Guided 5: Why have we chosen this text?

[Hugo]

Guided 5: Why have we chosen 'The Aviator' ?

[JOsh R.E]

As reporter for tonight I guess I will be the one discussing the reasons as to why we chose "the aviator" as our text.

The aviator roughly follows the life of Howard Hughes played by Leonardo Di Caprio. The film follows Hughes' life primarily throughout his years of success from the late 1920's to 1947 during which time he gains mass popularity from his success as a film producer and aviation genius all the while becoming increasingly unstable due to his obsessive compulsive disorder.

You might be wondering at this point how does this film actually relate to the concept of the American Dream and of mice and men. We believe that this particular movie has many links with the movie and key ideas and themes represented in them. The movie centrally revolves around this one man dealing with superb difficulties chasing after this dream in this case to fly the fastest plane in existence at the time. Even though the outcome is different in the aviator the jounrey is very similar as both himself and Lenny and George have to go through immense difficulties and hardships to get to the final goal. What also strikes about this movie and of mice and men is the similarity in terms of seeking and keeping companionship. The aviator primarily revolves around Hughes' links with Eva Gardner who does help him through the tough times of his life such as the deep depression he sinks into. This is very similar to the companionship George and Lenny possess where George would be able to help Lenny out of most problems they were also bound by love also much like Eva and Hughes int he movie "The Aviator."

because of the links such as companionship, love, desire and the concept of having dreams and having them halted by problems and disabilities makes these two texts interconnected and a very interesting combination to study.

The Aviator promises to be a very interesting third text that our group will analyze and study enthusiastically.

[Steve Shann]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds ... and to having all of you (eventually) discussing all four questions online here.