everything.
From here we get into Hughes’ obsession with flying and aircraft design whilst at the same time we increasingly see his neuroses building; his inability to eat from a plate anyone else has taken something from, his unease at his deafness on one side.

Moving forward as Hughes begins to compete with Pan AM, deal with senators and war orders we seen him begin to increasingly struggle with his mental health. The film’s big set piece comes as Hughes fights his case in a senate hearing having recovered himself from spending all of his time in one room.

And the dramatic climax comes as he succeeds in getting the largest wooden framed airplane ever built off the ground. We close just after this triumphant moment with an illusion towards the struggles Hughes would face with his mental health for the rest of his life.

The production is handsomely mounted with impeccable period detail throughout. The costuming is fantastic. The looks of Hepburn, Jean Harlow, Ava Gardner are spot on.

  

DiCaprio’s central performance following up Gangs of New York certainly showed he was more than pretty face. Here he brings out both Hughes seemingly easy confidence and the traumas of his germaphobia.

At just shy of three hours it is a little long but it’s hard to identify anything that is dead weight within the run time. If you feel like a biographical character study this is right up there and thoroughly recommended.