The actor:	Leonardo DiCaprio
The character:	Howard Hughes
The film:	The Aviator
The line:	“The way of the future.”

I know what you’re thinking. The one I’m pointing to is the last one, not one of the few dozen that he rattles off in the couple minutes of screentime just before, not even one of the ones that he says while he’s staring into that dark mirror in that restroom, looking at the boy in Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E looking back at him. The last four of these are all different from one another.

“The way of the future”-alpha. A sad, plaintive stare into the mirror. Begging to be released from this panic attack, this series of hallucinations from the illnesses of his past and of his present. Right before it, there’s this look of resignation in his face. How often bathrooms are the scene of little tragedies for Howard Hughes. They put sinks other places, but they don’t put sinks in places where no one else is able to disturb you. He washes his hands until the skin breaks and he cuts himself in one sink. Howard cannot offer a towel to a man on crutches because, pointedly, he is the one who is paralyzed. The man with the crutches is slowed, discomfited; Howard’s mind is trapped within his mind, and his body cannot decipher who should be giving the orders.

“The way of the future”-beta. He’s recovered an iota of himself. His jawline hardens a little bit, his eyes narrow a little bit. The way he says “future” in this is quieter than any other time that he says it. It’s a whisper, unaffected by the nasal voice and country accent that fools so many cultured types throughout the film. “Future” sounds like DiCaprio himself, the quintessential Southern California boy. He blinks with both eyes, hard, like an invisible hand has smacked the back of his head but another has held his chin in place. Only the eyes react. A reset, a defeat.

“The way of the future”-gamma. Common-sensical. “The way of the future” is now a phrase that might come out of your mouth without thought, a “good morning” or “not bad.” It’s “nmu” for Howard’s mind. It’s impersonal. His muscles twitch in his cheeks after he says it, like that flood of surrender which brought both of his eyes down at the same time in -beta. In -gamma the virus has descended into his bones.

“The way of the future”-delta. The one I’m ostensibly highlighting in this post. His head moves in this one. There’s a curt nod, one that isn’t actually a straight up-and-down but a forward motion as well. It’s less of a nod and more of a peck, not a statement of agreement but a forceful, unthinking muscular push like that which propels a chicken towards feed. “The way of the future” is where he has settled. He swallows again and his cheeks press in again. This is the cycle, and it’s begun again. He came so close in -beta to disrupting it, but in -gamma he failed, and now in -delta there’s this grimmest acceptance. This is, obviously, the way of his future, but more than that is displaces every other future that Howard has dreamed of. He dreams of films that swirl and move and do it with sound, of an airline that can take people comfortably from continent to continent, of airplanes with wingspans longer than a football field and airplanes that go faster than any previously built. Smoothness is what he loves. He loves the flushed rivets which offer little resistance to the air and none at all to his sliding hand. And, in the case of Jane Russell in The Outlaw, he implores his team to strive for “smooth titties, gentlemen, smooth titties.” There are no more dreams of smoothness or impossibilities or monstrosities in that swallow, and the film cuts harder to black than I’ve ever seen before.