Between the actor and the author: Tom Cruise, the fastest man in the world

Why does Tom Cruise run so much in his movies?

What is he after?

What is he running from?

At sixty years old, the American actor and producer once again boasts of his enviable physical form and his love of risk in

, a late sequel to one of the most mythical titles of his filmography and of the eighties,

(1986).

Cruise shows us with

that Tony Scott's original film, centered on a group of conceited young men who were trained as elite military pilots, was less important because of its patriotic and militaristic connotations —typical of the sociocultural climate associated with the Ronald Reagan's presidency—that because of

who breathed their images;

a sensation of vitality and optimism indebted to the video clip or the advertising spot, the most avant-garde recordings in the majority audiovisual of that time.

and vibrant aesthetic

of

's imagery found a suitable musical correspondence in its soundtrack: Jerry Lee Lewis's frenetic piano for

(1957), Giorgio Moroder's synths for

(1986).

makes dramatic use of

again , but in combination with an impossible ballad,

, written and sung by our

favorite alien

This factor, together with the monumentality that director Joseph Kosinski -who had already collaborated with Tom Cruise on Oblivion-

gives to the staging.

(2013)—results in the elegiac, twilight hues of

.

Cruise's brash military pilot in

, Pete

Mitchell, capable of the most unlikely feats of war at the controls of his F-14, is now a reluctant instructor whose legendary status continually threatens obsolescence. and death.

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Official Trailer 'Top Gun: Maverick'

However, despite his flirtations with defeat, with the assumption of the relentless passage of time, Maverick ends up appropriating the suicide mission for which he was training a new generation of pilots against the clock, and with it he revalidates the moral and professional presuppositions that have guided his life so far.

The military veteran gives a lesson to his pupils about the importance of trusting intuition and judgment in an era that has entrusted military supremacy to simulations, drones and artificial intelligence, and about an existentialist understanding of the fulfillment of duty that goes far beyond abiding by rules and respecting limits to embrace a full commitment to the work that we have decided to undertake in our day to day.

As was the case in two of his previous films, the extraordinary epics about the conquest of the useless

(2014) and

(2015), it is impossible not to think of Maverick's attitude as that of Tom Cruise himself, a case of exemplary actor/author according to essayist Alexander Walker's description of that dual figure: "The cinematographic effigy of actors and actresses, particularly if they are stars, merge sooner or later with the media and with their real life.

The trajectory of an interpreter thus ends up projecting an ethic, an aesthetic and a politics of being in the world that transcends its industrial pigeonholing to invoke a communion with the mythical, a mental stamp in which explanatory structures of reality crystallize”.

Cruise has forgone most of the stuntmen in the physical danger scenes, lending the story an unusual degree of truthfulness.

As a producer on

, Cruise merges back into his character.

He has forgone most of the stuntmen in the piloting, motorcycle riding and physical danger scenes, lending the story an unusual degree of truthfulness.

He has enhanced the plastic qualities of the image by opting for a colorful photograph, a cohesive montage and the least possible intrusion of digital effects.

He has been concerned about having the best possible technical and artistic team and has gone out of his way for his well-being during production.

And he has fought with whoever it takes to make the film have the widest and most dignified screening window possible in movie theaters.

Despite being a sentimental and unimaginative continuation of its predecessor,

achieves a certain greatness thanks to this comparison between actor and author, as occurs in the early scene in which Maverick exceeds Mach 10 and the metaphysical sense of his deed evokes the most sublime moments of

(1983) and

(1985).

All these ingredients end up making the film an exercise in resistance against the domination of

platforms and the degradation that its commitment to quantity over quality has meant for the forms and charisma of today's audiovisual.

Tom Cruise is possibly the last movie star as we have understood that concept in the last forty years, and

removes any doubt about it;

although, whoever has followed the trajectory of the actor / author knows that the implication that he has displayed on this occasion, put into practice with the innocence and enthusiasm of a

, is usual with him: “I am passionate about life, and cinema is my life.

And neither life nor cinema can be approached halfway.

You have to go all out with both, until the end”.

Tom Cruise receives the Palme d'Honneur at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18.VALERY HACHE (AFP)

The most striking symptom of this philosophy is the intense foot races that he has carried out in many of his films, converted by Cruise into a hallmark.

As a dialogue from

points out , He “he is the fastest man in the world”.

That quickness, the stunts that put him on a par with jovial silent-movie mountebanks like Douglas Fairbanks and Harold Lloyd, have served him well off-screen in dodging ongoing rumors surrounding his dating relationships, Scientology, and even his state of mind. that reached a critical point in 2005 with the famous episode of the sofa in an Oprah Winfrey television program.

The most interesting thing is that this incessant flight from reality and even from himself —because, under his smiling facade, Cruise is a riddle wrapped in a mystery within an enigma— has a tragic component, as it could not be less in the umpteenth incarnation of Jay Gatsby who represents the actor.

After all, although there are good films in Cruise's filmography, the whole gives off an impression of empty purposes and discourses, of a simple precision mechanism at the service of his psychological needs.

And

is no exception.

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