Moment of Truth: Ron Galella and Leon Gast on the Revealing Paparazzo Doc Smash His Camera

Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. Today we hear from paparazzo Ron Galella and filmmaker Leon Gast about their new documentary Smash His Camera which opens Friday in limited theatrical release.

It might be the healthiest creative relationship Ron Galella has ever had: As the subject of Oscar-winner Leon Gast's latest documentary Smash His Camera, the infamous paparazzo gets to tell his side of a career-long story that includes getting punched by Marlon Brando, sainted by Andy Warhol, outfoxed by Robert Redford, and, most famously, tangling with his beloved Jackie Onassis on the streets and eventually in court. It's an entertaining, disturbing and at times cathartic portrait of how we perceive celebrity -- or at least how we perceived celebrity, now that Galella's successors have veered away from his artistic path into more aggressive, exploitative pursuits and measures.

To Gast's credit (and not surprisingly at all, really), Camera doesn't bow to Galella. His enemies have voices, and again, his legacy has more than a few long shadows drawn into sharp focus here. But its most interesting revelation is its vision of Galella as a working man -- one who loves his job, but one whose idea of glamour is far removed from the product of his labors. He makes art, tons of it, showing up to the assembly line every day, always ready to make more. Galella doesn't take pictures as much as he searches.

For what, though, is ultimately unclear. Smash His Camera reveals just enough to provoke that determination among viewers -- or least for this viewer, who took his questions straight to the sources.

Ron, how did you come to meet Leon Gast in the first place?

RG: Actually, you see, the producer, Adam Schlesinger, his father, Stuart Schlesinger, tried my case with Jackie in 1972. It was a 26-day court battle. Adam called Leon, and they approached me on the phone: "Are you interested in making this documentary?" And they came to my house; I said, "You're welcome, and we're flattered that you want to do it." He had good credentials; he's an Academy Award winner for When We Were Kings some time ago. That's how it started. It's mainly from the trial with Jackie. And of course she won in court, because she had a judge that President Kennedy appointed. I had two trials! He heard both of them. There was the one in 1972, where I got the injunction to stay more than 25 feet [away from Onassis], and then in 1982 I broke that injunction and I faced seven years in jail and a $120,000 fine. So I surrendered all three -- Jackie, John Jr. and Caroline -- from shooting them forever. The injunction still remains for Caroline. If I even take a picture, she can go to court.

What if Caroline had run for Senate, which she came close to doing in New York?

RG: I would have to get permission. That almost came about.

How can a public figure running for national office prohibit a photographer from taking her picture?

RG: She's like her mother. She likes privacy. In fact, she had a book out about privacy, and when they had her on TV, she skipped the question about me and Jackie. I think she has guilt, because she testified about one of the takes where she was riding her bike in Martha's Vineyard. She said she almost fell off her bike, which is a bunch of baloney. I think she has guilt that she did it for her mother to win the case.

Well, back to you and Leon: When you told him, "Be my guest," what did "all-access" mean? Was there anything off limits? Any topics or subjects?

RG: No. There was generally no off-limits. They shot over 50 hours of film. It's crazy. A lot of the stuff they left out was great. Like when we had the Italian government sponsor a big exhibit for the book I did, Viva Italia. The government made me a citizen. It was a big thing. Oh well.

How did you respond to the other photographers' and artists' impression of your work as seen in the film?

RG: I didn't like that guy Hoving from the Met. [Thomas Hoving, late director of the Metropolitan Musuem of Art.] He was the worst. He had 10 years at the Met, and he traveled around the world collecting paintings. I believe he was negative for two reasons: First, he doesn't believe photography is an art. Second, Jackie was on the board of the Metropolitan Museum, and he was doing her a favor when he didn't want me represented. That was out of respect to Jackie. But this makes him look like a hypocrite, because there he is when he's younger, smiling into my camera. There's a second shot that they didn't put up of him in his bow tie, smiling into my camera. So to me he's a hypocrite. And I think he's wrong: Photography is the art of today. And that's my achievement: Getting my pictures into museums. We sold a picture here yesterday of Jack Nicholson -- $1,400. Five of my pictures are at MoMA in New York.

Leon, were you a fan of Ron's before making the film?

LG: No. I grew up in New York City, so I was subjected to a barrage of anti-Ron Galella media -- radio, television, newspapers, magazines... I had this preset notion of who Ron Galella was, what he was like. I spent a couple of hours with him and was convinced after hearing his M.O. and having done a little bit of research. I read Jackie O.'s biography by Kitty Kelley, and she touches on his relationship with Jackie Onassis. His -- he's part of the book. Jackie was a control freak. Jackie loved publicity, but she wanted the publicity on her terms: "You can take my picture, Ron, when my people say it's OK to take it." I might be distorting it a little bit.

RG: [Shakes head] No.

LG: Ron operates on the premise, "I'm the artist, and I'll take your picture when I want to take your picture."

RG: The point that she made in court... See, she used to be a photographer. And My lawyer asked, "Didn't you take pictures without permission?" She said, "No, I asked permission when I took pictures." So that's why she was against me: I didn't ask permission. But if I asked permission, then I would never get my pictures the way I wanted. Spontaneous expressions only come when you don't pose for pictures.

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