A formation of Air Force fighter pilots flies by, emitting the French tricolor in smoke over the festival palace in Cannes. Just as Tom Cruise is walking the red carpet on Wednesday evening for the gala premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 action classic. For a moment, the thronging crowds in the center of the French seaside resort look up, only to return their gaze and cameras to the star. Cruise is the Hollywood attraction of the 75th Cannes Film Festival, which, after a canceled edition and a rather modest edition, is finally packed again after a canceled edition due to the pandemic.
Where Cannes hosts the prestigious competition for the Palme d’Or reserves for the more artistic and innovative cinema, the festival on the Côte d’Azur likes to present it with some authentic American blockbuster violence. A mix where everyone thrives: prestige for the big titles, more attention for the little ones. At the same time, Cannes is also the main market for the purchase of films that have already been completed or are still in the making. Here the film industry gives itself courage: the hope that the cinema world will recover from the sustained covid damage.
Mission Impossible
Cruise also emphatically feels this as his responsibility, he explains in the afternoon during a public interview in a packed room. ‘I went to cinemas and there I talked to the people who make popcorn. I know how hard it is for you, I said. But know: we are Mission Impossible making! And Top Gun coming!’
Wasn’t there any pressure from the studio to have it ready for two years Top Gun: Maverick release on a streaming platform instead of in cinemas? “Wasn’t going to happen,” Cruise answers firmly, to the French interviewer’s question. “Absolutely not going to happen!”
The first reactions to Top Gun: Maverick are favorable. A solid over-the-top action movie, Cruise’s aging pilot character Maverick teaches a class of young top fliers how to blow up a high-security uranium enrichment base. Before an atomic bomb can be built somewhere in an unspecified but decidedly un-American place. The $152 million film full of exciting music, raging flight violence and nostalgic references to the earlier adventure can be seen in Dutch cinemas from next week.
No film festival on earth knows how to give an American star a hero’s welcome better than the Cannes festival. The 59 actor is killed during a ‘homage to Tom Cruise‘ addressed as a true ‘film author’, someone who – like a director – leaves his mark on everything he makes. For example, the French interviewer, who made a thorough study of Cruise’s oeuvre, would like to know whether there is a deeper meaning in the masks with which Cruise’s alter ego in the spy series. Mission Impossible disguised himself at first, but not anymore. “Does this mean Ethan Hunt is now exploring his own humanity?”
Cruise frowns no, but assures the audience of his deeply cinephile soul: ‘I know which lens was used and which lighting was used in all shots of my films.’
pr-averij
The star actor has rarely been tempted into an interview with any depth since he suffered PR damage in 2005 by jumping madly on Oprah Winfrey’s couch, with which he wanted to show his love for actress Katie Holmes. You also no longer hear from him about his Scientology faith, which he now mainly professes in private. When the romantic roles seemed to have dried up, Cruise successfully recreated his image and Hollywood self-image into that of the ultimate action star.
Cruise decided to give himself completely to cinema early in his career, the actor assures. “All I can do is do the best I can do. Every day.’ Applause from the audience. Cruise, excited: ‘That’s it! That’s it!†
Jump off the roof
When he was about 5 years old, the actor says, he once jumped from the roof with a set of sheets as a parachute. ‘This doesn’t work, I noticed right away. I fell face to the ground, saw stars for the first time during the day. But I was such a child. Over the years I have developed my skills. I’m aerobatics-pilot (aerobatic pilot), helicopter pilot, speed flyer (with a paraglider from mountains).’
Piloting his own fighter jet in Top Gun: Maverick wasn’t in it. The US Army, which provided an aircraft carrier and the necessary squadron of F-18 Hornets, also supplied the pilots and placed the actors in the back. They were filmed in such a way that it seems as if they are steering themselves.
Cruise broke his ankle jumping between two buildings for the previous part of Mission Impossible, in which he also performs dizzying helicopter maneuvers (all by himself). “They didn’t ask Gene Kelly why he danced himself?” Cruise answers when asked why he wants to do everything himself. ‘I want to see if I can do it. And I want to advance the action film as an art form.’