Film Study on Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator”
Despite many and all scientific and technical definitions and functions, the human mind is still indeed a complex instrument of vast proportions. Within its depth and inner-workings, the human mind is truly an enigma of sorts, specifically when it comes to its ratio of potential and restriction in terms of how it chooses to work and how it chooses not to. In Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” this concept is propelled far from the line of the bafflingly peculiar unto the amazingly genius via the cinematic depiction of the life of film producer and aviation mogul, Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. His brilliance is undeniable, but so is everything around it and behind it.
Crucial facts are made immediately obvious to the audience at the beginning of the film. A young boy who would be identified as Hughes is being given a bath by his mother while having him spell out the word “quarantine. ” The mother emphasizes to the young boy: “You are not safe” (Scorsese). This sequence suggests that both Hughes and his mother knew what situation they have been graced with and what implications this may lead to.
As the scene progression leaps to Hollywood, 1927 at the first year of filming “Hell’s Angels,” Hughes, played now by Leonardo DiCaprio, meets Noah Dietrich, played by John C. Reilly, for the first time and hires him in due course as his “second-in-command” (Scorsese). As Dietrich is hired, Hughes stresses that whatever prerogative he wishes to do with his inherited wealth is beyond contestation, for it all makes good sense to him.
This would explain the financial facility of which he could utilize to furnish his early film projects, which would later build the groundings for his passion for aviation. As a young Texas industrialist with a mind of boundless intellect, Hughes was not only passionate about films and his very individually unique style of film-making; not only of commercial airline travel and building aircrafts themselves, but also his quest for women, which may be considered as one of his then well-loved excitements in life.
Hughes successfully pursued then some of Hollywood’s most female personality figures with the likes of Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner. In every detail, when Howard Hughes knew what he wanted and wanted do, he would risk life and limb, topple everything to kingdom-come, and cross hell and high water to achieve his goal. He was ruthless in every extent conceivable, which was even more exponentially highlighted by his obsessive-compulsive disorder. As an entrepreneur, he saw every challenge as an opportunity to deliver the concept which follows the higher the risk, the higher the return.
This intrepid and focused disposition of competitiveness and vision was displayed when Hell’s Angels was seen as more of a doorway threat into losing his money, and also when faced with stifling business rivalry of the skies with Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airlines. As a filmmaker, Hughes gained notoriety in doing projects well over-due as viewed by media, critics, and even among his colleagues. Though many found it outrageously absurd, Hughes carried out his execution of vision, both in film and aircraft, with a great calculated foresight—from the construction of his aircrafts to implement critical business decisions.
Nevertheless, he was forever overly criticizing, from how he would like the appearance and presentation of his cookies to how he would say the most normally conversational exchanges like, “Show me all the blue-prints,” which he repeated over and over again (Scorsese). It is quite phenomenal to learn to which degree Hughes would take the most simplest of things given his condition; take for example his germ phobia. As explained by M. Dittmann, “he lay naked in bed in darkened hotel rooms in what he considered a germ-free zone. He wore tissue boxes on his feet to protect them. And he burned his clothing if someone near him became ill.
” With Hughes’ legacy of reclusive state and paranoia, it must be well-grasped and appreciated that it also came with his irrefutable outstanding ability which led to his very significant social and historic contributions not only for industries but also for mankind. Works Cited The Aviator. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perfs. Michael Mann, Sandy Climan, Graham King, Charles Evans, Jr. Miramax Film, Buena Vista Distribution, 2004. Dittmann, M. “Hughes’ Germ Phobia Revealed in Psychological Autopsy. ” APA Online. July/August 2005. American Psychological Association. 3 March, 2009 <http://www. apa. org/monitor/julaug05/hughes. html>.
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