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The movie perfectly captures the early life of Howard Hughes. He was indeed the rather spoilt child of a very wealthy family in Texas. The young boy was fascinated by all things technical and this he probably inherited from his father, Howard Hughes Senior. He had invented a drill for the oil industry and had founded the Hughes Tool Company, which was extremely profitable <ref> Barlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele. Howard Hughes: His Life & Madness (New York, WW Norton & Company, 2004, p 14</ref>). Howard became very wealthy at the age of 19, because he inherited the majority of Hughes Tools, which was based in Houston, Texas. This allowed him to follow his passions and he had many of these. The wealth of the Texan is captured very well in the movie and it did allow him to live a lavish lifestyle and to fund his many projects. The movie portrays Hughes as a playboy in the roaring 1920s and 1930s and indeed this was the case. Scorsese in his movie manages to capture the drive and the sheer brilliance of Hughes. He was never idle and always had multiple projects on the go.

[[File: Hughes One.jpg|200px|thumb|left| Howard Hughes c1940]]

==Howard Hughes and the movies==

The Aviator shows Hughes spending a lot of time in Hollywood both as a producer and a party animal. In this regard the movie is accurate as Hughes was very important in Hollywood and part of its inner circle. Hughes uncle had been a writer and one of the early scriptwriters in Tinsel Town. The Texan because of the profits from his father’s company was able to use his own personal money to make films and he was able to operate outside of the studio system <ref>Barlett, p. 45</ref>. In the movie the young Texan millionaire is show as investing heavily in the movie Hell’s Angels a World War I epic. This was true, and it did go wildly over budget as portrayed the movie and lost a great deal of money. The Aviator portrays Hughes as gambling everything that he had on this movie and that he was a novice in the industry. In fact, Hughes had made movies before and he was an established producer and one of his productions had even won an Academy Award. The Aviator does show very accurately that Hughes movie Hell’s Angels was indeed a pioneering work in its realism and its use of special effects and it was and remains an influential movie <ref> Porter, Darwin. Howard Hughes: Hell's Angel. ( Chicago, Blood Moon Productions, Ltd., 2005), p 78</ref>. Scorsese’s biopic then chronicles the long involvement of Hughes in filmmaking. It correctly shows him as willing to back risky and controversial subjects. At the time there was a growing conservative backlash against Hollywood and there was increasing censorship of the cinema. Hughes did push back against this and he was frequently in trouble with censors over movies such as Scarface and The Outlaw. Scorsese shows Hughes being influenced by Katherine Hepburn with regard to censorship and as a result he takes a rather principled approach to the issue as a result. In reality Hughes disliked censorship because he believed that it was bad for box-office. He was always a business man and for him cinema was a glamorous business and not an art form.