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Top Gun

Screening on Film
Directed by Tony Scott.
With Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer.
US, 1986, 35mm, color, 110 min.

Tanned, muscled bodies glistening in the locker room and on the volleyball court give way to tight jeans, white pocket t-shirts, and leather jackets in the fading seaside light. In Paramount’s Top Gun, director Tony Scott, production designer John DeCuir, Jr., and costumer Bobbie Read (of Flashdance fame) have put a Herb Ritts photo spread into motion. The high concept shell is so glossy that it’s hard to take the film seriously as therapy for the Vietnam Syndrome. Still, the soundscape is pure Reaganism: layered effects of jet engines and weapons engagement trade off with a Giorgio Moroder-produced soundtrack with all the trimmings: classic rock (The Righteous Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis), pseudo-energetic pop (Kenny Loggins) and an Oscar-winning power ballad (Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away”).

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