The Aviator

Magnificent obsessions: Scorsese back in top form with The Aviator

By Jeannette Catsoulis

Standing naked in the bathtub, a young Howard Hughes listens intently as his mother warns him about the dangers of cholera and associating with "the coloreds." "You are not safe," she whispers, sponging his shoulders with eerie precision. The scene, overlaid with the bronze patina of age, deftly provides a basis for the mental anguish to come; it may be simplistically Freudian--it may even be wildly inaccurate--but, like the rest of The Aviator, it's emotionally compelling and stunningly beautiful. It lets us know right away that Martin Scorsese has bigger things in mind than just ticking off the facts of Hughes' life--he wants us to feel its spirit.

And what a life. As excessive as its subject, The Aviator is long, spectacular, ambitious and exhausting. Revving and stalling like one of Hughes' airplane engines, the movie crashes through film sets and starlets' bedrooms, airplane hangars and Senate hearings with the style and flamboyance of its 1930s Hollywood locations. This is the Scorsese of Raging Bull and Goodfellas: propulsive, fearless, alive to the possibilities of the camera. Not since The Age of Innocence has he conveyed such a sense of controlled chaos and inevitable tragedy. There is a freedom to his filmmaking here, as if he has finally said, to hell with the Academy, give the Oscar to Mel and see if I care.

But the movie's biggest revelation is Leonardo DiCaprio, playing the industrialist, director and record-breaking pilot with ferocious energy and an intensity I would never have believed possible. DiCaprio has never impressed me much--he always looks like a boy trying to play a man, filling a suit like a gangly teen at his first dance. Here, however, his air of defensive immaturity works perfectly: As a 21-year-old making Hell's Angels, he bristles when Hollywood honchos call him Sonny. Escorting Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) to the Coconut Grove, he drinks no alcohol. "Milk. In the Bottle. With the cap on," he orders, revealing the first of many developing idiosyncracies.

The Aviator tries to cope with all three of Hughes' passions--film, flying and females--but, true to its title, spends most of its energy on the planes. Whether huddling with engineers over the design of a spy plane or fighting the head of Pan Am (a creepy Alec Baldwin) over his monopoly of transatlantic routes, Hughes' attention to detail is staggering. A self-confessed perfectionist, Hughes expends equal amounts of energy--and engineering know-how--on the design of the Spruce Goose and the dimensions of Jane Russell's bra. (Leading to a wonderful scene where Hughes employs a university scientist to compare the cleavage of several actresses for the benefit of the MPAA ratings board.)

DiCaprio is particularly effective depicting Hughes' creeping obsessive-compulsive disorder and bizarre phobias. Arranging his food in precise patterns, distracted by specks on other people's clothing, endlessly repeating certain phrases, Hughes' decline is both magnificent and tragic. DiCaprio has astonishing control in these scenes, letting us see the agony of someone who knows he's a public spectacle but is unable to stop. A shocking sequence near the end of the film shows him naked in his screening room, watching his own movies, while rows of urine-filled milk bottles line the walls.

Thanks to the tabloids and a handful of lesser comedians, we remember Howard Hughes only as a punchline, a sad, deranged recluse holed up in sterilized splendor in a Las Vegas hotel room. Scorsese would like to change that, to replace the image of a broken man shuffling around on Kleenex-wrapped feet with the image of a hand caressing a fuselage and a woman's body with equal passion and curiosity. The Aviator is Scorsese's Spruce Goose, and, incredibly, it soars.