December 16, 2004

A Character With Phobias? Scorsese Can Relate

artin Scorsese hates to fly. But merely popping a Valium or two before takeoff would not be enough for someone known for obsessiveness.

"I try to work out the weather patterns," he said, "where we're going and leaving from, and work out appointments, shifting things a few hours to get a better flight through the weather, or so we don't have to land during a storm." If Mr. Scorsese can't work out the weather patterns, he doesn't get on the plane (which is why he missed picking up his prize for best director, for "After Hours," at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986).

Yet for the past two years he has focused much of his pinball-machine energy on "The Aviator," a movie filled with razzle-dazzle flying sequences and more than one terrifying crash. "The more you learn about something you have a phobia about, at least you can deal with it," Mr. Scorsese said. Expensive therapy: the movie's budget was about $112 million.

Why did Mr. Scorsese accept what he calls "the assignment" of making a period movie about the aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, whose epic life had tempted many filmmakers, but not him? A glamorous billionaire, test pilot and Hollywood director, Hughes also built an airline and slept with many trophy women (among them Katharine Hepburn, played in the film by Cate Blanchett). "The Aviator," which opens tomorrow, begins in the 1920's, when Hughes came to Hollywood, and ends in the 1940's, before he became notorious for his elusiveness and weirdness and more or less vanished from public view until his death, in 1976.

Mr. Scorsese is famous for spending years nursing his "labors of love." But in between, he likes to work.

"Like an athlete, we have to keep in shape by getting there and trying to tell a story," he said. He described "The Aviator" as a workout indeed. As if dealing with all those scary airplanes weren't enough, Mr. Scorsese had to film in the desert, to convey Hughes's experience making his over-the-top aviation film, "Hell's Angels" (1930).

"I found this to be almost impossible working conditions," Mr. Scorsese said. "I'm an urban person."

Later, he added: "I don't like shooting. Weather is bad, people are late, they get sick, cars don't work. It's an inconvenience. But the compulsion is always there."

But then, for Mr. Scorsese, nothing is easy, or at least uncomplicated, not even a cup of coffee. Interviewed on Friday in his Midtown office, he scolded an assistant for bringing his coffee too soon. "I want it when I sit down," he snapped. A few minutes later, sitting down, he looked for his coffee. "I wonder if they're going to microwave it now," he said. Then he asked, sheepishly, "When you drink two cups a day, the second cup's got to be right, don't you think?"

With "The Aviator," the pressure is on, because assignments should be hits, to enable quixotic auteurs to win backing for the movies they really want to make. Mr. Scorsese's labors of love - movies like "The Age of Innocence" (1993), "Kundun" (1997) and "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988) - aren't the kinds of projects studios line up for. His most recent film, "Gangs of New York," released two years ago, was a 25-year labor of love whose box office returns weren't overwhelming in relation to its $100 million budget.

Jay Cocks, a screenwriter who is Mr. Scorsese's friend and sometime collaborator (on "The Age of Innocence" and "Gangs of New York") explained the difference for audiences: "Movies like 'Age of Innocence' are what my wife calls eat-your-spinach movies. 'The Aviator' is not an eat-your-spinach movie. This is dessert."

At least that's the hope. As Hughes, Leonardo DiCaprio is meant to supply the sugar rush for the young moviegoers who make films into blockbusters. Mr. DiCaprio has been the driving force behind "The Aviator." He is the reason it was made and the reason Mr. Scorsese, who directed him in "Gangs," was offered the picture when Michael Mann decided not to direct.

But the Howard Hughes story is far from all whipped cream: Mr. Scorsese shows him locked in a room compulsively drinking milk and refilling the bottles with his own urine. This became a ritual for a man who was germ-phobic to the point of madness. Maybe Mr. DiCaprio can't resist showing he isn't just a cute guy, but will his fans want to see him like this in a movie that runs nearly three hours?

"The potential to lose is great, which is how Howard Hughes led his life," acknowledged Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax Films, one of the picture's backers. "If 25-year-old kids don't know Howard Hughes, there is still the maverick sensibility and DiCaprio, who is of their generation, the perfect instrument to sell the story."

The effusive Mr. Weinstein is being low-key (for him) regarding Mr. Scorsese, after Miramax's all-out Oscar effort for "Gangs of New York" didn't succeed. The movie won 10 nominations but no Oscars, though Mr. Scorsese won his first Golden Globe as best director. (He is up for another, one of six Golden Globe nominations "The Aviator" received this week.) "The lesson of 'Gangs' was that we, me in particular, pushed it too hard," Mr. Weinstein said, an interpretation Oscar voters may welcome.

At 62, Mr. Scorsese has spent half his life negotiating Hollywood. He is no shrinking violet behind the camera or in front of it. Mr. Scorsese felt he could understand the competing impulses - phobias included - driving Hughes. "He seemed happiest when he was up there flying alone," Mr. Scorsese said. "That sense of being locked off, hermetically sealed from the world below, away from the germs, all the difficulties and the shyness and the extraordinary need and hunger for fame, all of that is like a god flying in the air."

Mr. Scorsese said he saw flying as a metaphor for the artistic process. "Flight isn't just about being in a plane," he said. "You can fly when you write a novel, when you paint a picture." Or, he agreed, when you make a movie. "I would like to think that kind of flying may be just as dangerous," he said. "If you don't get killed in a plane, you can still have your spirit killed."

Sputtering like an engine going at too high a speed, Mr. Scorsese enthusiastically described the excitement he felt filming Hughes as he pushed an airplane so hard that the instrument panel collapsed. Clearly, being in hyperdrive interests him.

While making "The Aviator," he played an animated character (Sykes) in "Shark Tale," served as producer on several films and television shows and worked on his two-part documentary about Bob Dylan. He has also been developing films. One is another assignment, a gangster movie; the other, a collaboration with Mr. Cocks, is about Portuguese Jesuit priests in 17th-century Japan. They've been working on that labor of love since 1990.

No wonder he's fussy about his coffee. And what happens if he has a third cup? He replied with a short, fast laugh, "I'd get sent away."