The Glamour of Flight
The new movie about Howard Hughes could have had any number of titles, from the simple Hughes to the inflation-ignoring America's First Billionaire. But no alternative would have the magical attraction of The Aviator.
From the days of biplanes and silk scarves, the aviator has been the archetype of masculine glamour. Aviators have personified national ideals, from French elan to Soviet party discipline. They've inspired lust and admiration. They've turned sunglasses and short, utilitarian leather jackets into fashion statements. "Glamour boys," the press called Royal Air Force fliers between the wars, and the nickname stuck through their finest hour.
Charles Lindbergh's glamour was once as potent as any movie star's, powerful enough, imagines Philip Roth in his latest novel, to topple Franklin Roosevelt. When George W. Bush stepped on to an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, he wrapped himself in the aviator's aura. So did Sen. John McCain when his 2000 presidential campaign used a portrait of the candidate as a handsome young flier.
If glamour is, to quote from a fashion blurb, "all about transcending the everyday," what could be more transcendent than flight itself? Even today, when commercial air travel has become a dull yet stressful routine, a photo of a jet in the sky still has a glamorous power. It promises to transport us out of the everyday, to take us away to some better place.
Director Martin Scorsese, in an interview with The Boston Globe, recalls reading the Aviator script and "imagining Hughes up there in the clouds, flying over the world, that is transcending the mortal self." His movie is all about transcendence, aspiration, and illusion. It portrays glamour for a cynical, media-savvy age.
That's the beginning of my latest article. Read the rest here.
The smartest review of The Aviator I've read is David Edelstein's piece on Slate (though I'm guessing he's not a No Doubt fan, since he seems not to know who Gwen Stefani is). Roger Ebert's review is also good, noting that if Hughes "had died in one of the airplane crashes he survived, he would have been remembered as a golden boy." The movie opens nationally on Christmas Day.