Flying below the radar
Just watched Martin Scorsese's latest biopic, "The Aviator", and was duly impressed. It's the sort of film that bears a marked resemblance to its subject, Howard Hughes: eccentric, colorful, ambitious, and slightly off-kilter.
Leonardo Di Caprio gives an excellent performance, there's no denying this, but his core trait as an actor - namely a certain flatness of delivery and razor sharp precision - tends to render the character passionless, even at his highest moments of intense struggle, internal or otherwise. Some will claim that the wrong actor was cast, but I would posit that no actor would be able to fully capture and convey the essence of a man whom nobody seemed to fully grasp. Just as Oliver Stone's "Alexander" came up short, so does this representation of another great visionary in history. Why? Because what we as artists create can only be the sum total of our own visions. Perhaps, sad though it may be, even the great Mr. Scorsese cannot match a Mr. Hughes, just as Mr. Stone was unable to achieve full comprehension of Alexander. If you're looking for a biopic directed by someone who has managed to match his/her subject's level of greatness, I suggest you see Taylor Hackford's "Ray".
That said, Cate Blanchett did achieve a remarkable understanding of the essence of Katherine Hepburn, in a performance that was as bold in its caricature, as it was searing in its intimacy.
Production Design, by Dante Ferretti, was exquisite. Editing was - as usual - brilliant (the ever-present Thelma Schoonmaker contributing her considerable skills to yet another Scorsese pic).
This was a grand effort which, like the "Hercules" plane featured at the end, did fly. What was not shown in this film was that the plane, nicknamed the "Spruce Goose", managed to fly for just over a minute, at an altitude of only 70 feet. It never flew again. Scorsese's picture flies, and impressively, but it too fails to soar, as a whole.
Leonardo Di Caprio gives an excellent performance, there's no denying this, but his core trait as an actor - namely a certain flatness of delivery and razor sharp precision - tends to render the character passionless, even at his highest moments of intense struggle, internal or otherwise. Some will claim that the wrong actor was cast, but I would posit that no actor would be able to fully capture and convey the essence of a man whom nobody seemed to fully grasp. Just as Oliver Stone's "Alexander" came up short, so does this representation of another great visionary in history. Why? Because what we as artists create can only be the sum total of our own visions. Perhaps, sad though it may be, even the great Mr. Scorsese cannot match a Mr. Hughes, just as Mr. Stone was unable to achieve full comprehension of Alexander. If you're looking for a biopic directed by someone who has managed to match his/her subject's level of greatness, I suggest you see Taylor Hackford's "Ray".
That said, Cate Blanchett did achieve a remarkable understanding of the essence of Katherine Hepburn, in a performance that was as bold in its caricature, as it was searing in its intimacy.
Production Design, by Dante Ferretti, was exquisite. Editing was - as usual - brilliant (the ever-present Thelma Schoonmaker contributing her considerable skills to yet another Scorsese pic).
This was a grand effort which, like the "Hercules" plane featured at the end, did fly. What was not shown in this film was that the plane, nicknamed the "Spruce Goose", managed to fly for just over a minute, at an altitude of only 70 feet. It never flew again. Scorsese's picture flies, and impressively, but it too fails to soar, as a whole.
posted by Nicholas | 11:07 PM
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