In this blog post, we’ll explore Howard Hughes’s endless challenges and successes as depicted in the movie ‘The Aviator’, along with his perfectionism and obsessions, the dark side hidden beneath his glamorous life, and the film’s perspective on American society.
Why This Movie Earned a Spot in My Notebook
It’s no exaggeration to say that movies have become a part of my life. Whenever I feel suffocated or depressed, whenever I get tired from studying, and whenever I’m overflowing with happiness and feel the urge to do something, I tend to pick a movie to watch. In particular, I enjoy deeply moving films that evoke such strong emotions that it feels as though something warm is welling up from deep within my heart. Among the countless movies I’ve watched so far, the ones that still linger in my memory are mostly those kinds of films. Though I’m someone who rarely expresses my feelings—so much so that my friends often call me “cold”—I couldn’t help but feel tears welling up in my eyes whenever I watched movies like ‘Beyond Silence’, ‘Hachi’, ‘John Q’, ‘Children of Heaven’, and ‘The Mask of the Demon’. And I tend to jot these movies down in my little notebook. That’s because my memory is so limited that I forget the emotions I felt the moment I turn away. I write them down to remember the beautiful lines for a long time, and for a while afterward, I recommend those movies to my friends.
The movie I watched today was also a great film that has found a place in my notebook.
Howard, who had been passionate about flying since childhood, gathered the best engineers to produce new aircraft. He eventually broke the world speed record and earned the title of “the fastest man on Earth.” He went on to complete the Hercules, which remains the aircraft with the longest wingspan on record to this day. After acquiring TWA, one of the world’s largest airlines, he becomes a global aviation tycoon, but unexpected conspiracies and trials plague him. And the secrets of his inner self, unknown to anyone, are gradually revealed.
‘The Aviator’ is a 100% Leonardo DiCaprio one-man show. Having earned Martin Scorsese’s deep admiration since ‘Gangs of New York’, Leonardo DiCaprio transformed from an idol star into a serious actor through ‘The Aviator’. Leo’s portrayal of Hughes overlaps with the romantic Jack Dawson from ‘Titanic’, the immature adult Frank from ‘Catch Me If You Can’, and the deranged Amsterdam from ‘Gangs of New York’.
Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a man of extraordinary luck who became a billionaire at the age of 20 through his mining business in Texas. However, not content with the present, he sets his sights on an impossible endeavor that everyone else dismisses as a lost cause. Having risen to become a Hollywood powerhouse by turning ‘Angels of Hell’ into a box-office hit with a $4 million budget, Howard Hughes subsequently unfolds his ambitions one by one. While the film showcases the diverse spectrum of Howard Hughes’s life, it refrains from passing judgment on the man himself. As a result, even after watching the entire film, it’s hard to grasp exactly what kind of person Howard Hughes was.
It seems Martin Scorsese wasn’t particularly interested in Howard Hughes as a person. Scorsese, who has drawn inspiration from 20th-century Hollywood icons, tells the story of the era Howard Hughes lived through. Following ‘Gangs of New York’, a tale of American founding history, ‘The Aviator’ focuses on the process by which the United States transformed into its current capitalist system, navigating through World War II and the McCarthyism craze.
Howard Hughes, the Man, and Leonardo DiCaprio
After seeing the scenes depicting Howard Hughes’s obsessive-compulsive tendencies in this movie, I actually ended up forming a positive impression of OCD. Ah… don’t you have to have at least one quirk like that to become a great figure? Maybe I should try imitating Howard Hughes myself? I suddenly feel like washing my hands one more time for no reason, I feel anxious about touching doorknobs, and for some reason, I want to mimic his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Come to think of it, I’ve had an experience similar to the scene in the movie where DiCaprio couldn’t bring himself to touch the bathroom doorknob and had to wait until someone else came in. I tend to get static electricity on my hands, so I can’t really touch metal doorknobs. Especially in the winter, there was even a time when static built up in my hand while opening a door, so I had to wait for the person behind me to open it for me.
There’s a saying that you should “stick to one thing,” but it’s not easy to do that in practice. Unless you’re a person of unshakable resolve, your interests and goals are bound to change, and when that happens, it’s only natural to want to dabble in various fields. However, the feeling of simply observing something from the outside is completely different from actually doing it, so when you actually start something new, you often end up failing at both and coming up empty-handed. Perhaps that’s why people commonly say you should stick to one thing.
Yet, there are occasionally people who dig multiple wells deeply and well. I’m talking about people who expand their horizons as their interests lead them, yet manage to excel at everything they do. Howard Hughes, the protagonist of the movie ‘The Aviator’ I’m about to discuss, is one such person. Drawing on his vast wealth, he took on challenges in various fields and achieved respectable results in all of them. The movie ‘The Aviator’ depicts the rise and fall of Howard Hughes—a Hollywood jack-of-all-trades who displayed such multifaceted talent—not so much in a matter-of-fact manner, but rather as spectacularly as his life itself.
