PAPARAZZI

40cm x 40cm - 2011

Vintage camera and photographs

Walter Santesso played Paparazzo in Federico Fellini’s ‘La dolce Vita’. This character coinages the term that indicates photographers specialised in taking pictures of celebrities during public occasions or in moments of their private life, always on the look-out for spectacular circumstances. Marcello Mastroianni is photographed whilst chatting with Sir Peter Ustinov on the Croisette; Robert Kennedy is greeted by Lord Harlech at the opening ceremony of the memorial dedicated to his brother John; Alì Khan, son of the Aga Khan is beside his wife Rita Hayworth, who has just given birth to their daughter Jasmine; Alfred Hitchcock is portrayed as he mysteriously strolls in the surroundings of Milan’s Dome; Ingrid Bergman walks sulkily in the streets of Rome, in company of her daughter Isabella Rossellini; Raimondo Vianello has taken on sewing; Sophia Loren doesn’t give up spaghetti; Carlos Saura hands over a ring, as a love token, to Geraldine Chaplin. Some have given the credit of the term’s authorship to Ennio Flaiano. In his description of photographers he compared the camera’s lens to the valves of clams in the Abruzzi dialect: paparazze. Actually, paparazzi’s voracity in capturing compromising images has increased through time. 

Private Collection