Cannes 2013: Seen at the Carlton
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CANNES, France -- While the Cannes Film Festival turns all the hotels on La Croisette, this city’s beachfront main street, into advertising sites for new and upcoming films, the pride of place is always reserved for the grand dame of hostelries, the Carlton.
Very much an equal opportunity host, the Carlton ingeniously finds different spaces for all its clients. “The Great Gatsby,” for instance, is represented by enormous vertical posters, each one focusing of one of the film’s six stars, hanging down the front of the building.
If you looked quickly at the end of the dock at the Carlton Beach, right across from the hotel, you might think you were seeing the celebrated spectacles of Gatsby’s Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, oculist. But no, these glasses represent the returning little people in the forthcoming sequel “Despicable Me 2.”
CHEAT SHEET: Cannes Film Festival 2013
Also kid-friendly, and attracting nonstop camera attention, is the display for “Monsters University” next to the Carlton driveway, with larger-than-life statues of Mike and Sulley in all their glory.
The most ingenious advertising, however, is for the forthcoming zombie epic “World War Z.” A display facing visitors as they exit the Carlton’s front door shows a map of France with Cannes listed as being a “Safe Zone.” “This Is the Safest Place to Be,” one poster insists, while another implores viewers to “Stay Off the Streets.”
Cannes foot traffic being what it is, that is very sane advice.
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