As a member of the Screen Actors Guild, I receive screeners of all the films that are nominated for the SAG Awards, for which I have the responsibility to provide an informed vote. I really enjoy sitting down to watch a film to focus specifically on the costumes or stunts and how they serve the story. I love films, I love acting, I love the craft that each of the departments contribute to a movie.
Screeners also bring films to my attention that had not been on my radar … or even that I chose not to have on my radar. Mission Impossible 7 - Dead Reckoning was one of those films. I had not accepted a mission since 2011’s Ghost Protocol, and there had been three films since then. While the stunts were amazing, for which it was nominated for and won … Story wise, Sophie (my spouse) and I were lost through the entire film.
This was Sophie’s first Mission Impossible film and afterwards I shared that my personal favorite was MI:2. Sophie said; “How about we watch all of them?” - so we did. Over the next week we put aside the other screeners and watched all of the Missions in order. Including #7 Dead Reckoning again.
In short, I have a new found appreciation for the series and have come to understand that just like the Fast and Furious films, Mission Impossible is about family and moving forward together.
I also started thinking about what Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) could come to represent as a storytelling allegory.
Ethan and his team, Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Will (Jeremy Renner) navigate their missions with confidence in their skills and trust in each other. While Ethan leads the team, each member has different strengths and typically only Ethan is in the field. Ethan is the analog, on the ground doer while his team is the digital assist.
Many times when the corporate world and yuppies talk about team-building, they are really talking about mono-culture and subservience instead the true strength of a team which is about specialization, camaraderie and collaboration. Think of a baseball team, all the players go up to bat when it’s their turn - but when they play the field, they each have a specific role and set of skills they bring to the table. Working 1st base has different requirements than working 3rd, different than working right field. etc..
I digress …
Each member of Ethan’s team has a specific task and they know how to do it well. I started thinking about his teammates as Artists - mere mortals - while Ethan represents the spirit of creativity. Take this scene for example;
Abstractly,
• Will (Renner) is the representation of an artist that is about to go onstage or create something new. Risk.
• Benji (Pegg) is the practical assist, the methodology to do the task, order of operations (light then dark) and materials IE hot press watercolor paper and Winsor Newton series 7 brush.
• Hunt (Cruise) is the spirit and muse of creativity pushing the artist out of a comfort zone and becoming ever insistent. To the point that it pushes relationships away - represented here by Agent Carter (Paula Patton) squeezing the hand of the target. Shaken and driven to drink, Carter is soothed by Hunt, with what he calls; “a hunch.”
Ethan Hunt not only navigates with confidence, he also trusts his gut and instincts. I think this is one of the reasons why so many scenes throughout the series take place on a train. Moving forward, claustrophobia, lots of stops along the way, baggage, tunnels and broken tracks. For the spirit of creativity, there is no smooth trip.
Working in a creative field, it can sometimes feel impossible - see animation industry collapse - and there isn’t always a straight forward path. There are twists, turns and sometimes the tracks fall out from under you and the train goes off a cliff…and you have to climb back out. It is impossible and creativity helps us navigate these challenges. When Hunt is presented with assignments, the phrase; “If you choose to accept,” always accompanies the task and Hunt always accepts. I was reading about this line and there really is no ‘choice,’ Hunt HAS to do the mission. The line is simply to give mission control deniability about Hunt’s actions.
This makes me think about someone asking you about a finished artwork and your process; “What made you do that?!” - It’s now plausible for you to say; “I don’t know, I just kind of did it..”
My favorite line with the idea of Hunt as Creativity is in #5 Rogue Nation - in the beginning of the film, a cronie says while squaring off to fight with Hunt; “I have a little voice in my head that tells me what is good, and what is bad … and when I look at you … it’s silent.”
Creativity just moves forward, it’s neither good nor bad.
There’s a really funny scene (on a train) during #7 Dead Reckoning with Grace (Hayley Atwell) that begins with Hunt telling her to stop the runaway train, “How do I do that?!” she shouts as Hunt cooly says; “you’ll figure it out.” In this example, Grace represents Us, the individual.
Then (and I wish I could link this from youtube) a couple of moments later we see Grace just sitting in the train cabin staring into space - It’s so funny - when Ethan comes in (creativity) she stands like she was caught and they work on it together. My thought is that you cannot solve problems without creativity, but it’s also not ideal to just wait around for it during crisis.
While watching these films, we also watched a lot of the Making Of clips and I really appreciate how Tom Cruise talks about each of the stunts. He breaks them down and explains them not as an athlete, but as a dancer. Cruise is working for camera and is aware of his framing and compositional lines while performing the stunt. He also trusts and credits his team and repetitive rehearsal to pulling off the stunts. Glad that the team won for the stunts and we’re looking forward to the next film1. 😎
Related but unrelated - I read this article in research and thought it was interesting, though unrelated to what I wrote about.
A second article that breaks down similarities/formulas for the movie franchise. It’s simple - but some nuggets in there.