[April 16th
marks the 150th anniversary of aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright’s birth. So this
week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments and figures in aviation
history, leading up to a weekend post on the Wright Brothers themselves!]
On how two acclaimed
films remember the iconoclastic aviator, and how to complement both narratives.
Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator (2004), starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard
Hughes, seeks to portray Hughes’s roller-coaster life in the most
blockbuster epic way possible. Despite the title, and despite a number of bravura aviation
action sequences,
Scorcese’s film is no more about Hughes’s pioneering aeronautic achievements
than it is about his film productions, his numerous liaisons with Hollywood
actresses and celebrities, his descent into eccentricity and mental illness, or
any other individual stage in this multi-act drama. As he does so many of his
heroes and protagonists, even those who don’t seem to deserve any
response other than criticism or even condemnation, Scorcese clearly sees
Hughes as an embodiment of the best and worst of the American Dream, of the
grandest kinds of triumphs and successes and of the cost and pain that they
often bring with them. DiCaprio is impressive in the part as he always is,
capturing each stage of Hughes’s life from boyhood ambitions through the worst
moments of his final years, but to this AmericanStudier the film feels like one
of those sweeping biopics that includes almost everything and adds up to nearly
nothing. I don’t imagine many viewers would come away learning anything
specific or in-depth about Hughes as, y’know, an aviator.
Jonathan Demme’s Melvin and Howard (1980), featuring Jason Robards as Hughes,
couldn’t be more distinct in either overall tone or its portrayal of Hughes. Based
on the
true story (or at least true claims, although they have since received some validation) of
a Nevada man who supposedly rescued Hughes after a desert car crash, befriended
the aging and iconoclastic tycoon, and ended up receiving a controversial and
still contested place in Hughes’s will, Demme’s film is a quiet and quirky
character study, one focused much more on Paul Le Mat’s Melvin and his rocky
life and relationships, with Robards’ Hughes as a sort of mysterious guardian
angel and potential deux ex machina. As such, Robards’ Hughes is defined purposefully
and entirely by his eccentric nature, as a man with virtually no remaining
human connections sitting on a vast fortune that (due to precisely that
eccentricity) might well end up with a schlub like Melvin Dummar. How Hughes
got to that point and that fortune isn’t within the film’s purview, and so
neither are his aviation achievements; Hughes the reclusive and mysterious billionaire
is the character Demme’s film requires, and one that wouldn’t function as
neatly if we heard about his high-flying exploits.
Both films are
of course free (well, free with the permission of the Hughes estate, I assume,
but that’s neither my business nor my concern here) to use and portray Howard
Hughes however they see fit. And it’s fair to say that both the sweeping epic
story of Hughes’s life and the eccentric details of his final years would be of
more interest to audiences than would individual moments of aviation advances. But
on the other hand, some of those aviation advances are pretty impressive—most especially
Hughes’s record-breaking July
1938 around-the-world flight, which beat the prior record for such a
journey by nearly four days (Hughes achieved the feat
in 91 hours). Moreover, alongside such aeronautic accomplishments that rival
(or at least approach) those of Charles Lindbergh and his peers, Hughes was
also a highly successful aviation designer and engineer, with his work in
advancing aviation technology deemed so significant as to win him (among many other awards)
a 1939 Congressional
Gold Medal “in recognition of the achievements of Howard Hughes in
advancing the science of aviation and thus bringing great credit to his country
throughout the world.” While I certainly wouldn’t entirely equate Hughes with
the Wright Brothers, I would say that he’s further toward them on the spectrum of
innovation and achievement than many other pioneering aviators. Which might not
make for the most exciting epic or intimate character study, but is a history
worth remembering as well.
Next aviation
history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other aviation histories you’d highlight?
No comments:
Post a Comment