The world upside down is that the protagonist of
Risky Business
and father of the iconic sentence "Show me the money" suddenly becomes the biggest attraction at the Cannes Film Festival alongside, for example, David Cronenberg.
And we are not talking about the red carpet, or not only, but all of it.
A giant helmet with the name of Maverick occupies an exceptional place on the Croisset.
And that happens at the same time that the Debussy room, the one dedicated officially and regularly to the select
Un certain regard
, gives the actor, protagonist and factotum of
Top Gun: Maverick
(hence the helmet) a gala session with all the honors
.
«No star», artistic director Thierry Frémaux commented the day before, «has dedicated his entire life to cinema like him.
Neither series, nor commercials, nor anything... Only cinema».
Have you felt the pressure of releasing your film on a platform?
“That will never happen.
Never”, replies emphatically Tom Cruise to the host of
a meeting with more than a thousand accredited that has both a tribute and, hurrying, an apology
.
If Cannes wants nothing to do with Netflix, neither does Tom Cruise.
If movie theaters remain the last (and first) meaning of this invention, Tom Cruise is there to say it loud and hyper.
It is no longer about Martin Scorsese, Coppola, Almodóvar or Christopher Nolan, now he is the man who defined the formula cinema of the 80s, the flagship of the industry in its most
guilty
sense, the one who refuses to succumb.
In times of war, enemies from the past can become the best allies.
This being the case, the star appears clad in black and during the talk hour she does not stop for a single second to insist that cinema is her passion, her life and her love.
And to be clear, it goes to the beginning of everything.
«We all have a dream and cinema is mine.
I remember when I started in
Taps
,
beyond honor
and on the set I saw myself in front of George C. Scott.
He was General Patton
.
I wanted him to tell me everything.
He wanted to see how he works and learn each of his secrets.
And what I really learned is that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I, who had not studied in any acting school, who had never thought about what to do with my life before, suddenly became aware that I would never again leave that state of excitement
that the cinema gave me.
All of him."
In the aftermath of the meeting, he hardly gives an option to anything other than enthusiasm.
It seems that Cruise
understands the conversation as a state of mind
.
And generally euphoric.
That's how it was when he made his debut in a movie when he was 19 years old and that's how it seems to continue to be now with almost 60 impossible years.
In Melenchon's France, this man would be one step away from retirement
.
He says that the action scenes are performed by him.
In fact, that is what the person he is talking to says with a feigned surprised face and he limits himself to answering astonished by astonished: "Did anyone ever ask Gene Kelly if he was the one who danced?"
Of course, he confesses that he is afraid, but he is very careful to specify what exactly.
He remembers that as a child the game that he most entertained was
launch a paratrooper dummy over and over again
.
«Already then I was the one who climbed on the roof to pick him up when he deviated in his fall.
I guess the next thing had to be me with the parachute », he says and laughs.
And with him an entire room perfectly packed.
And delivered.
Shortly before the gala began, the screen summarized his career from Kubrick to
Rain man
through
Magnolia
,
Collateral, Born on the 4th of July
or
The Color of Money alongside
Paul Newman.
And all this without forgetting his dance in his underpants in
Risky Business
, his sweats in
1986's
Top Gun , his
endless impossible missions
or his hilarious bragging in
Austin Powers in Gold Member
.
It would seem that Tom Cruise has been capable of everything from all possible positions.
But always convinced of himself and of the cinema within the cinema.
«
I put on a hat and sit in the audience to see a premiere
.
I like talking to theater owners.
In fact, part of my job is to talk to all the departments that make cinema possible.
I want to understand their work, I want to help them », he comments in Cannes, in the Cannes that he wants nothing to do with Netflix.
And the upside down world turns right side up.
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