Vox Nova at the Movies: Bobby

Bobby is an average movie about the (mostly fictional) lives of a diverse group of people at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles on that June day in 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. But when the movie portrays the assassination, something amazing happens. As we see Kennedy dying, with all the chaos and heartbreak surrounding the scene, we hear a voice-over of some of Kennedy’s most inspiring rhetoric. He speaks of the futility of violence, the fact that violence only breeds more violence, and that too often we honor swagger, bluster, and force. For what has violence ever accomplished, he asks, what has it ever created? These words resonate today as they did during the dark days of 1968. Watch the whole thing. It’s deeply moving. I cry each time I hear it.