#29 — The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004)
I suspect that Martin Scorsese loved making The Aviator. I have no inside information to back up this theory, no nuggets gleaned from the DVD commentary track or tales relayed about pervasive happiness on the set. The only evidence I have is the film itself, backed by familiar knowledge about Scorsese. Knowing his passion for classic cinema, it’s hard not to feel a certain added glee at watching him recreate the Golden Age of Hollywood, from the bustling film sets to the premieres bedecked in splendor to the mass of bejeweled and boisterous humanity teeming across the floor of the gigantic Cocoanut Grove nightclub. He used his considerable knowledge of the progression of moviemaking technology to collaborate with the great cinematographer Robert Richardson in making the film have an appearance roughly congruent to the era being depicted, particularly in term of color processing. Through canny casting, he even had a group of modern actors embodying classic stars, none more impressive that Cate Blanchett practically channeling Katherine Hepburn, a transformation so complete that Scorsese would have been forgiven for instinctively inking her to appear in freshly conceived versions of Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story.

Splendid as that all is, there’s far more to the movie than the expert art direction and costume design, more than inspired recreation. Another aspect of Scorsese’s enthusiasm that comes through is the necessity of pushing himself as a filmmaker. For all his many feats as a director, Scorsese had never before taken on anything like the scenes in The Aviator that relate most directly to the title. It is a biopic about Howard Hughes, after all, a man who set records by racing across the sky and oversaw the construction of aircraft of unprecedented size and power. The same daring and embrace of the impossible that fueled his drive needed to be part of the film. Just as Hughes wanted to create things that no one had ever quite seen before, continually improving on the established miracles of the day, so too does Scorsese. Some themes and genres loom large in Scorsese’s repertoire, but there are few directors who so clearly and persistently turn away from comfortable styles and established strengths in favor of carrying themselves somewhere new. The scenes in the air–as Hughes films a swarm of planes for a Sisyphean World War I picture or races against the ticking of a stopwatch or, perhaps most spectacularly, crashes an experimental military plane into a posh neighborhood–are all spectacular, linking every bit of effects magic available with Scorsese’s unerring sense of image construction and cinematic rhythm. The ongoing reward of his longtime collaboration with Thelma Schoonmaker (who’s worked on every Scorsese film since Raging Bull, working with a different director only once during that span) comes through most clearly during these sequences, scintillating and yet fully lucid thrill-rides.

Another recurring collaborator is worthy of celebration here. The Aviator represents only the second time Leonardo DiCaprio worked with Scorsese, but it is a watershed film for him. In portraying Howard Hughes from the youthful certainty of his earliest accomplishments through the first strong manifestations of the obsessive-compulsive disorder that would eventually push him into seclusion to his fierce self-defense in the face of charges that he embezzled federal funds, DiCaprio is commanding and resolute. He is called upon to span a long, complex life, composed equally of strident authority and crippling weakness. Dicaprio is fully convincing at each stage, enveloping himself fully in the man, holding the weight of the over-stuffed life on his shoulders. DiCaprio had given good performances, even great performances before this film, but this one is different. As Hughes ages, it’s as if DiCaprio himself grows up as an actor. The last vestiges of his boyishness are eradicated by the end, and it would be hard to ever again see him as impressionable or charmingly innocent moving forward.

While it may be no surprise that film directed by Martin Scorsese is striking, driven, psychologically astute and touched with a bit of visionary verve, each new offering that is on-mark is still deserving of all the plaudits than can be heaped upon it, a sentiment sometimes eschewed by those who register consistent excellence as its own sort of dull complacency. There are certainly those who view The Aviator with indifference or disappointment (or even disdain) for legitimate reasons, but the surprisingly populous contingent that offered a dimmer appraisal of the film for no better reason than its inferiority when measured against Raging Bull, GoodFellas or some other widely agreed upon pinnacle of Scorsese are missing out on something fantastic. In every respect, this is filmmaking that soars.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)