The Aviator

Martin Scorsese directed the 2004 biographical drama The Aviator, which was written by John Logan. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, with Cate Blanchett portraying Katharine Hepburn and Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner. John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Alan Alda, and Jude Law appear in supporting roles. The story follows Hughes from 1927 through 1947, a period in which he built a career as a film producer and aviation magnate.

During these years, his severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) steadily worsened. The film was shot in Montreal and released in the United States on December 25, 2004, receiving positive reviews. With a budget of $110 million, it earned $214 million at the box office, making it a moderate commercial success. At the 77th Academy Awards, The Aviator led all films with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese, Best Actor for DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Alda.

It won five Oscars, among them Best Supporting Actress for Blanchett. The British Academy Film Awards gave it 14 nominations, including Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role for DiCaprio, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Alda; it won four BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Blanchett. The film received six Golden Globe nominations, including Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Blanchett, and won three, including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for DiCaprio.

At the 11th Screen Actors Guild Awards, it earned three nominations, including Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role for DiCaprio, and won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Blanchett. The plot begins in 1913 Houston, where eight-year-old Howard Hughes’s mother bathes him and teaches him the word “quarantine,” warning him about a recent cholera outbreak. Fourteen years later, in 1927, Hughes starts directing his film Hell’s Angels and hires Noah Dietrich to run his business empire.

After The Jazz Singer—the first partially talking film—is released, Hughes becomes determined to shoot his own movie realistically and converts it to a sound film. Though the film is a hit, he remains unsatisfied and orders it recut after its Hollywood premiere. He begins a romance with actress Katharine Hepburn, who helps ease his worsening OCD and germaphobia. In 1935, Hughes test-flies the H-1 Racer, setting a new speed record despite crash-landing in a beet field after running out of fuel.

Three years later, he flies around the world in four days, breaking the world record, and then buys a majority stake in Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA). His rival, Pan Am chairman Juan Trippe, enlists Senator Ralph Owen Brewster to introduce the Community Airline Bill, which would give Pan Am exclusive rights to international air travel. Hepburn grows tired of Hughes’s eccentricity and workaholism, leaving him for actor Spencer Tracy. Hughes quickly moves on to 15-year-old Faith Domergue and later actress Ava Gardner, though he still has feelings for Hepburn and bribes a reporter to suppress news of her affair with the married Tracy.

During the mid-1940s, Hughes takes on two Army Air Forces projects: a spy aircraft and a troop transport for World War II. In 1946, while the H-4 Hercules flying boat is still under construction, he finishes the XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft and test-flies it. One engine fails midflight, causing a crash in Beverly Hills that leaves him severely injured but alive. The army cancels its order for the H-4 Hercules, but Hughes continues development with his own money.

Dietrich warns him he must choose between funding the airlines or the flying boat; Hughes orders him to mortgage TWA assets to keep the project going. By 1947, Hughes’s OCD has worsened, and he grows paranoid, planting microphones and tapping Gardner’s phone lines until she kicks him out. The FBI searches his home for evidence of war profiteering. Brewster privately offers to drop charges if Hughes sells TWA to Trippe, but Hughes refuses.

His OCD becomes extreme, and he retreats into a “germ-free zone” for three months. Trippe has Brewster summon him for a Senate investigation, assuming Hughes won’t appear. Gardner visits, grooming and dressing him for the hearing. Reinvigorated, Hughes defends himself, accusing Brewster of taking bribes from Trippe.

He announces he is committed to completing the H-4 aircraft and will leave the country if he cannot make it fly. Brewster’s bill is promptly defeated. After successfully flying the aircraft, Hughes talks with Dietrich and engineer Glenn Odekirk about a new jetliner for TWA. He begins hallucinating and has a panic attack. Odekirk hides him in a restroom while Dietrich fetches a doctor.