In fact, while Howard Hughes may be a very famous figure in the United States, he isn’t particularly well-known to people in Korea—or at least not to me—so I watched the film less out of curiosity about his life and more because of the buzz surrounding it, such as its record number of Academy Award nominations and its star-studded cast.
As a young man, Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) suffers from a severe case of潔癖症, perhaps because his parents drilled the importance of disease prevention into him relentlessly from a young age. However, his abilities are beyond imagination. Just past twenty, he made a fortune in the mining business and became a tycoon. Yet, far from hoarding the wealth he amassed, he invests it generously in his new ventures. He produced an enormous volume of films using methods that are still dizzying to think about today—filming with over 80 airplanes and more than 130 pilots actually in flight.
Despite the derision of Hollywood veterans, his film ‘Angels of Hell’ received critical acclaim and an enthusiastic response. Feeling as though he had achieved one goal, Howard Hughes then set his sights on aircraft manufacturing. On one hand, he turned up-and-coming actresses like Katharine Hepburn, Eva Gardner, and Jean Harlow into stars; on the other, he passionately devoted himself to the aircraft business and raced toward his goals. But if things had gone as smoothly as he’d hoped, it wouldn’t have made for the kind of dramatic material that became the movie ‘The Aviator’…
If I had to describe the first impression that comes to mind after watching this film, it would be that this is “Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie.” Now in his thirties, this young actor has consistently shown his potential over the years and has finally realized that potential in this film. Since his role as “Ernie,” the mentally challenged younger brother in ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’, he has delivered his best performance yet in this film.
Of course, he still retains the “gentleman” image he displayed in films like ‘Titanic’ and ‘Catch Me If You Can’. However, the inner character he portrays here is a far cry from that of a gentleman. He is a young man at the peak of hypersensitivity—never a moment’s rest, rarely a smile, and always walking around with a scowl on his face. Given the nature of the role, his acting skills naturally had to be up to the task. Leonardo DiCaprio truly pulled off this role to perfection. From the deep, inverted-triangle wrinkles on his forehead to his facial expressions, body language, and the nervously repeated lines, he gave the impression that he had completely become Howard Hughes in the film.
DiCaprio experienced a brief slump after ‘Titanic’. I believe Martin Scorsese has played a decisive role in fully bringing his talent to fruition since ‘Gangs of New York’. I hear there are two more films they’ll be making together, and I hope to see his continued growth in those projects as well. It’s now clear that the “heartthrob” image has largely faded from his persona, replaced by that of a serious actor. However, the fine lines on his face visible in occasional close-ups do serve as a stark reminder of the passage of time.
Of course, with a star-studded cast beyond Leonardo DiCaprio, the film offers the pleasure of seeing many other talented actors in action. In particular, Cate Blanchett, who plays Katharine Hepburn, left an impression every bit as strong as DiCaprio’s. She struggled with the fact that there were simply too many “Hughes” characters within the film. Her portrayal of a haughty, independent, yet fragile woman—speaking English with a unique accent—was at times amusing, yet at other times intense and poignant.
Kate Beckinsale, playing Eva Gardner, didn’t leave a particularly deep impression in terms of acting, but her beauty alone exuded a classic elegance that truly evoked the image of a beauty from that era. Jude Law and Alec Baldwin, whom I expected to have supporting roles, along with Gwen Stefani of the band “No Doubt,” had almost cameo-level appearances, and it was a surprise to see Willem Dafoe make a brief appearance midway through the film.
Howard Hughes’ Obsessions Hidden Behind Glittering Success
In that it deals with American history, the film ‘The Aviator’ shares some similarities with director Martin Scorsese’s previous work, ‘Gangs of New York’. However, while ‘Gangs of New York’ focused on the dark side of American history, ‘The Aviator’ shines a spotlight on its glamorous, star-studded side.
With massive budgets poured into blockbuster films, a steady stream of promising new talents leading Hollywood’s golden age, and innovations in the aviation industry—such as the creation of the world’s largest aircraft—the surface-level backdrop undeniably portrays America as a global industrial leader. However, the film’s purpose is certainly not to boast about this. When viewed through the lens of the protagonist Howard Hughes’ life and inner world, this glamorous image of America appears, in fact, to be nothing more than meaningless extravagance. This is likely because Howard Hughes’ life did not shine as brightly as America’s flashy exterior.
There was no “satisfaction” or “rest” in Howard Hughes’s life. As soon as he set a goal and thought he had achieved it, another goal would emerge, forcing him to race tirelessly toward it. Just as he spent two years making a blockbuster film only to see the sound film boom take off, prompting him to start production all over again, and just as he thought he had finally finished a movie, he then took on the challenge of the aviation industry.
His relentless pursuit of new challenges sometimes seemed reckless. Scrapping a film that took two years to shoot and ordering it to be remade from scratch as a sound film—that was a command just asking to be criticized. Yet his challenges were all the more courageous and valuable for it. In Hollywood, which was dominated by major studios, his ambitious ventures yielded positive results, and his foray into the aviation industry ultimately contributed to its advancement.
