One of the more intriguing, entertaining documentaries of this year's Sundance Film Festival, Smash His Camera tracks the life's work of self-described "paparazzo superstar" Ron Galella. Perhaps best known for relentlessly hunting Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her family (until a judge issued a restraining order that stands against Galella to this day) and once incurring a Marlon Brando knuckle sandwich that knocked out five of his teeth, Galella was also a dedicated tracker of Sundance founder Robert Redford. The film features a certain level of détente between Galella and Redford -- enough so that the shutterbug actually gets close enough to hand Redford his latest book -- but it definitely wasn't always that way. Click through for Redford's somewhat lengthy, wholly fascinating story about the lengths Galella used to go to to get his shot -- and the lengths Redford went to to dodge him. Also: Galella's exclusive response to Movieline!
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While talking on Monday to Galella and Camera director Leon Gast, the photographer confirmed the story's veracity -- but had a few clarifications to add as well.
"Yeah, I just said, 'Well, he's that way,'" Galella told me at Gallery Mar on Main Street, where an exhibition of his classic black-and-white work is selling for anywhere from $1,300 to $2,500 per shot. "But I got one over on him. Many times I beat him to his apartment [in New York City] at 95th Street and Fifth Avenue. He said once at an event, 'How the hell do you beat me to my apartment?' And I said, 'Well, I go through Central Park. There are fewer lights there, and it goes fast. Your driver goes up Madison Avenue hitting all those lights. But he's always been cooperative. I got him and his family at Tavern on the Green when his son graduated; I go to his apartment and he lets me in the building. He lets me shoot in the lobby and into the elevator -- the whole family. It's very rare that you can get a big star like that in his own lobby; the doorman will stop you. But he let me do it."