The Aviator (2005/HD-DVD/Martin Scorsese)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B     Extras: B     Film: B+

 

 

One of Martin Scorsese’s grandest and ultimately most underrated of films is The Aviator, his hard-hitting look at the rise and fall of Howard Hughes from the 1920s (when he gains his wealth) to the 1940s (when mental illness begins to destroy him) which is perfect for a lead Scorsese character.  He loves to capture when any of his leads are at the peak of their power, but sooner or later, the bottom falls out.

 

We pick up when Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio in an underrated performance) is embarking on the long journey that will be his epic film Hell’s Angels, hiring a new assistant (John C. Reilly) and inheriting all the wealth of his family with the unfortunate passing of both parents, though his mother still haunts him.

 

The John Logan screenplay is concerned primarily with Hughes, but makes several other items a main concern, including aviation, innovation, the rise of Hollywood and the many facets, levels and forms of power plays the film is concerned with throughout.  Of course, Hughes turns out to be a power unto himself that rivals all around him, from movie moguls to airline moguls to the U.S. Government itself, especially in the guise of a smarmy senator (Alan Alda) who is working rather unethically with Pam Am.  Never an outright enemy (until the Pan Am struggle) of any, his ideas, energy and desire for growth, risk and innovation propels him to literally change the world.

 

Hughes rivals only the Dalai Lama (in Kundun) as his greatest hero, both from real life and larger than life.   Hughes has to battle his own demons that he barely recognizes, but it is constantly, darkly amusing how they help him take on those many powerful men who grossly underestimate him.  DiCaprio is convincing at all ages and the supporting cast is as top notch as you would expect in a Scorsese epic.  They include Cate Blanchett’s Oscar-winning performance (Best Supporting Actress) as Katharine Hepburn, Kate Beckinsale’s amusing turn as Ava Gardner, Alec Baldwin’s as thankless Pan Am head Juan Trippe, Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow, Jude Law as Errol Flynn, Ian Holm, Brent Spiner, Edward Hermann and Willem Dafoe.

 

More than any other film he may ever make, this is Scorsese’s love letter to Hollywood, the time and era it takes place in and his own obsession with how art and technology often synergize and produce amazing results.  Scene after scene, this is a film that never lets up, just builds & builds and becomes a journey as vast as one befitting the kind of life only Hughes could have lived.

 

For Scorsese, it is a master filmmaker in an exceptional peak form of power making an amazing piece of work that will only get better with age, be slowly discovered as the grand epic it is and turn out to be one of the best films he will have ever made.  Even if you have see the film before, in HD-DVD (also available in Blu-ray) you should give it a second chance to see how great it is since high definition really delivers it.  If you never have and can see it in HD, do so as soon as you can.

 

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image here would be great if there were not spots of digital breakup and digititis in so many spots, because when it looks good, it looks really good.  Black and white footage notwithstanding, the film is split into two sections by Scorsese and Director of Photography Robert Richardson, A.S.C., whose previous work together includes Bringing Out The Dead and Casino.  Creating a brand new digital color program, the first half imitates two-strip dye-transfer Technicolor, while the later half (beginning with our first visit to Pan Am) imitates three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor.  On 35mm film, the first half looked fine, while the second half showed its limits versus a real three-strip print, though it was shot in the Super 35mm (3-perf) film format.

 

On HD-DVD, you can see in the digital realm how good they captured the kind of color the most advanced Technicolor printing of all produces.  Yes, it is still digital and I would love to see a dye-transfer print made of this film whenever that process is revived again (the last run was 1997 – 2001) for theatrical printing, but along with a few choice moments on choice HDs (The Adventures Of Robin Hood is the only one out there as of this posting to show what the older Technicolor could look like, though more post-1955 examples (The Searchers) are also in print) is a solid approximation until more such titles arrive.  Whenever MGM/Fox issues Scorsese’s New York, New York in Blu-ray, you’ll see how good (past the current DVD version) both are in imitating that format, though the 1978 film did it without digital work.

 

The sound design on this film is amazing, which is why it should have been issued in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, but we instead only Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 which is just not good enough in capturing the soundfield, sound design and subtleties of the sound as Scorsese intended.  This lesser version still has its moments, but DD+ is just not good enough for this film.

 

Extras are many and include a making of featurette, the History Channel Modern Marvels installment on Hughes, a piece on his role in aviation history, a look at the obsessive-compulsive disorder Hughes suffered, visual effects featurette, Constructing The Aviator featurette, Costuming & Scoring The Aviator, The Aviator & The Age Of Glamour, stills, an evening with Leonardo DiCaprio & Alan Alda and the original theatrical trailer in HD.  If they spared True HD because of all the extras, they should have made this a double disc set and added more extras.  Maybe we’ll see that one of these days, but this is better than the standard DVD and pretty impressive at its best.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo