While we love our heroes, we love even more to see them fall. Or, better yet, go off-their-nut hermit paranoid crazy. Like Howard Hughes.

Genius, daredevil, casanova, captain of finance, Hughes was one of the richest individuals history has known. He courted the spotlight nervously, strategically, only allowing himself to be seen in it when it served his purposes (or, of course, when he was subpoenaed). A lover of legendary renown, he cozied up to Hollywood’s brightest starlets, taming for a time even the fiery heart of the indomitable Katharine Hepburn. Later in life, Hughes became a notorious germophobe who blacked out his windows, grew his hair hippie long, and sat in the nude projecting his favorite movies obsessively. For the last twenty years of his existence, he was never photographed. When he died, his appearance had changed so drastically, the FBI required fingerprint evidence to prove he was dead.

Howard Hughes poses with a plane of his own design, the Hughes H1 racer. A true aviator in every sense of the term, Hughes shot an aerial spectacle film called HELL’S ANGELS that made use of his own private air force and took over four years to complete. He financed the entire production with his own money. (Photo: Airminded.net)

Since not much happens behind the closed door of an obsessive compulsive agoraphobe, it is the young lion Howard Hughes that Martin Scorsese chose to bring to light with Leonardo DiCaprio. A complex character obsessed with speed and perfection is perfect story material for Scorsese, one of the dons of American cinema. Experimenting with digital film elements for the first time, Scorsese opens up an arsenal of storytelling tools that leaves his vivid imagination unfettered.

I didn’t expect much from this picture in the way of action. I couldn’t have been more incorrect. Focusing on speed and intensity, Hughes is shown doing many of the things he actually did: breaking airspeed records in planes he engineered himself, wooing women who smolder with sensuality one after another, and crashing (and burning) spectacularly more than once on both accounts. Some events in this film are so seemingly fantastic, I had to look them up. But sure enough, Howard Hughes really did crash land a plane in a residential neighborhood once. Bringing that up is almost telling you too much…but I mention it because even if you’re not fascinated by the movie’s meticulous history, you’ll be thrilled with the sequence I just mentioned, especially keeping in mind it’s reproduced according to actual events.

When you’re playing real people not far removed from the public’s imagination, it might be tempting to reproduce exactly that individual. Of course, it’s not possible to really be someone else, and Scorsese and his actors handle their performances gracefully. It’s surprising how DiCaprio takes on Hughes’ look once he adds that trademark pencil thin mustache. And Cate Blanchett flat out steals the movie with a portrayal of Katherine Hepburn that’s Oscar worthy at the very least. To portray such an outspoken (and well-documented) character as Hepburn is to risk being seen as holding a dim candle to the actual character, or worse yet coming off as a bad parody of the real deal. Blanchett glows like a red hot rivet, punching her way through Hughes hardened armor like Rosie the Riveter on ‘roids. Stunning. Truly.

Below, Leonardo DiCaprio comments on his relationship with Scorsese, and living in the skin of Howard Hughes.

Q: You worked with Martin Scorsese on THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, so you have some history between the two of you. Can you tell me a little bit about how that relationship has evolved? What does he bring to your performance as an actor?

Leonardo DiCaprio: …Ask any actor of any age range, and they want to work with [Scorsese] because he is not only one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but he is like a film historian. He’s a professor of film. The man has seen almost every film ever made up until 1980. You get an education while working with him every single day. He screens movies for you to talk about specific scenes and what he’s trying to convey up on the screen. You can ask him a question about a character or the way a scene should go and he can show you 20 different examples of filmmakers that have done that in the past, the way it’s been done right, the way it’s been done wrong. It’s an incredible learning experience…having this huge generational gap, we actually found that we fundamentally share the same tastes in a lot of different things. Not just film, but music and art. And we dislike a lot of the same things, and like a lot of the same things. We have a great work ethic together. We get along.

Q: Is it difficult working with someone who requires such precision and detail in both your performance, and the finished film?

LDC: We’ve had marathon rehearsal sessions and sometimes those can be arduous if people don’t enjoy that process. The thing that he does so well is he’s so persistent in making everything he does as authentic as possible. He loves to have actors come to the table with an array of different information and different new ideas. He welcomes that more than anyone else I’ve ever worked with. For this movie, with all of the research I did, we certainly did a lot of that.

