The Aviator

[poliphilo]

America has a way of throwing up hero/villains on a big, big scale- emperors without armies, Caesars of plutocracy. The definitive study of the type is Citizen Kane. Any movie that follows after is going to be judged by its standard and the conclusion is always likely to be, yeah, but...

Howard Hughes was a loon- an unlikely hero for a blockbuster. His virtue- perhaps his only virtue- was courage. He built huge airplanes, made crap movies and thought everyone was for sale. He treated women like dirt. There was always something a bit skew-whiff about him and he ended up living in a private hell, wasted by phobias, surrounded by yes-men- but  too rich and powerful to be certified.

The movie doesn't take us into that final decline and degradation. It shows him fighting the madness and, in scenes that provide the story with an emotional heart, coming back from the brink to battle Alan Alda's corrupt senator and win because he's truthful and cuts through the crap and, in the last analysis, cares for something other than money. Hooray for Howard! Whether things were actually as simple as this I've no idea.  But this is how it goes in any big Hollywood movie- one with big bucks to earn- the guy at the heart of it has to be- at some level or other- a winner. And if the facts of the case suggest otherwise they need to be manipulated and monkeyed around with until it's assured that the audience will leave the cinema thinking, he may have been a sonofabitch but he sure did stick it to those bastards!

Travis Bickle isn't a winner, nor is Jake la Motta, nor is Henry Hill. At best they're survivors. When Martin Scorsese was young and driven he used to make movies about guys like these. Now that he's dealt with his issues and is rich and mellow he makes movies because he can. The Aviator is a mainstream Hollywood bio-pic. It softens the jagged edges. Hughes was bisexual, for instance,  and that's out the window. Scorsese's still a very good film-maker- his films look amazing and are filled with excellent performances- but they're no longer essential viewing. 

Di Caprio is good but too baby-faced to play grown men. Cate Blanchett is wonderful. So is Alan Alda. The CGI is dreadful; I've seen better on Doctor Who.

Comments

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

Better CGI on Dr. Who!? Surely you jest? I haven't been watching the latest season of Who, but everything that came before had pretty shoddy effects, at least in my opinion.

About the movie glossing over the bad stuff and having only the good things come out- what about Hughes' paranoia, and the ending of the movie? I'd have a hard time labeling that upbeat and typical 'Hollywood fodder'.

Taking up the point of the Citizen Kane movie- have you seen There Will be Blood yet? Falls into that vein rather. Mark Kermode on the radio is talking it up as 'redefining the language of cinema'. I tend not to agree with that, if only because I'm not quite sure what he means, and it seems like a very pretentious and temporary thing to say.

[creakiness.livejournal.com]

There Will be Blood was really something else. It was one those movies that exists in it's own self contained world, with it's own sense on style and feel for things. The opening was particularly striking, in the sort of way Inland Empire's opening was.

I kind of think of Michael Jackson as the Howard Hughes of today.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I have never seen this film. I wanted to, but it was never quite a high enough priority. Interesting life-note... my partner's father was killed in an industrial accident at Hughes Helicopter. Turned out, the project that he was working on at the time was a helicopter involved in the Iran-Contra Affair. No, he didn't know about it, but he was getting suspicious when he was killed.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I don't much care for Di Caprio's work. Best way I can describe it is he feels like River Phoenix lite. Half the calories, none of the flavor.

That said, I think he did good work in Basketball Diaries.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Well, I like Di Caprio... I especially liked him in Catch Me If You Can but I hated The Aviator.