Movie Time: The Aviator

It's...Movie Time!

Last week when Scott Riccardi ended his epic run as Jeopardy champion by inexplicably answering the final clue with "Who is Howard Hughes?", I decided to finally sit down and watch The Aviator in it's entirety. 

 The Aviator is one of those movies I have seen bits and pieces of (including the end) over the course of several years.

This past Saturday afternoon, I had time and opportunity to watch the furshlugginer thing from beginning to end.,

Scott Riccardi, this edition of Movie Time is dedicated to you!

Who is Howard Hughes? Let's find out! 

The Aviator was directed by Martin Scorcese and released in 2004.  The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and chronicles his life from 1927 to 1947 during which time Hughes became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and germaphobia. 

The film opens in 1913 Houston with an 8 year old Hughes being given a bath by his mother who teaches him how to spell quarantine and warns him of the threat of cholera in the surrounding area.  

This sows the seeds of his phobias.  

We jump to 1927 with Hughes directing his first feature film Hell's Angels.  Hughes has a fleet of biplanes to shoot a World War 1 aerial dogfight that he is determined to get exactly right exactly as he wants it.  Once he finishes the film, he immediately decides to shoot it again this time employing the new sound technology. 

It takes until 1930 for Howard Hughes to finally finish and release Hell's Angels. Even then, despite the film being a big hit, Hughes won't leave the damn thing alone, insisting on recuts to further refine it to his vision.

Around this time, Howard enters into a romantic relationship with Katherine Hepburn whose own eccentricities help her help Howard with his own compulsions.   

One of his compulsions is getting stuck on a sentence and saying it over and over when he becomes overstimulated. This comes up from time to time throughout the film.   

Meanwhile, Howard Hughes becomes obsessed with aviation.

1935: Hughes test flies the H-1 Racer, pushing it to a new speed record. 

1938: Hughes breaks the world record by flying around the world in four days. 

1939: Hughes buys up the airline TWA.

In the mid-1940s, Hughes contracts two projects with the Army Air Forces, one for a spy aircraft, and another for a troop transport unit for use in World War II.

At this point, Howard Hughes is dealing with shit from all sides. 

Juan Trippe, company rival and chairman of Pan Am, and his political crony, Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, conspire to make Hughes look bad and dimish TWA's value and influence so Pan Am can take it over.

On the personal front, Katherine Hepburn breaks up with Howard to have an affair with Spencer Tracy. Howard replaces her with actress Ava Gardner as well as 15-year-old Faith Domergue.

(Yes, I said 15 years old. It was the 1930's so maybe it was OK?)

Ava breaks up with Howard Hughes when she discovers he has bugged her apartment. And the relationship with Faith ends due to issues involving teen angst. (Faith's, not Howard's.)

While testing the spy plane prototype, Howard barely survives a horrendous crash. The government cancels the contracts for both the spy plane and the Hercules.  Hughes orders work on the Hercules to continue.  

All of this shit sends Howard Hughes into a dark and terrible downward spiral. He exiles himself into a projection room to watch Hell's Angels over and over, repeating things over and over as he collects his urine in bottles and he comes a hairy, decrepit shell of a man.   

Efforts by Hepburn and Gardner to coax him out of his exile don't work but Juan Trippe coming around to rub Howard's nose in his coming defeat and loss of all he has worked for....

Well, that gets him out of his rut, cleaned up and off to Congress to confront Trippe's puppet senator who is accusing Howard Hughes of treason and stealing from the government.

Hughes calls out Brewster on his lying bullshit and parades out of the Senate hearing to thunderous applause.

Even if no one now wants the goddam plane, Howard is determined the Hercules will fly. 

The Hercules aircraft
also known as the Spruce Goose

The Hercules was a super sized aircraft designed to transport hundreds of troops along with up to 13 Sherman tanks. 

Because of war time shortages of aluminum, Howard directs the plane to be made of wood, earning it the derogatory nickname in the press as "the Spruce Goose".   

The actual wood the plane was made of was birch but "the Birch Bitch" wouldn't work in more family friendly newspapers. 

The Hercules is BIG! Four regular passenger planes could fit on one wing! The plane has to be broken down in sections and reassembled to be moved on to the ocean.  It's too big for any airport.  

The plan is to just drive this monster on the water with an actual attempt at flying for a later date. But Howard has other ideas, puts the pedal to the metal and...

The goddam Hercules takes flight! 

It was the only time the so called "Spruce Goose" would ever take to the air but it's enough to convince the world Howard Hughes was not crazy that his super massive Hercules could fly!

Howard doesn't dwell on this success for very long as his mind has scurried to his next endeavor, jet aircraft. He urges his staff and crew to get started working on jet airplanes right away because they are "the way of the future".  

"the way of the future". 

"the way of the future".

"the way of the future".

Howard is caught up in one of those repeating sentences loops. 

His friends go to get a doctor while he's led to a room to collect himself.

Alone, Howard tries to control himself but...

"the way of the future".

"the way of the future".

"the way of the future".

And this is where our story ends.

This is a fantastic film and it rides on Leonardo DiCaprio's outstanding performance as Howard Hughes, delivering manic energy, intensity and passion for movies, planes, women and whatever thing is in front of him to presents a threat or an opportunity.  

Cate Blanchett really impressed me with her performance as Katherine Hepburn, bantering a mile a minute, her boundless joy when Howard teaches her to fly, her grief when she has to break his heart. An eccentric spirit, she sees herself has sympatico with Howard's own behavioral issues. But she has quirks while he had obsessions that threaten his health and his sanity. 

Ending the movie with Howard caught in one of his repeating sentence loops is distressing but necessary.  Whatever his successes, it cannot be forgotten that Howard Hughes was a broken man who did not get the help he needed if such help was even available in that time. 

Howard Hughes would die in 1976 in a penthouse prison of his own making, exiled with his OCD. 

The Aviator is a brilliant film by Martin Scorcese about a brilliant man, brilliant but tragically fractured.