Programme Details

On Night Waves tonight aviation pioneer and film mogul Howard Hughes was one of the world's most eccentric billionaires, a mythic figure in mid-twentieth century America, imbued with an aura of excitement, glamour and mystery. Although he made over nearly thirty films, and contributed enormously to the development of commercial aviation, his life has been little documented. Now however Hughes takes centre stage in Martin Scorsese's new biopic, The Aviator. Scorsese's film attempts to decipher the enigma of Hughes's public persona, focussing on his life from the late 1920s though to the 1940s - a period when he was producing Hollywood movies and test flying innovative aircraft. The film also looks at his love affairs with Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, and chronicles his struggle with the obsessive-compulsive disorder that led him ultimately to isolate himself from the outside world. Is this the film that will see Scorsese winning the elusive best director Oscar, as some American critics have suggested?
Night Waves gives its verdict.

Also tonight, the literary critic Hermione Lee talks to Susan Hitch about her new collection of essays, Body Parts, which examines different approaches to life-writing. They're also joined by the biographer Richard Holmes to discuss the radically different ways in which a life can be rendered, in biography and autobiography, and in memoir and diary writing.

Plus, the historian Mark Mazower contributes another Big Idea of 2004, in which he assesses the most exciting idea to emerge in the field of history in the past year.

That's all in Night Waves with Susan Hitch 9.30pm on BBC Radio 3.





Presenter: Susan Hitch
Producer: Aasiya Lodhi







Additional Information
Body Parts: Essays on Life-Writing by Hermione Lee is published by Chatto and Windus.

The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese, is released at selected cinemas nationwide from Sunday 26th December certificate 12A.