What is Thomas Jolly cooking up? The director made a big splash at the start of these Olympics, with an unprecedented opening ceremony – the first outside a stadium – hailed by the entire world. For the one that will close the two Olympic weeks in Paris, on Sunday August 11, he can already count on American actor Tom Cruise, according to the British media The Guardian. For his part, The Parisian announced the presence of two French rock groups: Phoenix and Air. The final note of the Games, the ceremony will have the mission of passing the baton to Los Angeles, the host city of the next edition.
While the opening festivities took place on the Seine and its surroundings, the closing ceremony will be confined to the Stade de France (Saint-Denis) – the venue for the athletics events. The duration has also been reduced since the show will only last two hours. Artistic director Thomas Jolly has let the ingredients of a thirty-minute show called “Records” (which also means “archives” in English) leak, mixing “wonder” and “dystopia”, a dark genre describing apocalyptic worlds.
The director explained that he saw the Games as a “fragile monument” and imagined with his team – the same as for the opening – that the Olympic Games had “disappeared and that someone was recasting them in a rather distant future”. In a short sequence already revealed, “travellers from another space-time arrive on our Earth and discover vestiges linked to the history of Olympism”. Acrobatic dancers straighten giant rings – symbols of Olympism – before climbing them.
According to American media, Tom Cruise could perform a stunt for the Stade de France crowd and ensure the passage of the Olympic flag between Paris and Los Angeles with videos shot on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the other international stars who could accompany him, actor Omar Sy – a darling of the French public and based in Los Angeles – seems like a logical choice.
From the sound “French Touch”
As for the soundtrack, The Parisian designated the French groups Air and Phoenix, from the artistic movement of the “French Touch”. The group Phoenix, whose singer Thomas Mars is married to Sofia Coppola, is enjoying great success in the United States. Winner of the Grammy Awards in 2010, it filled Madison Square Garden in New York that same year, inviting Daft Punk on this occasion.
Interviewed Wednesday on RTL, Thierry Reboul, executive director of the ceremonies, kept “a part of mystery”. If these names “are correct, we will be very happy. If they are other names, if there are more, […] “We can be trusted to have a really complete line-up,” he said. On social media, some are dreaming of a presence by Beyoncé, whose support for Team US has been strongly displayed on the Internet.
In addition to the handover of the Olympic flag between the mayors of Paris and Los Angeles, several protocol highlights are planned: the presentation of the last medals, a parade of athletes, the extinguishing of the flame and the proclamation of the closing of the Games by Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee.