My Favorite Underrated Martin Scorsese Film: The Aviator

The last time I saw a Leonardo DiCaprio movie

It has been almost two decades since The Aviator was in the theaters, and I just absolutely refuse to rewatch it. Or anything that stars Leonardo DiCaprio, for that matter. I won’t even rewatch Titanic, and I was crazy for that movie! I did love this Marty-Leo collab (their second; they are now up to six) when I first saw it in the cinema. But that was a few years before I met my husband.

And together we have made a pact that we will not give this actor any more of our time and dollars. Ever again. So, for the latest Scorsese-DiCaprio joint, I’ll just read the actual Killers of the Flower Moon book that I got instead. How ya like that, Mr. King of the World!

Luckily, there’s plenty else about The Aviator to enjoy other than LD who unfortunately is in pretty much every scene, being the titular character. But as I have already warned you guys, I am mostly going by my recollection from seeing this movie once. An entire new generation of newborns could now be college sophomores — that’s how long it’s been. I did do a very cursory review of the IMDb entry. So passengers, fasten your seat belts, cuz this “review” is gonna have some turbulence! ✈️💺👩‍✈️

Eric Pierce recently wrote about how he “misremembered” stuff about another movie, which also stars the incomparable Cate Blanchett. Well, I can do you one better Eric. Because not only did I forget a whole bunch of the cast and plot, but in my initial knee-jerk memory of the film, I honest-to-God assumed that the aviator was Cate and that she played Amelia Earhart. You know, a real pilot and brave pioneer of human flight and aviation, who better fits the actual dictionary definition of the word “aviator.” Not this Howard Hughes guy.

I am old, but even I hardly remember what Hughes was famous for, other than you see his name on some models of aircraft whenever you go to an air and space museum. To be honest, I always confused him with William Randolph Hearst because they were both larger-than-life, Rupert Murdoch-type moguls. I recall thinking that when The Aviator trailers first came out, I was like “Oh, this is gonna be about the actual real dude, not like that movie where they changed his name to Charles Foster Kane.”

I do fondly recall though, that there was a golden age of airlines. But when I was a little kid, Pan Am was the iconic carrier, not TWA. Several other directors wanted to make a movie about this part of Howard Hughes’ life, prior to Scorsese. However, those earlier endeavors didn’t get off the ground (pun intended).

So who played Amelia Earhart in the movie?!

As you can see in the cover photo, the non-LD cast is incredible. In addition to Cate, who portrayed Katherine Hepburn and won an Oscar for it, there’s Jude Law, 😍 who played Errol Flynn and was actually the main draw for me. Besides them and Kate (with a K) Beckinsale as Ava Gardner, I honestly didn’t remember the rest of the cast, apart from Gwen Stefani, whom I was pumped to see in her acting debut. But she had only one itty bitty scene toward the end.

So that was a disappointment, but the film also apparently starred Alan Alda in an Oscar-nominated role, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Ian Holm, and Adam Scott?! I was the biggest Alec Baldwin fan back in the day, so I can’t believe I forgot about him. But now that I think about it, he had quite a lot of scenes and played a character who was not one of those legends of the silver screen.

I forgot that whole part of the plot — what do actors like Katherine Hepburn and Errol Flynn have to do with the aviation industry or TWA Airlines?

OK, so the burning question — was Amelia Earhart a character in the movie or not, and if so, who played her? Turned out, the famed aviatrix was indeed originally written into the movie and was to have been played by future Glee actress Jane Lynch. But just like the real Amelia Earhart, Jane’s role ended up in the Bermuda Triangle — entirely edited out and left on the cutting room floor.

Um, so that’s about all that comes to mind for me as far as The Aviator. Truth be told, and this will come to absolutely no surprise whatsoever to any regular readers I have, but I just didn’t get out to see a whole lot of movies. Scorsese or otherwise. So, I just picked this one to respond to Simon Dillon’s writing prompt, since I thought it would be a fun way to finally reveal what I had previously teased to him…

My husband used to work for Leonardo DiCaprio

It started out very promising — he was even a guest in Leo’s mom’s house at Leo’s invitation, and my hubs said she was a nice lady and host. But did he ever get to meet Leo himself — noooo.

I can’t tell you everything, as I am trying to keep this article under 1000 words, but we didn’t even get a stupid autographed Titanic poster after my husband’s employment under Leo came to an end. So, the part about Bar Rafaeli (Leo’s supermodel girlfriend at the time) will have to wait. I know you have many options when it comes to pop culture writings, so thank you for choosing my essay on The Aviator to read today!