The exhilarator

By Noel Vera

The general line about Martin Scorsese nowadays is that he's sold
out--gone mainstream, gone soft on us, used his edgy visual
intelligence to make products generic enough and likeable enough
that he will at last win that elusive Oscar.

I don't think "The Aviator" measures up to the best Scorsese has
ever done, myself, which I'd say rank as among the best any
filmmaker has ever done, anywhere--but can you name a better
filmmaker working in the epic format nowadays? Terence Malick
with "The Thin Red Line," maybe (though personally I could have done
without the voiceover drone); Hayao Miyazaki with "Mononoke Hime"
(Princess Mononoke). People will point to Peter Jackson, and his
hobbit movies are definitely longer and more expensive than anyone
else's; I think they're more big than visually interesting or
imaginative, myself.

I also think Scorsese--who's branched out in different directions
before (a musical; a 19th century drama; the Dalai Lama; ancient
Palestine)--is trying out the big-budget spectacular, much in the
way he's tried other genres. He's already stumbled once working in
this vein--the seriously misconceived "Gangs of New York," where
Scorsese's visual flair mainly served to embroider a thin storyline
(patched together from Herbert Asbury's writings on the period), and
Daniel Day-Lewis' fire-eating performance as Bill the Butcher was
canceled out by Leonardo DiCaprio's lukewarm presence.

With "The Aviator" Scorsese is working on more solid ground. Howard
Hughes' life is filled with enough drama and incident to justify
several biopics; the challenge lies in choosing what to pick and
where to focus. I can see the rationale for homing in on his early
life: the later, long-haired Hughes, shut up in his hotel room, is
probably too familiar to most people--his early life would have the
impact of surprise. Plus, there are elements in that early career
that help bring out two of Scorsese's favorite themes (the obsessed
creator at work; the struggle against censorship, or against the
established view) nicely. John Logan's script works in a third
favorite theme (the struggle, spiritual, psychological, with one's
inner self) by extrapolating from the facts a little--it's known,
for one, that Hughes' eccentricities (his aversion to germs, his
unique treatment of peas) were already noticed back in the '30s.

The resulting picture looks more like a mainstream production than
most Scorsese pictures (except perhaps for the blandly executed "The
Color of Money") and appears more lighthearted and upbeat than a
Scorsese production would normally be. It would be easy to argue
that Scorsese has as much right as anyone to make a mainstream,
upbeat film, and he does, actually…the problem with that argument
being the film itself.

It's no secret that Scorsese admires Hughes--in one interview, he
describes the man as "a visionary" and "a genius," and speaks
enthusiastically of the man's flying epic, "Hell's Angels," the
shooting of which he partly depicts on film. What has many people
confused, however, is that 'admire' does not necessarily mean 'fully
approve of;' Scorsese may appreciate many aspects of Hughes'
character, perhaps even find him worthy of emulation, but he is
enough of an artist to show all of Hughes' sides, including the less
savory elements. Even the fact that the film ends with the one and
only flight of Hughes' "Spruce Goose" with Hughes himself at the
wheel--seen as a triumphant gesture of defiance over his enemies--
means more than just stopping at a high point…but more on that later.

Key to Scorsese's interpretation of Hughes is his shaping of the
performance of the actor playing Hughes: Leonardo DeCaprio, so wan
and uncompelling opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in "Gangs of New York,"
comes into his own in this film. He doesn't much resemble Hughes
except perhaps in the early scenes, when Hughes had to dress up for
the photographers, but he has the boyish innocence and energy that
Scorsese saw in Hughes--that Hughes probably saw in himself. That,
and an outsider's wariness; photos of Hughes in premieres and
parties showed an animal caught in headlights--Hughes craved
attention, yet looked uncomfortable when he actually got it (several
points in the film he discusses with his then-girlfriend Katherine
Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) how natural she seems under the spotlight).
When Hepburn invites him to her family's mansion the encounter plays
like a screwball comedy until Hughes stops proceedings cold with his
blunt honesty--he's not one for witty or even tactful repartee.
DeCaprio's Hughes is charismatic and entertaining, there's no
denying that, but along with the charisma is this tension, this
awkwardness, a quality Scorsese himself often has when he's being
interviewed--he can schmooze and talk to the press as ably as any
celebrity; he just doesn't seem completely at ease doing it. As in
many a Scorsese film, the director identifies closely with his
protagonist, but along with this identification is an element of
awareness, of criticism (which, by way of extension, includes self-
awareness and self-criticism); he's never completely on the side of
his hero.

