In Los Angeles, rumor has it that there are two categories of people who settle down at the Château Marmont, those on the way up and those on the way down. The 63-room establishment at 8221 Sunset Boulevard is one of the world's most famous, and the legendary tales are everywhere.
Every nook and cranny of the building, built in the late 1920s and inspired by the Château d'Amboise (northwest France), is rich with anecdotes, a testimony to Hollywood mythology –superb or gloomy, or even both at once. Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, released in France at the beginning of 2011, falls precisely into this in-between category. Johnny Marco, played by Stephen Dorff, is a very famous actor. But he's going through an existential crisis from which he can't escape. A minor injury immobilizes him in his room at the Château Marmont. His ex-wife appears and leaves him with their 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning).
How autobiographical is Somewhere, which was presented at the 2010 Venice Film Festival and was the winner of the Golden Lion? One thing is certain: Coppola knows the reality of Hollywood better than anyone. She grew up in it and has witnessed its disillusionment since childhood.
In interviews at the time of the film's release, the American confessed that some scenes were inspired by personal moments, such as a day in Milan when she and her father, Francis, tasted all the varieties of ice cream from room service. In Somewhere, this leads to a scene in which Johnny and Cleo revel in silver bowls while watching an episode of Friends dubbed in Italian. The film couldn't have been set anywhere but the Chateau Marmont. During filming, Dorff stayed there, immersing himself in his character, getting lost in the hallways at night, wandering the terrace, watching TV and the chaos of the world from the somewhat decrepit comfort of his room.
Coppola's previous feature was Marie Antoinette (2006), a flamboyant film full of gilding and Versailles extravagance. For Somewhere, the director sought a simpler aesthetic. With her cinematographer, the highly respected Harris Savides, who died in 2012, she studied photographs taken at the Château Marmont by Helmut Newton, a photographer who died of a heart attack at the wheel of his car here in 2004. She also studied the classicist portraits of Bruce Weber and the purity of the more radical filmmaker Chantal Akerman. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what's true or false in Somewhere, only how Coppola managed to make the hotel the echo chamber of a certain melancholy.
Chateau Marmont, 8221 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90046, US.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.