Q: Howard Hughes was seen in the press as the ultimate playboy, and it’s true: he had relationships with a veritable circus of Hollywood’s most beautiful movie stars. Why do you think he had such sensational relationships if he was a private man?

LDC: With Howard, it’s an interesting dynamic because I honestly feel that as much as he had love and adoration for these women and genuinely cared for them, he kind of looked at them like airplanes, you know what I mean? He was a technical genius and obsessed with finding the new, faster, bigger airplane and that was simultaneous with women. He was constantly finding the new, hotter female to go out with. It all related back to him being orphaned at a very young age and sort of having this empty hole in his soul that, I think, he was always trying to fill with new, more exciting things in his life. He ended up, obviously, not a very happy person.

Q: This movie, like most biopics, fictionalizes several aspects of the life of Hughes. When is it okay to make changes to someone’s life story when you’re putting it up on screen?

LDC: When it serves the film [and] the essence of what you’re trying to portray is the intention of the character. There are a couple of things in this movie that weren’t exactly what really happened. And I know there’s all those detectives out there that love to look for mistakes or things that weren’t exactly the real deal. For example…Howard Hughes never [bought] photos of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Instead the intention was the same: he bought her “The Philadelphia Story,” which she ended up doing on stage, and inevitably got her an Academy Award after they broke up. The intention was still there. He still loved her, he still cared about her as a person, and still did something like that for her…I think as long as you are carried on that ride of the film and you’re engaged in the character and it’s something that isn’t way too far out of the field of what really happened - and the intention is still there - I think that’s the artists’ right.

Q: Howard Hughes, as a character, is complex and crazy. He’s an engineering genius, a monster capitalist, and driven over the edge of sanity by obsessive compulsive disorder. Did you ever have trouble leaving him behind, at the end of the day?

LDC: I’ve always been pretty good at being able to go home and be me again. But, as much as, for this character, I’d certainly say more than any other character I’ve played in the past, this one stayed with me the most. Especially with this stuff having to do with obsessive compulsive disorder. We all have obsessive things we do to some degree, a primal thing in our brain, that’s a part of our brain mechanism. I remember as a child, stepping on cracks on the way to school and having to walk back a block and step on that same crack or that gum stain. So, for the movie, I kind of let all that stuff go and was constantly stepping on things and reorganizing things. People with OCD truly live in a 24-hour hell of constantly playing mind games with themselves. They could sit here and have a conversation but all they want to do is reach over here and twist this around and flip it over 20 times in a row.

Q: What about Hughes’ story can today’s audience connect with?

LDC: Well, more so than anything, what I was worried about the most in this film was saying, ‘Okay, here’s the first American billionaire. He’s handsome, he sleeps with the best women in the world, he’s an American hero and how the hell do you make this [negative situation] with Pan American Airways and [Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster, who chaired the committee that questioned Hughes] become a sympathetic situation towards Howard Hughes?’…then I realized…it has to do with corporate takeover and the involvement of huge corporations with our government…it’s going on today with the Enron scandals and numerous other things. That’s what really made me say, “Okay, here’s this one man, he’s his own boss, he is rich but he is a stand-up individual and here he is with all these horrible things going on with himself mentally, standing up in front of the Senate and battling the Senate to stop the monopoly on international travel.” I think, ultimately, people kind of got behind that and lost all the other pre-thoughts about who Howard Hughes was or whether he would be a sympathetic character. And as far as history is concerned, a lot of people I spoke to said they really wanted Howard Hughes to be President after that. They really loved this one individual taking on the entire system, taking on the government, taking on huge monopolies and corporations. And that’s what, in other words, struck a chord emotionally for people, or me at least anyway.

There’s no denying that Howard Hughes is a man whose story is worth telling (and seeing). With its extravagant historical landscapes, fascinating roll-call of colorful characters, and sensational storytelling, Martin Scorsese not only brings a dead billionaire recluse back to life, he makes him a man of the people once again.

THE AVIATOR barnstormed its way in to American theaters December 17th, 2004.

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