..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
The Aviator
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese's 2004 biographical portrait of Howard Hughes, The Aviator, has been issued as a 2-Disc Widescreen Edition by Warner Home Video (38939, $30). Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hughes, from the late Twenties to the early Fifties. The first 53 minutes of the 170-minute film are presented in an imitation of two-tone Cinecolor, culminating with a shot of Hughes' dinner at a restaurant in which the peas are a flat blue. With the appearance of the movie's villain, a rival airline executive played by Alec Baldwin, the colors shift to a vivid but more realistic-seeming palette. The intention, apparently, is to identify the time periods of the story, though it does seem to shift back, briefly, into the early color scheme at one more point after the changeover. The choice to present a third of the film in a bizarre color scheme, although in keeping with Hughes' own eventual descent into semi-madness, is emblematic of what the movie achieves as a whole. It's interesting and different, but of modest impact. The film actually backs off of exploring Hughes' romantic entanglements once they begin to get complicated, although there is a nice, subtle symbolism in his continual search for a Madonna figure (perhaps representative of Scorsese's own cultural background coming into play, though Hughes' obsession with the development of the brassiere, a point passed over in the film, put the entire nation, previously oriented toward legs, onto his wavelength). The story dive bombs into the instability of Hughes' psyche, hinting that the same mental handicaps that cramped his successes were also responsible for his drive and focus in the first place. The importance of Hughes' contribution to the development of the airline industry is defined by the film, and his victory over the machinations of Baldwin's character gives the story an energetic final act and something of a happy ending. Before that, along with the spiffy flying sequences, there is Cate Blanchett's Oscar-winning performance of another Oscar-winning actress, Katharine Hepburn. The honor she received is deserved not because she pulls off a viable evocation of the often-imitated star, but because her presence as that star energizes the portions of the movie that she is in. Ultimately, the film's various components do not create a greater whole when they are put together, but it is worth mentioning that with multiple viewings, the movie's appealing aspects-the planes, Blanchett, DiCaprio's physical range, the film's take on history-remain engaging, while its more alienating components-the hero's mental breakdowns, the Cinecolor thing-are less alienating.
The letterboxing has an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. Cinecolor was always soft-looking, but the film's imitation of it remains crisp at all times, sustaining the crispness when the rest of the hues are finally let out of their cage. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is in keeping with the film's prestige and ambition, with energetic separation effects and an elaborate bass. There is an alternate French audio track in standard stereo and optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. The film is also accompanied by a commentary track, featuring intercut reflections by Scorsese, Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker and producer Michael Mann. Scorsese talks quite a bit about Hughes and how his own perceptions of him were formed through the movies and news reports, though curiously he makes no mention whatsoever of what ought to have been a memorable film from his younger days (considering his professed affection for similarly steamy melodramas), The Carpetbaggers. He explains how some of the effects were achieved, talks about the performers, and tries to articulate what it was he was after with the film. Schoonmaker covers more of the technical details. "The pace of the Twenties and Thirties scenes, it was important for me to understand that Marty wanted this brittle feeling to the dialog sequences. In other films I've worked on with him, for example, Age of Innocence, we did the reverse because we were dealing with New York at the end of the Nineteenth Century where everything moved slower. We slowed down from our pace a lot. We used a lot of dissolves. Here it was a more brittle kind of feeling, so that was what I was striving for, in order to give Marty what he wanted."
The second platter contains a variety supplements. It opens with one good 2-minute deleted scene, in which Hughes talks about killing a pedestrian with his car. There is an adequate but somewhat compact 12-minute production documentary; a collection of featurettes that focus on more detailed aspects of the film's creation, including the cinematography, production design (the challenge in the period costumes and makeup was to evoke the past without getting lost in it), special effects and music, running a total of 37 minutes; an introductory 15-minute piece tied into the film about Hughes' contributions to the aviation industry; a 44-minute History Channel profile of Hughes that gives you a complete if brisk overview of his life; a 14-minute look at the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) affliction that Hughes suffered from; a very good 15-minute clip of a panel discussion about OCD that includes DiCaprio and Scorsese ("Actually, I imagine it happening to me. I mean I've had instances in my own life and that sort of thing. I think a lot of it was reverted to religious ritual."); another good 28-minute interview in front of an audience with DiCaprio and co-star Alan Alda (On playing a part: "If I go in there knowing I deserve to get what this guy is after, I can relax about it, because I don't have to pretend to want it, because I want it. It's mine, you know? And I notice at any moment if I hear my voice getting tense or I feel I have to emphasize a word or something, I hear that and I think, 'You know what? That's where you're not connecting it to you. You're getting rhetorical about it.' And that thing that was louder and strained, it always turns out to be intimate and quieter because I finally connected it, and the most wonderful moment is when you realize that things are happening just right and there's no acting going on at all."); a cute little 5-minute piece about the appearances in the film of Loudon, Rufus and Martha Wainwright as sequential singers in a nightclub; and a good collection of production stills.
June 12, 2005
DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
The Review VaultDouglas Pratt's DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
For a free sample, call (516)594-9304 or go to his website at www.DVDLaser.com
