2/27/07: The Aviator (2004)We were actually saddened to sleep through the Academy Awards, since it would've been nice to see
Forest Whitaker win. Also, we wanted to see William Monahan picking up his Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. We weren't close personal friends, but Monahan used to be one of the few writers we were happy to run into while drinking our way through another night on the Lower East Side.
Monahan won for
The Departed, which reminds us that we were cheering for another Martin Scorsese production in 2005. Lots of conservatives were happy with
The Aviator. The Howard Hughes biopic was notable simply for John C. Reilly's turn as the Everyman bean counter who kept his boss' dreams afloat.
The Aviator was a celebration of both mad capitalism and simple commerce.
Sadly,
The Aviator doesn't embrace nearly enough of Hughes' fine work as a Cold Warrior. Maybe that's just as well, since the film details the Great Man's descent into paranoia. Screenwriter John Logan--nominated for Best Original Screenplay--would've had to make Hughes' disdain for Commies part of the character's general madness.
Logan, however, presents Hughes in one timeless conservative set piece. The poor guy is enduring dinner with the family of Katherine Hepburn, and you've never seen a bigger collection of privileged East Coast liberals. Frances Conroy is particularly appalling as the Hepburn matriarch. While everyone's chattering away about their various vapid interests, Hughes gets an opportunity to discuss an exciting project--only to have the topic quickly dismissed by Madame Hepburn.
Then the topic of money comes up, and Mrs. Hepburn grandly announces that her family doesn't deign to discuss the subject. "That's because you've always had it," declares Hughes, who gets up from the table and spares us any more of these idiots and their preening. It's a telling contrast between the proudly ambitious Hughes and the chattering classes who are just one generation removed from Tom Wolfe's defining of Radical Chic.
We'll also note that some conservatives were offended by how aviation entrepreneur Juan Trippe is portrayed as a villain here. The truth remains that the man behind TWA cared more about his international-airline monopoly than in making air travel accessible to the public. We'll go with the populist hero who engineered Jane Russell's cleavage in
The Outlaw.
Make it your own: Something went wrong somewhere, and you can now find 2-disc
Special Editions of
The Aviator for really cheap. (We paid $3.00 for our copy at a retail store.) The bonuses are certainly interesting on their own, and make for a further tribute to Howard Hughes.
