Howard Hughes has something that fascinates a lot of filmmakers. It has the same curious effect that the story of Pinocchio has, where you can look at a director’s biography and see that he was interested in doing an adaptation at some point. The filmmaker magnate seems to have that same condition as an object of desire to serve as a story about the passion for making movies.
EITHER maybe there is something else behind, at least if we look at some of the interested names. Warren Beatty, Michael Mann and Christopher Nolan have in the past explored the possibility of a Hughes biopic (the latter in particular still has what may be “the best screenplay” he’s ever written), to no avail. Partly because Martin Scorsese already managed to reach the finish line with ‘The Aviator’.
high-flying biopic
Recently added to Amazon Prime Video’s catalog (although it has long been available on Netflix or HBO Max), this epic biopic delves into the complicated life of Hughes as well as Hollywood in the 1920s and ’30s. A riveting portrait which could be a simple love story towards the process of making films, although it ends up becoming a story about obsession at the time of doing it.
Leonardo DiCaprio is in charge of embodying this turbulent figure, getting involved in the project in 1999 before the arrival of Martin and when it was still Mann who was going to develop it (he was replaced after a couple of commercial disappointments). The film would take a few more years to shoot, but they were key, allowing DiCaprio to age just enough to continue to be young but capable of hitting the mark as an adult.
It is perhaps the most key collaboration of those made by actor and director. ‘Gangs of New York’ crossed paths with him, and ‘The Departed’ is the pinnacle of their society (I’m willing to concede that so is ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, but how good is ‘The Departed’). But here their union is definitively established and it can be seen how both adjust their skills to speak the same languagewithin the differences that acting and directing a film requires.
‘The Aviator’: conscientious study
Together they seem to work to emphasize Hughes’s restless and broken character, manifested in a dangerous perfectionism both in filming and in piloting airplanes (also present in filming), but also manifested in his compulsive disorder with cleanliness and germs. A character study of almost three hours where they upset the idyllic image of that golden Hollywood although they maintain a certain narrative convention.
This last aspect partially detracts from a film that, although amazing in many ways, feels constrained by the biopic format. It does not fall, however, into abhorrent extremes, thanks to the usual frantic pulse of Scorsese’s films, the conscientious work of DiCaprio or the daring and dazzling photography of Robert Richardson that deserves its own calm study. Or, at least, be seen on a proper screen.
In Espinof | The best biopics of all time