ben there, done that for June 1, 2022
The origins of paparazzi
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Paparazzi - love them or hate them, they have become a fixture of our modern world. The word “Paparazzi” evokes images of pushy hordes of photographers crowding celebrities, all angling to get the best shot. While it might feel like this is a normal part of celebrity culture, it hasn’t always been this way. To understand the beginnings of the paparazzi, we’ll need to take a trip back in time to pre-WW2 Italy.
The dictator Benito Mussolini was an avid film enthusiast. Inspired by Hollywood, in the 1930s he constructed a grand studio complex on the outskirts of Rome called Cinecitta. While Italy remained under the fascist dictator, the studio was mostly relegated to making nationalist propaganda film, with, at best, mediocre results. The complex was closed in the final days of the war as the Allies bombed Rome. After the war came to an end and Mussolini was removed from power, a new wave of directors began to create movies about real life. A new style of film which dropped much of the propaganda polish for a grittier reality of life in post-war Italy became known as “Neorealism.” Unlike the propaganda that preceded them, such films became internationally successful and acclaimed. Rome subsequently claimed its place on the global cinema map. As time went on, the eternal city developed into a hot spot for filmmaking, resulting in the massive Cinecitta complex being reopened.
Soon, Hollywood productions started to move more and more large-scale productions to Rome. Ambitious and visionary directors fulfilled their dreams in lower costs and large-scale sets. Legendary movies like Ben-Hur, Fellini’s Casanova, and Cleopatra all came out of this era. This golden age of filmmaking ushered in an unprecedented number of famous movie stars to the eternal city. However, Rome’s new glittery glamour image displayed only one side of the story.
Post-war Italy was extremely challenged economically. While movie stars painted the eternal city red, the day-to-day reality for the everyday Italian was far less optimistic. Work was scarce and times were tough. Unable to find work, an enterprising group of unemployed photographers discovered an innovative way to pay bills. They perceived that tourists and newspapers would pay very handsomely for candid photos of the rich and famous. After a photographer captured images of a particularly scandalous 1958 high-profile party, tabloids and newspapers went wild for the images. Thus, freelance photographers realized that scandal pays. Consequently, they began to search for the most outrageous photos possible, hoping to secure a big payout. If celebs weren’t acting badly, the freelancers would even personally provoke them to do so.
This more realistic look into the lives of celebrities stood in sharp contrast to the perfect, glamourous image these stars projected to the world. Prior to this, the stars had been able to portray this polished exterior with little to break the illusion. As a result, such photographers depicted these larger-than-life figures as not so different from you and me. Interesting enough, the shattering of this illusion didn’t quell the public’s interest in celebrities. In fact, the published photos fueled a heightened curiosity. Exposing the flaws and shortcomings of the famous allowed us to see ourselves in their stories, resulting in a one-way false sense of connection to them. This phenomenon has dramatically intensified in modern times as smartphones brought cameras into the hands of everyone, and social media has given us all a place to publish.
The 1950s culture of uninvited photographers hounding famous movie stars on the streets of Rome became so ubiquitous that Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini decided to make a movie about it. In 1960, he released the groundbreaking three-hour film “La Dolce Vita,” or in English, “The Sweet Life.” The film was basically an autobiography of the eternal city’s golden age of film. The story also centered around the ravenous photographers who emerged from this era and, to a large degree, documented it. The main photographer of the story was named “Paparazzo.” Fellini once noted that the name was inspired by the sound of annoying insects like a fly or mosquito, reflecting the nuisance these photographers were to the stars. “Paparazzi” surfaced as the name for the profession, as we know it today, thanks to the international acclaim of the film.
