Jersey City native's documentary on paparazzo Ron Galella to air on HBO By Vicki Salemi/For The Jersey Journal June 04, 2010, 12:05PM Jersey City native Leon Gast won Best Director accolades at the Sundance Film Festival for "Smash His Camera,'' a documentary on famed papparazzo Ron Galella. The film will be shown Monday on HBO. Photographer Ron Galella captured unforgettable shots of celebrities like Sophia Loren. He is the subject of "Smash His Camera,'' a documentary by Jersey City native Leon Gast that airs on HBO on Monday. Leon Gast, a Jersey City native and winner of the Best Director accolade at this year's Sundance Film Festival, has a lot to say about his new documentary, "Smash His Camera," which premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. Monday. The film centers around Ron Galella, pioneer paparazzo from several decades of photography perhaps most known for his controversial photography of Jackie Onassis that landed him in court several times. Gast, a 1997 Academy Award-winning director for the Muhammad Ali documentary "When We Were Kings," notes, "Ron's a character and wasn't camera-shy himself. There were similarities in Ali and Galella. Ali said, 'I am the greatest of all time!' And Galella always said to anybody who interviewed him, 'I'm Ron Galella, paparazzo superstar!'"
See more with pictures at this link: http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... y_natives_documentar.html =========================== We spoke with the award-winning director by phone to talk about Galella, candid celebrity photographs as art, and, of course, Jersey City. What inspired you to work on "Smash His Camera," and how did it come about? It came about because the producer is Stuart Schlesinger, the lawyer who defended Ron Galella. And his son, Adam, is also a lawyer and had been intrigued by this guy. He asked if I knew who Ron Galella was. I said, "Ron Galella? Paparazzo?" He said, "That guy." I said, "Yes, of course. I grew up in Jersey City and we got all the New York media." He was in the newspapers every day, on television, on radio. I knew who he was and I didn't have a good opinion of him. We all loved JFK and this guy was stalking his widow. Adam said, "Would you like to meet him?" I said, "Yes." I went to his house and we talked. He convinced me there are two sides to every story. What were your thoughts after talking with him? Over the two years my opinion of him and his work really changed. I believe that for posterity's sake alone, all of these incredible pictures of some of the most obscure people that really -- he now has three people working with him who identify pictures that he didn't even know who they were -- just happened to be the celebrity of the time and he has these incredible archives. I think we're all richer for it. Slideshow of Galella's work What was the research process like going through his archives? It was overwhelming. I've seen all of the boxes and he's taken millions of pictures. Everything is alphabetized. When we started out it was probably 3.2 million. When we finished the project a couple of years later it was more. He's digital now. He'll shoot a thousand pictures easily whereas before he couldn't carry that many rolls of film. What was the most intriguing thing that you discovered? He is a workaholic in the truest sense of the word. If he's not in the dark room, if he's not going through his past files to identify for the guys that work with him (they're digitizing his photos) where photos were taken, he has a powerhose. He goes out in the back and he'll clean the stones with his powerhose. It's interesting the documentary mentions photography as art since five of his photos are in the MoMA's permanent collection. One may argue they're not necessarily the best shots. But some of them are the best pictures. He has the eye of a photographer and nobody has taken better pictures of Elizabeth Taylor or Sophia Loren. He takes pictures usually on the run. He'll see where he'll get the best picture because of the overhead light and maybe he'll get highlights on the hair. It was interesting your crew filmed Ron in action. I noticed he drew a map of the Waldorf showing different entrances. He did some research. Oh, he knows every place! He knows if we can't get in this way, we can go in another way and if we can't get in there, there's always the alternative of going another way. He really approached it as a business and he was concerned with all the pictures he took. He had lots of pictures of Jackie smoking or drinking. He never published those pictures. Let's switch gears and talk about your roots. I grew up in Jersey City and Peter Baumann (a cousin) lived on the Boulevard by Harrison Avenue and about a quarter of a mile by Journal Square. Peter was an artist and went to the Art Students League in New York and eventually transferred to Columbia University. I saw Peter in this totally different environment and was able to convince my father, who was a real estate salesman, to pay for me to go to Columbia non-matriculating and take courses. I took a course in animation, filmmaking and film production and then one called the History of Documentary Filmmaking. I got a couple of jobs as a production assistant and eventually got very lucky. Jersey Journal file photo Award-winning filmmaker Leon Gast, a native of Jersey City, tells writer Vicki Salemi of his love for the city and says he'd like to make a film about legendary Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, above. What does Jersey City mean to you? It means so much. I grew up with The Jersey Journal! The Jewish Y and the CYO on Bergen Avenue, those were places where I played basketball. I played for the Jersey City Y and they would publish the box scores and then I played for the Greenville Spartans and they would publish the scores also. ... Then there's Temple Beth-el on the Boulevard so I went there during the holidays, I was bar mitzvahed there, all of my friends ... that's where I came from. I'd love to make a film about Frank Hague. Yankees or Mets? I'm a Mets fan because I'm a National League fan. Jersey City was a huge sports town and it was a huge fight town. There were boxing matches in Bayonne, Union City, outside Roosevelt Stadium. What were some other things you enjoyed? I loved Latin music. Everybody in Jersey City loved the cha-cha in the early '50s. One, two, cha-cha-cha. I remember the guys at Snyder who were going over to the Paladium. Now that you live in Woodstock, how often do you return to your hometown? I still go to Jersey City. I have a storage place down on Tonnelle Avenue with all my negatives and from films I've worked on. Whenever I go there, I go down the Boulevard, go to ... where I lived. I love to ride around Jersey City.