For this 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Hollywood legend John Travolta returns to the Croisette with his first feature film, Night Flight to Los Angeles.
John Travolta is going to rock the Croisette. Thirty-two years after the coronation of Pulp Fiction, decorated with the Palme d’Or in 1994, the actor who played the character of Vincent Vega with the famous dance twist, John Travolta, is back at the Cannes Film Festival with his very first feature film: Night Flight to Los Angeles. The film is included in the Cannes Premiere section, his one-hour feature film adapted from his 1997 book “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” follows the story of a child who at night meets “his first love”, airplanes, which will soon be released on Apple TV.
A tribute to his late son
The 72-year-old filmmaker is himself a great aviation enthusiast; he holds numerous pilot’s licenses and is the owner of a Dassault Falcon 900, a Boeing 737 as well as an Eclipse 500 jet. The American celebrity has even had an airstrip in his Florida villa for a long time. In an interview for Business Jet Traveler, he offers us some keys to understanding the link between his passion and his feature film: “You will understand my passion for aviation. It’s about the golden age of luxury service in the air and how, ideally, we should still enjoy it today. HAS”
The film is all the more anticipated since John Travolta originally wrote his book for his eldest son, Jett, who suffered from epileptic seizures since childhood. He died at the age of 16 in 2009.
John Travolta made his film debut as an actor in 1975 on American television. In 1977, he quickly established himself by becoming the very symbol of the film with global success with Saturday Night Fever by John Badham then in his role in the musical comedy Grease the following year. He then became more discreet before returning to the forefront two decades later with the 1994 world triumph, Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino.
The ambassador of Hollywood cinema in Cannes
During this 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, John Travolta is one of the rare celebrities representing Hollywood. On the bill, James Gray’s film, “Paper Tiger”, with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, was not initially selected, so John Travolta could have been the only ambassador of the American film industry this year.
Despite his few successes, the actor has been experiencing a small slump in his career in cinema for several years. Indeed, as an actor, he certainly appears in numerous films, but these are so-called direct-to-film productions aimed at focusing on quantity rather than quality. Viewers have recently seen him in Cash Out, Speed Kills and Paradise City.
A roller coaster career
In the 2000s, the author of his biography, Philippe Durant, noted in particular that John Travolta “was living” in “films where he does not appear for very long, even when his name is large on the poster. This is the case for many actors of a certain age. De Niro or Pacino do the same thing. In fact, another generation has taken their place. But these former headliners still attract spectators. And for them, it becomes a routine that ensures their lifestyle.”
The main person concerned admits it himself: “The low moments, instead of seeing them as an evil, you must see them as a field of possibilities which opens up to everything that can happen to you again”, he said at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 when he presented the thriller “Gotti”, which will result in a commercial failure.
It is therefore with a first feature film that the filmmaker hopes to make us take off alongside him.
