The Aviator Script

Question

I have no interest at all in Howard Hughes. And, after that unwatchable piece of excrement, Gangs of New York, I can't say I'm interested in watching Marty's stuff. But, my boss gets all the Academy scripts, so I'm reading them. John Logan did a kick-ass job. I was amazed at what a fast read this script is. His writing is incredibly spare and manages to use almost every moment to establish and reveal character. Also, I don't think there were more than ten scenes in the whole movie that went over a page. Great stuff.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I have no interest at all in Howard Hughes. And, after that unwatchable piece of excrement, Gangs of New York, ... I don't think there were more than ten scenes in the whole movie that went over a page. Great stuff.[/nq]
So did the script have a single, central, dramatic dilemma? What was it?

Mysti

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[nq:1]I have no interest at all in Howard Hughes.[/nq]
Ageism ruined what might have been a good film. Casting DiCaprio was total ageism.
I don't know why studio execs think the 14-year-olds who watched "Titanic" 4,137 times each are still into DiCaprio in their 20s. The man is, like, so '90s!
And I doubt if anyone under the age of 60 cares all that much about Howard Hughes. Most Gen-Xers and iPod People couldn't even tell you who he was. So they should have cast somebody who might have been more appealing to an older crowd.
Or, as a last resort, the story should have been more compelling, which is what Mysti's talking about.
Lois

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[nq:2]I have no interest at all in Howard Hughes.[/nq]
[nq:1]Ageism ruined what might have been a good film. Casting DiCaprio was total ageism. I don't know why studio execs think the 14-year-olds who watched "Titanic" 4,137 times each are still into DiCaprio in their 20s. The man is, like, so '90s![/nq]
I still don't get the casting. Was it something Scorsese wanted? Something the studio insisted upon? He's so damned SUNNY, and Hughes was emotionally dark as thunderstorms... no matter how good an actor DiCaprio is (and I think he can be very good!)...
[nq:1]And I doubt if anyone under the age of 60 cares all that much about Howard Hughes.[/nq]
hey, watch that! make it anyone under the age of 30 or I'll cry.

[nq:1]Most Gen-Xers and iPod People couldn't even tell you who he was. So they should have cast somebody who might ... crowd. Or, as a last resort, the story should have been more compelling, which is what Mysti's talking about. Lois[/nq]
Right. The power leaked out through episodic seams...

Usenet · Answer

here's a quote that says most of it for me, from Intervention:

Reviewed by Penny Stone
"There's a scene early in Martin Scorcese's The Aviator where Howard Hughes takes Katharine Hepburn for a ride in a small prop plane which seems to float, effortlessly and soundlessly, high above the twinkling lights of Los Angeles. They might have been up there with Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod, aloft in their wooden shoe, it is such a magic moment. Hepburn is clearly captivated, and so are we. But this, alas, is as close as we get to magic in this overlong, superficial, disjointed film, or as close to knowing what makes Howard tick, let alone fly.

The film is called, after all, The Aviator. So we want to know: What made Howard fly? Hughes was a multi-faceted, complicated man, and could have beenapproached from many angles: the Eccentric; The Loner; the Strange Billionaire; the Shy Womanizer; the Man Who Wore Kleenex-Box Slippers; the Aero-Dynamics of Jane Russell's Outlaw Bra. The options are practically limitless. But despite its title, there is less here about Hughes the pilot than his contribution to commercial aviation. The film does little to get inside the man's head, or present a theory as to why, among his many dabblings (the film industry being one), his main fascination was with the airplane.

