The Aviator

3.5/4 stars

One of the thoughts I kept having during The Aviator was how lucky Leonardo DiCaprio was to have gotten the role. He gives a great performance, maybe his best, but it doesn’t change how fortunate he was that Scorsese saw the great actor in him and gave him this chance to bring it out. The Aviator is one of those actor’s movies, built around a single performance as its centerpiece. DiCaprio delivers the drive and obsession of Howard Hughes, and his powerful neuroses. He manages to unify the two prevalent images of the man, his highs and lows, into one character on the screen. “I care a great deal about aviation,” he says at one point, in an attempt to explain himself, “It is the great joy of my life.” We know what Hughes cares about, and we know what he is afraid of thanks to an opening scene in which his mother warns him strongly about the dangers of disease. We also see why the one gives him some relief from the other; Scorsese illustrates how from above, everything seems like a miniature version of itself, simpler and cleaner.

The rest is Scorsese putting it into context. This seems like a slight way to appreciate such rich work, but it seems to be how the film wants to be viewed. The cinematography mixes retro experimentation (limited color palates, static long shots) with more modern techniques depending on the specific needs of the particular scene. As a period piece, the settings and costumes are thorough and engrossing, and a small army of background characters fills in the spaces.

The major flaw of the film is however that it fails to answer why. We see Hughes personality, illustrated brilliantly, but we don’t understand it. The opening scene mentioned earlier is about all we get by way of motivation for the compulsions that tear Hughes’ life apart. We understand his fascination with flight, but his forceful personality, his simultaneous indulgence and disregard for wealth… these things pose a question that is never answered. I understand that as a biopic, the film must be careful about what it tries to answer with speculation, but when so much speculation is necessarily present anyway, reticence towards completing the task of transforming the person into the character seems somewhat silly.

Still, it’s wasteful to poke holes in such a spectacle. As a show of acting and direction, The Aviator outpaces its worth as a script. But acting and direction are worthwhile crafts, and this is an enjoyable display.