The Aviator
A couple of weeks back, I wrote about the difficult art of the biopic - how very few films manage to make it into a cinematic thrill instead of a rush-through name-checking important events and people. Ed Wood manages to pull this off, as does Gods and Monsters; neither tries to tell the entire life, which is a part of their success.
The Aviator ( Read more... )
The Aviator ( Read more... )
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Anyway, yes, those are two fine movies! Johnny Depp as Ed Wood: in the audio commentary, Tim Burton remarked that he directed him to play Ed as Ronald Reagan...
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I haven't seen The Aviator yet, but it's next on my list. I'm glad they stopped short of showing Hughes in his later years; most people, especially younger people, know that man, but they don't know the dynamic person who accomplished all those things, and hopefully this movie gives them a glimpse.
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The Aviator, while presenting the man who had, from one pov, everything (fame, sex, money, adventure), counterbalances this with his steadfast decline into insanity.
Completely agreed. I think I wrote about this in my review, too, how well-structured the film is that it has the seeming "A" plot--the Hollywood celebrity highs-and-lows standard-biopic arc--as well as the seeming "B" plot--his descent into madness--that is so finely used to counter the "A" plot, creeping in here and there and finally overtaking the film, clouding even his huge triumph with the "Spruce Goose" with darkness.
The other big script decision was to pick Hughes' relationship with Katherine Hepburn as the central romance. (As far as women are concerned; the even more central romance Hughes has is with airplanes, and Scorsese makes the point with some great transitions.)How ( ... )
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by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele is probably the most thorough, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story
by Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske the most sympathetic to Hughes. "Howard Hughes: The Secret Life" by Charles Higham is the most hostile and sensationalistic. (To quote a review: While some of Higham's contentions are buttressed by witnesses, some of the most incendiary--such as his claim that Hughes's sexuality was malformed as a teenager, when his uncle seduced him; that Hughes may have died of AIDS; and that Hughes played a key role in the Watergate break-in--are purely speculative.The memoirs of the two ladies I quoted offer short portraits of Hughes as well, of course, but don't read them for that reason - read them because they are among the few memoirs by actors which convey a true sense of the personality of the actress/actor who wrote them, instead of reading like a bland ghost-written publicity thing. Plus, K.H. is absolutely open about her faults ("I'm a ( ... )
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He's certainly my number one candidate so far. To give a performance combining charm, ruthlessness and incipient madness is quite an achievement.
Thanks for the quotes from Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner. Scorsese seems to have followed their accounts of his personality quite closely, both good and bad.
The film may have inevitably left stuff out about Hughes, but it certainly gave a very strong impression of his life and times. I was fascinated by it.
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Yes. I was delighted when some crucial quotes, like Katherine Hepburn telling Hughes they were too alike, or Ava Gardner angrily saying "so what did you want to know? Was I screwing Artie Shaw or Frank Sinatra? You bet I was!" made it into the film without seeming artificial, just perfectly in place in the scenes in question.
The film may have inevitably left stuff out about Hughes, but it certainly gave a very strong impression of his life and times. I was fascinated by it.
Same here. It managed to convey a convincing portrait and tell a layered story. I'll certainly watch it again!
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