The Aviator

I watched The Aviator a couple of nights ago on BBC-2. It was, oh, about the fourth time I'd seen it, but I never need an excuse to see a Scorsese film, and to have on on prime-time telly (not a common occurence) was too good to miss. I'd seen it twice at the cinema and once on TV already, but I still found it as fresh as a daisy.
This film is the one in which one can safely say Leonardo Di Caprio came of age. It's the first one I can think of in which he had to age, playing a fully-fledged adult, and he did it in style. I think it's a fantastic performance, but it received relatively little recognition, as did the film in general, which is pretty normal for Scorsese. OK. he got his Oscar last year, ostensibly for The Departed, but everyone knew it was a rather shamefaced recognition for a lifetime devoted to brilliant film-making. I thought The Departed was fine - comparing it to the good but comparatively run-of-the-mill American Gangster puts it into perspective. it's a far more substantial work. But, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, Raging Bull - I could go on, and on and on and on. I watch Goodfellas regularly, just to remind myself that there's no-one to touch Scorsese as a director, just in case I forget momentarily.
Anyway, The Aviator is a tour-de-force - little things, like the way in which Scorsese has filmed each period in Howard Hughes' life in the style of the relevant period. Washy colour for the 20s and 30s, then moving to the more strident technicolor of the 40s. I don't know whether that was Scorsese's idea, but he's very sensitive towards how his films look and would have made it possible.
I loved the justly-famous sequence at the Hepburn house in Connecticut - Katherine Hepburn, in the early days of her affair with Hughes, takes him to meet her large, patrician family at their country house. It's a gruelling experience for him as he endures their rat-a-tat, brittle conversation over the dinner table. Cate Blanchett justly won the best-supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Hepburn, but there are plenty of other superb performers on display in the scene, such as the marvellous Frances Conroy from Six Feet Under as Hepburn's mother. I could go on to list the many people who stand out in the film, often in small but telling parts, such as Danny Huston, Alec Baldwin, and Jude Law, not one of my favourite actors, who plays Errol Flynn, perfectly. (Law peaked, in my opinion, as Dickie Greenleaf, in the late-lamented Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley, another criminally-underated film, and hasn't done anything as good since). And of course the peerless Alan Alda as Senator Brewster, and Ian Holm. Plus an appearance from one of my favourite singers, Rufus Wainwright, singing in the Cocoanut Grove. What more could one ask for?
I love hearing Scorsese talk about film - I have a video of his history of American cinema, and I taped his Italian film history when it was on BBC-4 a few years back. He talks passionately and intelligently about cinema and I could listen to him all day. I won't be going to see his latest film Shine a Light - he loves the Stones, but I really can't pay to watch a bunch of sixty-somethings prance aroud the stage. I'll catch it on TV but I'll watch it because its Scorsese. The Stones story is, I suppose, over-familiar for me, stale and uninteresting.
Nevertheless, Scoresese's left a remarkable legacy, and even if he never makes another film again, which isn't going to happen, his films can be watched over and over again. The man loves the medium, and it shows in every frame.