At this point in film studies, I have come to the realization that Martin Scorsese is a incredible film maker. The most recent film I watched by him was the 2004 biographical drama The Aviator. The is the true story of Howard Hughes, aviation pioneer and film maker, and his struggle with mental illness. This film received eleven Academy Award nominations and won five.
The film starts out with a young Howard Hughes getting washed by his mother who warms him of disease and tell him he is not safe. The viewer later finds out what an impact this moment had of his life. That scene cuts to a grown up Howard Hughes(Leonardo DiCaprio) filming his war epic Hell’s Angels. Hughes love for aviation and free spending ways is first introduced in this scene and are commonplace throughout the rest of the film. Funded with Hughes’ own money, Hell’s Angels is the most expensive film ever made at that point in time and becomes a huge hit. Hughes’ new found fame brings him attention that he does not like at all. With his fame Hughes develops a playboy lifestyle. In 1935, Hughes decides to purchase a majority stake in Transcontinental & Western Air. Hughes then designs planes and tries to make TWA the biggest airline in the country. He starts designing planes for the air force during world war II and fails very badly. While testing XF-11 recon plane, he crashes into Beverly Hills and receives major injuries. After failing to make the planes for the air force, the FBI starts searching his house and spying on him. Hughes has a major breakdown and locks himself in a screening room for months. After his girlfriend comes and sees him, Hughes goes and battles his charges of war profiteering in Washington. After successes in Washington and flying the biggest plane ever made, Hughes has another OCD fit and flashes back to the first scene of the film and repeats the phrase the way of the future and the screen cuts to black.
One thing that I noticed in this film was the color. For most the film, especially the Hell’s Angels part, the color is very vibrant. Everything form DiCaprio’s eyes to the massive planes have very bright color to them. After researching it, Scorsese did it to mimic the look of early bipack color movies and multicolor. I also thought the cinematography in the film was impressive, especially the plane scenes. Scorsese used full sized planes in the filming to create a very ‘real’ feel to the film.
Overall, I would give The Aviator, a solid 3 out of 4 stars. This film had a very intriguing storyline and very good special effects, it just was a little too long at nearly 3 hours.
