Aviator, The

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He was an industrialist, an aircraft manufacturer, an inventor, a moviemaker, a multibillionaire, and, most of all, an aviator. The "aviator" moniker is an appropriate metaphor for Howard Hughes, a man who was unafraid of flying high and taking risks.

Martin Scorsese's big, old-fashioned look at the enigmatic entrepreneur, 2004's "The Aviator," is too long and disjointed to be a great film, but it is entertaining in bits and pieces. Scorsese is a craftsman who knows how to assemble a picture, even one as segmented as "The Aviator," and sometimes his films have reached that rarefied atmosphere referred to by film buffs as cinematic art. Certainly, "Raging Bull," "Taxi Driver," and "Goodfellas" can lay claim to touching upon artistry.

But "The Aviator" isn't art; it's good showmanship, and on HD DVD it provides a good show. Howard Hughes was a bigger-than-life character tailor-made for movie legends, and Scorsese uses every trick at his disposal to explore a big part of the man's life. Fortunately, Scorsese eschews too much stylish gimmicky--black-and-white photography, quick edits, juxtaposing musical tracks, shifting time frames, and the like--in favor of a straightforward, if subdivided, narrative worthy of the Hollywood films of the 1920s through late 40s that the movie references. His only gimmick is the color scheme, which I'll discuss later. Scorsese's strong suit in "The Aviator" is to recreate the era, down to the smallest detail, and to present it as though for the first time. It's a neat trick, given that books and films have already told Hughes's life numerous times. Moreover, the movie now looks better than ever in high definition.

For me, though, the weakest part of the movie may be the most ironic and controversial, Scorsese's casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes. While DiCaprio was just about Hughes's age, around thirty, when the movie begins in the late 1920s, maybe a few years older than Hughes, he never seems quite old enough. DiCaprio always appears to be the perennial teenager, and while Hughes is supposed to age over twenty years in the film, DiCaprio doesn't look much different from beginning to end. In the movie, Hughes in his late forties looks like a teenage DiCaprio with a mustache. Worse, for me DiCaprio never takes command of a situation (or the screen) the way I imagine the real Hughes would do; DiCaprio just looks like a petulant, spoiled kid always trying to get his way. Perhaps this is how Hughes really was; I don't know. It just doesn't match what I've always seen as the public perception. Still, it's a minor personal quibble, and most viewers will probably find no complaint with DiCaprio. Certainly, Scorsese finds no fault with the actor, having chosen DiCaprio for his last few movies and, I understand, planning yet another.

Since Hughes was a celebrated real-life person as well as a celluloid fiction, let's start with some facts about the man, courtesy of the Encyclopedia Britannica: "U.S. manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer much publicized for his aversion to publicity as well as for the uses to which he put his vast wealth.

He studied at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and later at the Rice Institute of Technology, Houston. Orphaned at 17, he quit school and took control of his father's Hughes Tool Company, Houston. In 1926 he moved to Hollywood, where he produced 'Hell's Angels' (1930) and 'Scarface' (1932) and introduced Jean Harlow and Paul Muni to the screen. Later 'The Outlaw' (1941) introduced Jane Russell.

In 1948 he bought a controlling interest in RKO Pictures Corporation, sold the shares in 1953, bought the whole company in 1954, selling it again in 1955. He remained chairman of the board until 1957.

In the field of aviation he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company, Culver City, CA, using the profits to finance the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. On Sept. 12, 1935, in an airplane of his own design, he established the world's land plane speed record of 352.46 miles per hour. On Jan. 19, 1937, in the same craft, he averaged 332 miles per hour in lowering the transcontinental flight-time record to 7 hours 28 minutes. Flying a Lockheed 14, he circled the Earth in a record 91 hours 14 minutes in July 1938. From 1942 he worked on the design of an eight-engine, wooden flying boat intended to carry 750 passengers. In 1947 he piloted this machine on its only flight--one mile. Never an extrovert, Hughes went into complete seclusion in 1950, as the holder of 78 percent of the stock of Trans World Airlines."

Hughes was born in 1905 and died in 1976, but it is his first forty years or so that the movie covers, ending just before his virtual withdrawal from society. During this time, the movie centers on four major aspects of his life: His obsession with aircraft, his obsession with moviemaking, his obsession with women, and his obsession with germs. Although it's hard to say which of these obsessions did him the most harm (certainly the germ phobia but probably a combination of all four), none of them is really the subject of the story. The subject is Hughes himself, the charismatic loner who almost always got his way in everything he did.

Any one of the areas I mentioned above might have provided enough material for a normal-length movie, but Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan chose to go with a more diffuse composite of all four, leading to a movie 170 minutes long that gets rather bogged down in too many separate elements with too little cohesion, much like the director's "Gangs of New York" that preceded it. Fortunately, Scorsese's expertise at visualizing the film's creations and juggling all of its pieces, plus the film's topflight supporting cast, keep the viewer largely engaged by what's going to happen next.

No doubt a good part of one's enjoyment of the film is simply looking at it, which is where high definition plays its part in the home. Scorsese's spectacular replicating of aerial dogfights for Hughes's directorial debut, "Hell's Angels," is stunning. Then the elaborate première of "Hell's Angels," his recreation of the glamour of Hollywood, the interior of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Hughes's devastating crash while test flying one of his own planes, later Hughes's flight of the Hercules "Spruce Goose," and dozens of other memorable scenes all contribute to an epic motion picture worthy of a DeMille.

In addition to all of that, possibly most important of all is the supporting cast. Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn, one of Hughes's first loves in Hollywood. Blanchett is, indeed, a dead ringer for the famous actress, especially in voice and mannerisms, but I'm not sure it isn't a mere imitation. Still, it's a very good and convincing imitation, much as Jamie Foxx turned in for Ray Charles, so I suppose it's all that one could hope for. As others of Hughes's girlfriends, Kate Beckinsale is good as Ava Gardner, Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow, and Kelli Garner as Faith Domergue.

Best of all, I thought, is John C. Reilly as Hughes's long-suffering right-hand man, Noah Dietrich. The actor has a common touch that is most appealing and a sense of rightness about him that is hard not to find sympathetic. Then, there's Alan Alda playing against type as the corrupt and conniving Senator Ralph Owen Brewster; Ian Holm as the meek, often-befuddled meteorologist Professor Fitz; Alec Baldwin as Hughes's relentless rival in the airlines business, Pan Am's Juan Tripp; and Jude Law in a bit part as the dashing Errol Flynn.

The Academy nominated the movie for eleven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and it won five: Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo); Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson); Best Costume Design (Sandy Powell); Best Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker); and Best Supporting Actress (Cate Blanchett).

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