Martin Scorsese on The Aviator

The great American filmmaker talks about his biopic of that great American aviator, mogul and eccentric, Howard Hughes

Comment on this feature >

"I'm very phobic about flying," says Martin Scorsese, "but I'm also drawn to it." Just as well really, given the title and the subject matter of his new film. The story of billionaire Howard Hughes, the germ-obsessive who lived the latter years of his life holed up in a Las Vegas hotel suite, The Aviator is based on his early life as a movie mogul and aviation pioneer who broke speed records and dreamed about opening up the skies for everyone. It's a side of Hughes' life that not many people know about and even Scorsese admits to being a little ignorant of these aspects prior to reading the script.

He knew about Howard Hughes the recluse, of course, and growing up he was aware of the name from seeing it on RKO Radio Pictures. In addition his father's favourite films were Hughes' Hell's Angels and Scarface, but the idea of doing a biopic was never on the cards. "When I got to Hollywood in 1977 [the year after Hughes died] people were always talking about doing the Howard Hughes story so it was not my territory," Scorsese remembers.

That changed when Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Mann (who together had been developing the film for a number of years) sent him John Logan's script for The Aviator. "I started reading it and the opening scene had Howard Hughes directing Hell's Angels, so immediately I was hooked on the Hollywood angle. But I was a little nervous reading it knowing that it was Howard Hughes and wondering how far it would go. I think what locked me in was that it only took 20 years of his life - and I think the most productive 20 years, the 20 years in which his visions and obsessions with speed and aviation formed in a way that still affect us today."

Next page • "A visionary obsessed with speed, I understand that obsession"