The film is not just a series of career triumphs; equally telling
are the scenes detailing how Hughes achieves his successes. When he
wants something done, he throws a lot of money at it; when he
doesn't have enough money he orders his men to do some accounting
hocus-pocus, and borrows or cheats to get the necessary amount. He's
extremely hard on his men; he makes endless demands, counting on his
enthusiasm or their unquestioning loyalty to drive them into
delivering for him. And when something doesn't work, or something
else needs to get done, or something DOES get done despite all his
shenanigans, he draws attention away from the problem or
accomplishment by introducing a new challenge, even more daunting
than the previous one. "The Aviator," when you really think about
it, isn't just a portrait of a great American; it's also a portrait
of greed, ambition, and corporate mismanagement by one of the
supposed titans of American business. Maybe if these scenes had been
presented as high drama instead of comedy, critics would have been
less strident about how blinkered and worshipful Scorsese is of
Hughes; as is, it's actually perfect that the scenes play out as
comedy--it's more fun, less pretentious, and the fact that we're
laughing only emphasizes the horror of what's happening (see Stanley
Kubrick's approach to nuclear war in "Dr. Strangelove").

A moment to point out Scorsese's unusual color scheme: when the film
starts out in the late '20s the film simulates the Two-Color
Technicolor in use at the time--an immersion device, no doubt, and
Scorsese's homage to the Technicolor processes of the time--but one
extra effect (intended or not) is that you see red, white, blue
(actually, blue-green) images, the classic colors of a classic
American hero. The last scene in Two-Color is Hughes' last
unequivocal success (at least in terms of the story), the speed
record he set flying the H-1 in 1935, immediately after which he
crashed (the same year "Becky Sharp," the first feature to use the
Three-Strip Technicolor process, appeared in theaters). By the time
of Hughes' record-breaking around-the-world flight in 1938, the film
has moved on to the more natural and more visually complex Three-
Strip Technicolor process; Hughes' achievement happens offscreen
instead of front-and-center (as the H-1 flight had), and the focus
now is on Juan Trippe, of Pan American Airlines, taking note of this
upstart Hughes and how he might have to deal with him (the second
(and far more destructive) plane crash was supposed to cue a switch
to a more contemporary color scheme, only Scorsese said 'I kind of
miss the color').

As for the ending--yes, the "Spruce Goose" does take off, but
(please skip this paragraph if you wish to see the film) I'd hardly
call it an unmitigated triumph; if anything, the film ends on a note
of ambiguity, with Hughes staring into a mirror saying over and over
again "wave of the future, wave of the future"--hopeful or baleful
words, depending on how you take DeCaprio's line reading (Scorsese
doesn't leave us any easy clues). Either you respond with a "thank
god," or you add "nor are we out of it."

A final note--Scorsese most likely never intended his film to be
timely in such a way, but "The Aviator's" focus on the rise of a
famous "visionary" echoes the career of another equally visionary,
equally blinkered American, namely their present president. It's fun
to point out the parallel details--the way both mismanage their
organizations; the way both demand unquestioning loyalty from their
employees; the way both run roughshod over opposing viewpoints; the
way both seem puritan and hypocrite at the same time--but for now
the most eloquent detail I can glean from their respective histories
is how they choose to end: on a supposed note of unmitigated
triumph, the later decline and fall more darkly hinted at than
actually depicted. As if to say: we are all caught in their vision
of the future, nor are we out of it.

(First published at Businessworld, 2/25/05. No reproduction without
permission. You may link to this page.)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)