Page 371 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 10

observe the action from the point of view of the visitor, specifically
the hotel guest. However, all hotels, however modest, contain a
hidden universe where discretion is paramount and whose task it
is to control the action from backstage. Cinema history has not
ignored the dramatic potential of the lives of hotel employees. F.W.
Murnau’s 1924 production of The Last Laugh famously told of
the descent of a splendidly uniformed hotel doorman to humble
attendant in the basement cloakroom. In 2006, Bobby, directed
by Emilio Estevez, succeeded in creating a synthesis of the two
worlds. The setting is the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on
the day in 1968 when US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy
was assassinated. Taking a conventional view of the events, the
narrative skilfully combines the stories of 22 people, some of
them guests, others hotel staff, who will forever be marked by
the historic event they have witnessed. The movie is also a good
example of the problems encountered when filming in a hotel.
In fact, Bobby took a long time to make and was only possible
because the hotel where the assassination took place was due for
demolition and the director was determined to make the film
there. Apparently, the bulldozers moved in the minute the last shot
was completed.

1. 19-39. La Suisse romande entre les deux guerres, exhibition catalogue, Musée historique
de Lausanne, Payot, Lausanne, 1986, pp. 267-269.

Frédéric Schoendoerffer, Secret agents, France, 2004.
Editing creates a connection between the entrance of the Lausanne-Palace and
that of the Beau-Rivage Palace. The use of long focus has the effect of compressing
the architecture and making it more imposing.

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