The Aviator (2004) on Netflix
Howard Hughes directs Hell's Angels and hires Noah Dietrich to run his business empire. He converts the film to sound, and Katharine Hepburn becomes his companion as his compulsions worsen.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.5/10413,086 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Howard Hughes is a boy in Houston in 1913, where his mother bathes him and teaches him to spell quarantine, warning him about a cholera outbreak. By 1927 he is directing Hell's Angels and has brought in Noah Dietrich to run the daily operations of his business empire. When talking pictures arrive, Hughes wants his film shot realistically and turns it into a sound film. Katharine Hepburn becomes his companion, and her company eases the compulsions and the fear of germs that trouble him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Aviator (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Warren Beatty planned to direct and star in a Howard Hughes biopic in the early 1970s, co-writing the script with Bo Goldman and approaching Steven Spielberg to direct it in 1990; his Hughes biopic was eventually released under the title Rules Don't Apply in 2016.
- Disney previously developed a Hughes biopic with director Brian De Palma and actor Nicolas Cage between 1997 and 1998; titled Mr. Hughes, it would have starred Cage in the dual roles of both Hughes and Clifford Irving.
- Christopher Nolan wrote his own Hughes script, following the darker and final years of Hughes's life, and it reportedly would have starred Jim Carrey, but he shelved the project when Warren Beatty was developing his long-awaited Hughes film.
- For the first 52 minutes of the film, scenes appear in shades of only red and cyan, with green objects rendered as blue: according to Scorsese, this emulated the look of early bipack color films, in particular the Multicolor process, which Hughes owned.
- Leonardo DiCaprio suffered from a mild version of obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child, which returned when he was filming, and he and Scorsese worked closely with Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz of UCLA to portray the most accurate depiction of OCD.
- Scorsese decided to film the flying sequences with scale models rather than CGI special effects; the critical reaction to the CGI models in Pearl Harbor had been a crucial factor in that decision.
- Angelina Jolie was approached by the studios to have a role in the film, but she turned it down after learning executive producer Harvey Weinstein was involved.
