So The Aviator didn't get best picture... I can't say I'm surprised. The Aviator seemed to me to be a film callously designed to win the Best Picture Award, as a Scorcese's recent efforts seem to be. It's as if he knows time is running out, and wants a statue on his mantelpiece.

So what is The Aviator? Fundamentally it's a film without a heart. A study of fact and not of emotion. As Chris Rock described the film "It's a rich man who did stuff". It doesn't help that the film has little background : Scorcese had never had a passion for the films subject until he was assigned the project, and it shows. The film has no sould : it plays like an exercise in how to evoke Oscar-Winning Votes using a scale of "tragedy x scale + ambition - characterisation = oscar", instead of a film of great drama. (unlike Titanic, which is epic in scale and emotion). In "The Aviator" some guy goes mad, grows a beard, wees into a bottle, hides in a room chasing dreams, flys a couple of planes, and washes a lot and no effort is made to explain why. It leaves one cold.

Scorcese? Make films that inspire you and thus, the viewer, instead of movies that are all about size and scale, and forget the humanity of the tale. No wonder you didn't win. You can do it. Remember Casino, Goodfellas, Raging Bull?
We do.
- posted by Mark @ 12:47 pm