By AUSTIN O’CONNOR
Sun Staff
When does a Martin Scorsese movie not really feel like a Martin Scorsese movie? When it turns out to be a Leonardo DiCaprio movie. Scorsese, whose directorial signature is usually scorched into his projects like a brand, takes a backseat to DiCaprio in the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (Three and a half stars).
Though it clocks in at nearly three hours, the movie manages to reveal surprisingly little about Hughes’ life that couldn’t be gleaned from an encyclopedia entry. After a brief flashback to a childhood spongebath when his mother planted the seeds of the germ phobia that would eventually destroy his life, the story focuses most of its energy on Hughes’ younger triumphs, be they professional (he founded Hughes Aircraft and was a pioneer of commercial aviation) or personal (he was linked romantically with Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, among other starlets).
That said, the movie doesn’t entirely gloss over the paranoia and obsessive compulsive disorder for which Hughes is now, lamentably, most famous. DiCaprio, in a truly great performance, shows the demons that bubble just under Hughes‚ surface in subtle ways. One minute, Hughes is discussing a business deal with execs from an airline. The next instant, he’s completely undone by the sight of a speck of dirt on a coat lapel. DiCaprio hardly moves - maybe his jaw clenches tighter - but the conveyance of a man walking a razor’s edge of sanity is fully embodied.
The movie is an empathetic, supremely entertaining portrait of a tortured man, and DiCaprio’s is one of the best screen performances in many a moon. While it’s playing, he’s good enough to draw comparisons to a young Brando, and the movie seems like a modern-day (gasp!) Citizen Kane.
It’s only after the credits have rolled that you realize Scorsese’s film has missed the chance to delve deeply into an incredibly interesting American life. The Aviator is the story of Howard Hughes as seen from 30,000 feet: Beautiful to watch, but impossible to see the details.