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Actors: Leonardo Di Caprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, Ian Holm, Jude Law
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about The Aviator |
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Born into millions generated by a tool and die company in Houston and enamored of flying, young Howard Hughes (DiCaprio) heads to Hollywood to make a movie about World War I fighter pilots. It ends up being the most expensive film ever made up to that time, but it is a success.
Soon Katharine Hepburn has moved in with him. Hughes has his design team build faster and faster planes, and sets speed records in them. He also buys a controlling interest in the commercial liner TWA. With the coming of World War II, he turns to designing spy planes for the military, and a giant troop and munitions carrier called Hercules.
But Hughes is also privately plagued by a manic fear of germs and disease. And by then Hepburn has left him for Spencer Tracy. Although Hughes is seeing Ava Gardner, there is also a parade of other starlets through his bed and in the press. Juan Trippe (Baldwin), his rival executive at Pan Am, teams up with Senator Brewster (Alda) to seek legislation that will give Pan Am exclusive control of international air routes, and Brewster also initiates congressional hearings to allege war profiteering by Hughes. His germ mania grows much worse. This 2004 Martin Scorsese film is sumptuous but weak, and nearly three hours long.
--David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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Howard Hughes was an eccentric genius. This movie covers the first part of his life, following Hughes' rise from a rich Texas machine tool manufacturer, to a maverick Hollywood movie director, to an innovative engineering genius who loved flying and designed cutting edge planes while chasing beautiful Hollywood stars, while all the time fighting off corrupt politicians and business rivals. He invented a cantilivered bra for Jane Russell and took an airline to worldwide success against all odds, and tackled both tasks with equal enthusiasm.
The movie follows his successes and failures in business, his relationships with Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, and hints at affairs with dozens of other women, while
his crippling obsessive compulsive disorders started to control his life, and he was almost killed in a terrible air crash.
This film depicts Hughes as giving the public what they wanted in movies, despite the ridicule of other Hollywood establishment figures, directors and producers who would have preferred to see him fail. He was a man who put his money where his mouth was. We see him take risks in business and life, sometimes crashing in both, and this movie shows the excitement at his life at his peak, hinting towards the end of the tragic downward spiral that followed.
--Maggie, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of The Aviator |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie:
- 1930's-1950's
Inner struggle or disability
Yes
Job/Profession/Poverty Story?
Yes
Job:
- pilot
Brain/Body not working?
- mental illness
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- simply wealthy
- engineer
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric:
Yes
- eccentric
- obsessed
- emotionally unstable
Hair color?
- brunette (Brown)
Hair type
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- (man) average
Unclothed?
- Chest and Buttocks
Events of movie makes character more...
- irritated
- sad
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
- hard edged
Sense of humor?
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- red
Hair style
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn wavey
Body type
- (man) very skinny
- (woman) very skinny
How much in movie?
- 40%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
Profession/status:
- business executive
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 20%
Hair color
- brunette (Brown)
Hair type
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- (man) average
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Setting
United States
Yes
Air?
Yes
Misc setting
- fancy mansion
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
Movie makes you feel...
- concerned
Sex/nudity in movie?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- kissing
- seeing nude male butt
Any profanity?
- Occasional swearing
If soundtrack VERY NOTICEABLE...
- Jazz/r&b
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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