The Aviator Blu-ray Review

• 19th Sep 2011

It’s worth stating that not everyone is a huge fan of Scorsese’s early work from the 70’s or even 80’s! Critics too often give backhanded remarks in relation to Scorsese’s more recent works as not the director’s best.

When The Departed won the Director an Academy Award there was wild rumours of Scorsese getting the sympathy win, and that this was not his best film and he deserved to win for earlier efforts such as say Goodfellas. I agree; The Departed wasn’t his best work. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve the award he got. I think he did. More than that I think he deserved a win for his previous film, The Aviator – which I do regard his best. In fact I think this period in his Career reaching right up to Shutter Island is his most interesting film-making period.

Tracking the life of Howard Hughes and played brilliantly by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator is long, in depth, beautifully realised in all its period detail. If anything I could watch it for an extended hour if they had the material to put in. Such as it is though, the film is still almost at the three hour mark and can be taken with relish by fans of period set dramas and those not opposed to a decent biopic.

The supporting cast has some very good look-ins from the likes of Cate Blanchett (who won an Academy Award for her efforts) as Katherine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale putting in a terrific performance as Ava Gardner. It is very much an ensemble film and picking your favourite performances can be part of the fun of this film, hell even Jude Law pops up in a cameo.

Hughes rise, fall and rise again is covered with dramatic perfection. Scorsese clearly has a grasp of how to elongate any tension, character and historic fact to great dramatic effect. Hughes’ life is clearly one of a goldmine of incidents from his rise as an Aviation engineer, to his squandering of money in his filmmaking adventures, to taking on censorship of film, to his many affairs with Hollywood beauties. Not to mention his consistent battle with OCD.

Historians will no doubt have many, many issues with situations appearing out of their historical order, and some ideas being brought to the fore more than they actually were.

The extras are pretty much the same as what we had on DVD, and it’s a decent enough patch. We even get conversations and looks into Hughes OCD. There is even a 45 minute History Channel documentary which delves further into Hughes Achievements is various industries and there is a very good Commentary – which may well have been the last one we have had from Scorsese and his team as both The Departed and Shutter Island are missing them!

Steven Hurst