the aviator

Director: martin scorsese

Actor: leonardo dicaprio,cate blanchett,kate beckinsale,john c. reilly

Data Published: Sat Dec 25 2004

Genres: Biography,Drama

Key Words: obsessive compulsive disorder,test flight,film producer,howard hughes character,california

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aviator_(2004_film)

Description: The Aviator is a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, and Kate Beckinsale. A biopic depicting the early years of legendary Director and aviator Howard Hughes' career from the late 1920s to the mid 1940s.

Plot: In 1913 Houston, eight-year-old Howard Hughes' mother gives him a bath and warns him about the recent cholera outbreak in Houston: "You are not safe." Fourteen years later, he begins to direct the film Hell's Angels, and hires Noah Dietrich to manage the day-to-day operations of his business empire. After the release of The Jazz Singer, the first partially talking film, Hughes becomes obsessed with shooting his film realistically, and decides to convert the movie to a sound film. Despite the film being a hit, Hughes remains unsatisfied with the end result and orders the film to be recut after its Hollywood premiere. He becomes romantically involved with actress Katharine Hepburn, who helps to ease the symptoms of his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In 1935, Hughes test flies the H-1 Racer, pushing it to a new speed record. Three years later, he breaks the world record by flying around the world in four days. He subsequently purchases majority interest in Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA). Juan Trippe, company rival and chairman of Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), gets his crony, Senator Owen Brewster, to introduce the Community Airline Bill, which would give Pan Am exclusivity on international air travel. Hepburn grows tired of Hughes' eccentricity, and leaves him for fellow actor Spencer Tracy. Hughes quickly finds a new love interest with 15-year-old Faith Domergue, and later actress Ava Gardner. However, he still has feelings for Hepburn, and blackmails a reporter to keep reports about her and the married Tracy out of the press. Hughes contracts two projects with the Army Air Forces for: a spy aircraft and a troop transport unit. In 1946, with the Spruce Goose flying boat still in construction, Hughes finishes the XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft and takes it for a test flight. However, one of the engines fails midflight, and the aircraft crashes in Beverly Hills, with Hughes getting severely injured. With the end of World War II, the army cancels its order for the H-4 Hercules, although Hughes still continues the development with his own money. When he is discharged, he is informed that he must choose between funding the airlines or his 'flying boat'. Hughes orders Dietrich to mortgage the TWA assets so he can continue the development. As his OCD worsens, Hughes becomes increasingly paranoid, planting microphones and tapping Gardner's phone lines to keep track of her. The FBI searches his home for incriminating evidence of war profiteering, searching his possessions and, to his horror, tracking dirt through his house. Brewster privately offers to drop the charges if Hughes sells TWA to Trippe, but Hughes refuses. Hughes' OCD symptoms become extreme, and he retreats into an isolated "germ-free zone" for three months. Trippe has Brewster summon him for a Senate investigation, certain that Hughes will not show up. Gardner visits him and personally grooms and dresses him in preparation for the hearing. An invigorated Hughes defends himself against Brewster's charges and accuses the senator of taking bribes from Trippe. Hughes concludes by announcing that he has committed to completing the H-4 aircraft, and that he will leave the country if he cannot get it to fly. The bill is promptly defeated. After successfully flying the aircraft, Hughes speaks with Dietrich and his engineer, Glenn Odekirk, about a new jetliner for TWA. However, the sight of men in germ-resistant suits causes Hughes to have a panic attack. As Odekirk hides him in a restroom while Dietrich fetches a doctor, Hughes begins to have flashbacks of his childhood, his obsession for aviation, and his ambition for success, repeating the phrase, "the way of the future".