Almost everything that needs to be said about the career trajectory of celebrity photographer Ron Galella is contained is the shots of his sprawling basement archive in Leon Gast's Smash His Camera. There, old cardboard boxes are packed to the ceiling, marked with dispiritingly D-grade subject labels like "MC Hammer" and "Tim Conway" (one box each) and "Tony Danza" (at least three). Galella doesn't necessarily want to talk about those assignments, of course; he'd much rather talk about that time in Central Park in 1969 when Jackie Onassis told the head of her security detail to "smash his camera." It's Galella's obsession with following and photographing Jackie that provides much of the spine for Gast's sometimes amusing film -- but when it strays from that central story, the thinness of the whole conceit is laid bare.
A film about Galella -- one of the first great notorious American paparazzi -- has plenty of potential for exploring the celebrity/gossip nexus of modern society. This is what one interviewee calls the "push me / pull me" dynamic between celebrity and buzzing photographer, the former always waving the latter off but often still desirous of the dramatic fame that the hurriedly snapped on-the-street photo can provide.
Smash His Camera is not that film. Gast (When We Were Kings) seems to have waded into this subject without much of a road map, and left it to Galella to show him the way. To some degree this could have worked, as Galella initially comes off as a classically avuncular New Yorker, all smiling eyes, mushed-up face, and a Studs Terkel-like storyteller charm. Although many years past both his own prime and that of the business as a whole, Galella is still pounding the sidewalks, sneaking into supposedly private events, and trying to get that one shot. He's less likely these days, though, to get popped in the mouth by an annoyed Marlon Brando, as happened in the early 1970s and is related here with the expected ice-cold wit by witness Dick Cavett.
Gast's film tries hard to celebrate Galella's moxie and industriousness -- one segment details his setting up a secret aerie in a Thames-side warehouse to shoot a private party held on Liz Taylor and Richard Burton's houseboat. But it doesn't have all that much else to work with. There is some attempt at a discussion of whether Galella's photos, many of which have recently been getting placement in art galleries and modern art museums, could be considered art in the sense of a Walker Evans shot. But while Galella's black-and-white shots of celebrities at parties or on the streets sometimes have an on-the-fly drama to them (it could be argued that the collective memory of the Studio 54 era comes from his work), without the spark of interest caused by their subject matter, it's hard to imagine that they would be considered museum-worthy.
Uglier terrain is covered in Galella's semi-disturbing relationship with Jackie, whom he tracked for years (he says, "she was my girlfriend, in a way") and seems to have used as a primary income source. The flip side to his gleeful persistence (which becomes more grating as the film goes on) is a clear lack of self-awareness, which becomes more obvious when the film gets into the lawsuits that he and Jackie traded and that resulted in a restraining order. On the subject of whether Galella is simply a charming goof or "legal stalker," Gast and most of his interviewees seem to lean towards the former.
A little too late, Gast strays into more interesting territory near the end, as we see a young woman looking at Gast's classic shots of people like Steve McQueen and having no idea who they are. The shifting sands of celebrity and the paparazzi business (where now, as one person notes, you don't even need to be a decent photographer to get paid) have left Galella as just another face in the press line, remembering the glory days of Jackie and Liz and Brando, and wondering where his next check will come from.
A film about Galella -- one of the first great notorious American paparazzi -- has plenty of potential for exploring the celebrity/gossip nexus of modern society. This is what one interviewee calls the "push me / pull me" dynamic between celebrity and buzzing photographer, the former always waving the latter off but often still desirous of the dramatic fame that the hurriedly snapped on-the-street photo can provide.
Smash His Camera is not that film. Gast (When We Were Kings) seems to have waded into this subject without much of a road map, and left it to Galella to show him the way. To some degree this could have worked, as Galella initially comes off as a classically avuncular New Yorker, all smiling eyes, mushed-up face, and a Studs Terkel-like storyteller charm. Although many years past both his own prime and that of the business as a whole, Galella is still pounding the sidewalks, sneaking into supposedly private events, and trying to get that one shot. He's less likely these days, though, to get popped in the mouth by an annoyed Marlon Brando, as happened in the early 1970s and is related here with the expected ice-cold wit by witness Dick Cavett.
Gast's film tries hard to celebrate Galella's moxie and industriousness -- one segment details his setting up a secret aerie in a Thames-side warehouse to shoot a private party held on Liz Taylor and Richard Burton's houseboat. But it doesn't have all that much else to work with. There is some attempt at a discussion of whether Galella's photos, many of which have recently been getting placement in art galleries and modern art museums, could be considered art in the sense of a Walker Evans shot. But while Galella's black-and-white shots of celebrities at parties or on the streets sometimes have an on-the-fly drama to them (it could be argued that the collective memory of the Studio 54 era comes from his work), without the spark of interest caused by their subject matter, it's hard to imagine that they would be considered museum-worthy.
Uglier terrain is covered in Galella's semi-disturbing relationship with Jackie, whom he tracked for years (he says, "she was my girlfriend, in a way") and seems to have used as a primary income source. The flip side to his gleeful persistence (which becomes more grating as the film goes on) is a clear lack of self-awareness, which becomes more obvious when the film gets into the lawsuits that he and Jackie traded and that resulted in a restraining order. On the subject of whether Galella is simply a charming goof or "legal stalker," Gast and most of his interviewees seem to lean towards the former.
A little too late, Gast strays into more interesting territory near the end, as we see a young woman looking at Gast's classic shots of people like Steve McQueen and having no idea who they are. The shifting sands of celebrity and the paparazzi business (where now, as one person notes, you don't even need to be a decent photographer to get paid) have left Galella as just another face in the press line, remembering the glory days of Jackie and Liz and Brando, and wondering where his next check will come from.
