"Amelia"
Directed by: Mira Nair
Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor
Rated: PG
Many directors, when helming a "biopic," will take a great deal of latitude, use dramatic license or, in plain terms, simply make things up to embellish the facts surrounding the subject at hand.
I grew up thinking Harry Houdini died onstage because I had seen George Marshall's 1953 film "Houdini," starring Tony Curtis, on late night TV. Actually the great magician died in the hospital from complications of a burst appendix. The situation leading up to his death would make for a compelling third act of a film but Marshall decided dying onstage was more dramatic.
Director Mira Nair, however, has stayed close and true to the facts in her latest film, "Amelia," a biography about aviatrix and early feminist role model Amelia Earhart.
Nair has directed some beautiful, and moving, films over the past 20 years ("Salaam Bombay!," "Mississippi Masala," "Monsoon Wedding" and "The Namesake") but this is her first foray into something so purely anchored in Americana. While she stays close to the pure facts - the radio transmissions between Earhart and the Coast Guard ship Itasca are reportedly delivered verbatim in the film - Nair deals only with the years immediately preceding Earhart's last flight, disappearance and presumed death. A film sticking so closely to the facts would no doubt be several hours longer if it included Earhart's early years - which, after reading the multitude of online biographies of her, are quite fascinating.
There is a brief scene in the beginning of the film when the child Amelia, at home in Atchison, Kan., sees a plane flying overhead and knows then and there she wants to fly. This is one case where Nair does play with the facts. According to her biographies, young Earhart saw her first plane at age 10 at the Iowa State Fair and later wrote, "It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting."
It wasn't until 1920, in Long Beach, Calif., that Amelia took her first flight. Of that experience she wrote, "As soon as we left the ground I knew I myself had to fly!" In July of 1920, using money from her well-to-do mother, she purchased her own airplane and began taking flying lessons.
Nair's "Amelia" begins in the middle of Earhart's 1937 attempt at circumnavigating the Earth and unfolds in a series of flashbacks. The aviatrix had already gained a bit of fame when a wealthy older woman, who herself is too old to make the first trans-Atlantic flight by a female, is looking for a surrogate to accompany the pilot and crew.
Interviewing the candidates is George Palmer Putnam, the New York publisher who published the book about Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. Putnam is struck by everything about Earhart and she is chosen for the flight. Much ado was made about her being the first woman to fly across the ocean, but after the June, 1928 trip, Earhart - who was given the official title of "commander" on the flight- remarked that she was "merely baggage," and said, "I was a passenger on the journey ... just a passenger." Putnam was Earhart's champion and manager, arranging merchandising tie-ins that would be grand even by today's standards. The money made from the endorsements was used to finance Amelia's subsequent flights.
Putnam and Earhart eventually married in 1933. Ever an evolving feminist and a woman with ceaseless determination, Earhart wrote Putnam a prenuptial letter that included, "I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. Please let us not interfere with the other's work or play."
The film chronicles Earhart's first authentic solo flight across the Atlantic and then sets up the preparation for her flight around the world. Another character is introduced here, navigator Fred Noonan. Noonan is an interesting character and the film might have expanded a bit on the character. We find out he has a penchant for alcohol, something that disturbs Earhart greatly. At one point Noonan does get a bit tipsy and hits on his pilot, only to anger her. His apologies the next day are readily accepted, however.
In the final scenes of the film, we are witness to Earhart and Noonan's final hours, aided by the radio broadcasts made to the Itasca. Even though the final outcome is a matter of record, Nair and screenwriters Ronald Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, manage to create a good bit of dramatic tension.
"Amelia's" greatest asset is actress Hilary Swank, who not only is believable in action and dialogue but looks uncannily like Earhart. Swank has had a limited number of roles, but has taken every one to its maximum potential. If you haven't done so, watch her in "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby."
And for a straightforward biopic of one of the 20th century's true heroes and trailblazers, see her in Mira Nair's "Amelia."
Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.