Yet, in some ways, his life seemed incredibly harsh. The words he heard from his mother as a child seemed to be engraved in his heart almost like a motto: “You’re not safe. (You’re not safe. You have to be careful.)” These words would have a profound impact on Hughes’s life even after he became an adult. After washing his hands in the restroom, he developed an extremely irritating form of obsessive-compulsive disorder—he feared touching the restroom door, which others had touched, to open it almost as much as he feared death itself.
Perhaps his multifaceted ventures mentioned earlier stemmed from this very compulsion. If we reflect on his mother’s words again, he was not safe. Therefore, he had to constantly move forward in any direction. In society, too, rather than settling into a single field, he must constantly venture into new areas; only by pursuing perfection to the utmost would he have felt safe. Is this not why Howard Hughes, as if under a spell, has continued to take on challenges—compulsively, recklessly, yet courageously?
This sense of challenge—or compulsion—is evident in the look in his eyes throughout the film. His gaze, never relaxing for a moment and always intense and piercing, sometimes appears charismatic and powerful, but at other times conveys a spine-chilling obsession that makes him seem almost unapproachable.
The Glamor of America and the Darkness Behind It
No matter what period of history, where there is a bright side, there is bound to be a dark side as well. The film ‘The Aviator’ also depicts the actually dark life of Howard Hughes, the legendary tycoon who shook America to its core. However, this film does not clearly divide the circumstances of an era into two distinct categories—light and dark. Just as Howard Hughes—who outwardly lived an undeniably glamorous life—actually struggled with romantic relationships and faced a troubled twilight years, the film reveals that the “light” actually harbors “darkness” within it. In that sense, ‘The Aviator’ is a film that is glamorous yet dark and bittersweet.
Throughout his life, he was obsessively fixated on scale—a fixation that matched the “huge” in his name. It bordered on the maniacal. Over 4 kilometers of film… a massive production budget… building the world’s fastest and largest airplanes—his peculiar desire to be the best is evident in every aspect of his life. This craving for a gigantic phallus bears a striking resemblance to the male complex. Even his explicit rebuttal to the film censors regarding the size of women’s breasts is depicted as intertwined with this obsession with size.
“The Aviator,” often cited for its frontier spirit toward the unknown, rationalizes and defends America itself; the praise for “huge” objects—befitting a vast landmass—ultimately represents the desires and utopian ideals of its people, epitomized by Howard Hughes. When he mutters to himself, “This is our future,” immediately after the successful “Hercules” flight, he is essentially stating that the desire for a scale unlike anyone else’s is America’s only path to survival and its very philosophy.
He is a quintessential American supremacist and, on top of that, a macho man. He spouts self-justifying sophistry—claiming that as long as he’s honest, it’s enough even if he’s made mistakes—and the director thoroughly defends him throughout the film. The message is: “I’ve done my best for all progress and success, so worship me.” It implies that this alone can cover up any other flaws or shortcomings. (Doesn’t he remind you of someone?)
Another point: ideologically speaking, when he visits the Hepburn family’s home, he mocks the family—who live harmoniously with her divorced ex-husband, enjoy a carefree life, and identify as leftists—by asking, “Do you even know what hunger is?” Having been raised within the rigid logic of industrialism, he simply cannot comprehend her family—who believe in human equality and discuss art and philosophy while keeping a dog as a companion.
Watching the film, I was startled to realize that this was a movie made by “Scorsese,” known for his scathing criticism and vitriol toward the U.S. War in Vietnam.
It feels incredibly bittersweet to realize that he has become an old man who embodies machismo and has reverted to being a quintessential, unquestionably right-wing figure—a director who, in keeping with the fleeting nature of time, is now scrambling desperately for an Academy Award. Well, if he’s become a director who loves his own country and embodies its spirit, I have no grounds to complain—but if the purpose of art is the exploration and contemplation of a righteous human life, then his latest move certainly feels very unfamiliar.
The Splendor and Bitterness Left Behind by ‘The Aviator’
‘The Aviator’ is not merely a film that depicts a single man’s success story. Howard Hughes achieved more than anyone else and constantly moved toward new goals, but behind that dazzling success lay an insatiable obsession and anxiety. As his gaze in the film reveals, challenge and obsession were not entirely separate.
The monumental films and airplanes he created, along with his determination to be the best in the world, were, on the one hand, courageous challenges; on the other, they appear as an obsession that relentlessly drove him forward. Thus, his life is both dazzling and dark, successful yet bittersweet.
Ultimately, what I took away from watching this film was not just the life of one man, Howard Hughes. It was the glamorous American industry revealed through him, the dark side behind it, and the desire to constantly achieve something. In that sense, ‘The Aviator’ was a great film for me, and ultimately, one worthy of a place in my little notebook.
