The Aviator -

The scene where Hepburn breaks up with Hughes is a masterclass. She tells him, with devastating honesty, that he is "a man who washes his hands until they bleed." She loves him, but she cannot drown with him. Blanchett won the Oscar, and watching the film again, it’s clear she deserved it for that single scene alone. The Aviator ends on a haunting note. Hughes, now fully lost to his compulsions, sits alone in a dark room, whispering the words of his younger self: “The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future.”

In one of the most harrowing sequences in Scorsese’s entire filmography, Hughes locks himself in a screening room. He is naked. He has surrounded himself with jars of his own urine. He repeats the same phrase over and over, unable to touch a door knob, paralyzed by the fear of germs. the aviator

But here is the tragedy the film lays bare: The Horror of the Locked Door Where The Aviator transcends the typical biopic is in its unflinching portrayal of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is not a quirky character trait added for flavor. It is the monster in the room. The Aviator ends on a haunting note

It is brutal to watch. We go from the sleek, art-deco skies of the 1930s to the sticky, sweaty hell of a single room. Scorsese doesn’t allow us to look away. He forces us to realize that the man who built planes that broke the sound barrier couldn’t open a bathroom door without a bar of soap as a shield. Visually, the film is a feast. Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson used a specific color grading process to mimic the look of early two-strip Technicolor for the 1920s/30s sequences—giving the skin tones a pale, ghostly, almost unrealistic hue. Then, as we move into the 1940s, the palette shifts to saturated, deep reds and blues.

At first glance, it has all the trappings of a standard “great man” Hollywood biopic. We have the rise, the fall, the quirky genius, and the period costumes. But on a second (or third) viewing, it becomes clear: The Aviator isn’t really about aviation. It’s about the prison of perfectionism and the terrifying cost of staring directly into the sun. Leonardo DiCaprio, in what should have been his first Oscar-winning performance, plays Howard Hughes: the eccentric billionaire, film producer, and aviation pioneer. The film doesn’t show us a hero; it shows us a force of nature.