It wasn't part of his heritage; the Hughes fortune was made and maintained by him in industrial tool and die. In this telling, his obsession with the airplane is largely competitive and corporate, as represented by his moving TWA into global routes and breaking Pan American's lock on international passenger air travel. There is really little sense that he was drawn to the cockpit as a moth to the flame (which he may well have been); and, if this film is to be believed, much of the time he was at the controls, the bird crashed.
There is a comic-book quality to The Aviator, as though the director, assuming Hughes's own whacked-out grandiosity, took a great big brush and said, "Lookit! I'm going to show you some great big pictures." Famous figures from the era (roughly 1930 to 1950) wander in and out without much point, context, identification, or, hence, believability. There is a pervasive shallowness that sandbags any oases of insight or persuasive characterization. Most of the better scenes involve Hepburn, who, when she departs, takes any sense of reality with her which is amazing when you consider that, in most groupings, she's the one with the artifice.
Aviator's script fiddles around, lamely, with the idea that Hughes's mother was responsible for the paranoia and germ phobia that ultimately ruined his life, and there is the even vaguer suggestion of incestuous overtones in their relationship which, if true, might account for the little-publicized fact that many of his conquests never involved any *** whatever (Ava Gardner and Gina Lollobrigida being among them). But cartoons about aviation are hardly fertile ground for Freudian inquiries, and would have better been left totally alone."

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1018

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Here's another that expresses well my problems with the story structure:

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/383/383375p1.html

key quote:
This 171-page draft was a surprisingly brisk read. Young Howard Hughes, as envisioned by John Logan, is a larger-than-life character who remains appealing despite his numerous shortcomings. Logan does a fine job in viscerally depicting Howard's inevitable mental breakdown. Logan also nicely handled the relationship between Texas-bred Howard and WASPy Katherine Hepburn (he was nouveau riche while she came from old Yankee money). Overall, though, this draft of The Aviator was much like its subject: striving for greatness, sometimes attaining it but ultimately failing to achieve its full potential.
My main problem with The Aviator is that I simply never cared if Howard Hughes achieved his dream of building super-duper aircraft or not. I realized this on page 100; by that point, I still didn't care if the protagonist "won" or not. I found Howard's passion for filmmaking slightly more interesting than aviation but this only reveals my bias towards cinema. Howard's career as a filmmaker gets shortchanged in the latter acts; his confrontations with the censors over Jane Russell's cleavage in The Outlaw was funny but unnecessary in the midst of Howard's aviation ambitions and the continuing downward spiral of his mental health. Howard's passion for filmmaking was never made clear to me; it just seemed to be a way to introduce his greater love of aviation and to explain how he got to bed so many starlets.

Howard's plans for TWA and his "Constellation" aircraft bogged the story down. These plans run parallel to his "Hercules" project so it became confusing trying to keep these two subplots straight. In a nutshell, Howard's agenda for TWA ticks off Juan Trippe of Pan Am who unleashes his political attack dog, Senator Brewster, in an attempt to ruin Howard and prevent him from breaking Pan Am's monopoly of the sky. This leads to a Capra-esque showdown in Washington where Howard testifies before Congress and "defeats" Senator Brewster. The senator, we are told, is "vile" but it seems to be only because he's a Republican from Maine. We learn that Howard also "owns" senators; doesn't that make them equally vile?

These TWA/congressional machinations slowed the story down because they were too heavy on talk. There are lots of repetitive scenes where Howard and his boys are working on perfecting the designs of his planes or talking shop with other businessmen. These moments were about as exciting as watching Moneyline. If I don't want to watch old white guys in suits talking about aeronautics or business deals on cable news for free then why would I pay $10 to see it on the big-screen? These "talking heads" scenes belong in a made-for-HBO version of The Aviator. Although it'll probably never happen, you could cut out a whole lot of the TWA stuff ? and excise any mention of The Outlaw ? and the main narrative itself wouldn't be hurt.
Ultimately, it is Howard's attempts to build the Hercules/Spruce Goose that gets him into hot water. Plus, it is the long overdue completion and lift-off of the Hercules that provides The Aviator with its visual and emotional climax. A war of words between Pam Am and TWA over international flight routes is just plain boring. I understand that it's what motivates Trippe to sick Brewster on Howard but it's stale, chock full of jargon, and slows down the rest of the story.

I had other problems with The Aviator. Logan tries a few times to paint Howard as some sort of heroic Everyman but the reality is that he didn't earn his fortune; he inherited it and spent his whole life hemorrhaging money on dream projects. What initially made Howard charming and colorful ? his spendthrift and impulsive manner and larger-than-life persona ? is what ultimately distanced him from me. Since Hughes could pretty much get whatever he wanted, I never accepted that his dreams were as unattainable as the story would have me believe.

The Aviator Script

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