羅恩?格拉拉，上世紀七八十年代美國最著名的狗仔隊員，曾因偷拍好萊塢明星馬龍?白蘭度而被打掉5顆牙齒，因長期跟蹤拍攝當時的“第壹夫人”傑奎琳?奧納西斯而被告上法庭……他雖是壹個臭名昭著的攝影師，但總能抓拍到明星們最光彩照人的壹瞬間，他的圖片裏蘊藏的巨大能量能塑造明星，這種獨有的才華也為他贏得了知名度。但格拉拉始終認為，自己和那些潛入明星臥室或故意激怒明星以求拍到他們醜態的狗仔隊員不同。今年77歲的格拉拉隱居在新澤西州郊區，如今他正為當下狗仔行業中的壹些危險跡象感到憂慮。
I first meet Ron Galella when I break into his home. The notorious 1)paparazzo and his wife, Betty, live in a 2)neoclassical megamansion in rural New Jersey. There’s a white marble fountain out front; columns frame the door. At the base of the stairs is a 3)slab of concrete imprinted, Hollywood Walk of Fame style, with Galella’s handprints and his looping signature. I walk up and ring the doorbell several times, but it seems to be broken, so I yell, “Hello?” and finally turn the knob and open the door one hesitant crack. The first thing I see are rows of bright blue eyes.
[1]Elizabeth Taylor. [2]Barbra Streisand.
[3]Robert Redford. There are 10 or so black-and-white pictures, their 4)irises tinted, propped carefully on large easels―a gallery of iconic celebrity.
Suddenly, Galella appears, carrying a photo tripod that he uses as a crutch; he’s recently had knee surgery. “Hello, hello, come in!” he barks, friendly but gruff. Even at 77, Galella is a physically imposing man, with thick features, a 5)boxer’s nose and a 6)staccato laugh. We walk past the carpet and the mantelpiece toward the dining-room table, which is covered in a shining 7)mulch of books and prints.
We sit in the kitchen, and Galella reminisces happily with me about the good old days, back when he turned his lens towards Hollywood. The son of Italian immigrants, Galella first got his hands on a camera when he was in the Air Force, during the Korean War, and along with it he bought a book called How to Shoot Glamour. In art school under the 8)GI Bill, he toyed with becoming a ceramicist or a dance instructor. But Galella was eternally drawn towards the famous―he was curious, he says, to test the stars, to see if their glamour was real. The truth, he decided, was that anyone could become iconic; the camera itself was the true celebrity, a “magic medium” to which the famous owed their power.
His first big sell was a simple picture of a little girl―he’d tried to capture actress [4]June Lockhart’s daughter, but couldn’t get permission, so he shot a different child instead, earning $62. “But once I found celebrity journalism, I plied my know-how,” Galella says with satisfaction. “For a take of Elizabeth Taylor or [5]The Lennon Sisters, you could get $1,000 from these magazines. 9)Photoplay, 10)Modern Screen and the 11)National Enquirer, of course.” In those days, Hollywood photography was dominated by the glamour shot, that 12)lacquered 13)residue of American PR machinery. Galella embraced instead the piratical spirit of the Europeans, adding a certain entrepreneurial zeal all of his own, blending high-art skills with a dedication that bordered on monomania.
本文為全文原貌 未安裝PDF瀏覽器用戶請先下載安裝 原版全文 In 1978, he had already established himself as the dread paparazzo of his era―not the only one, but certainly the most famous, the most dogged.
[6]Richard Burton sent 14)goons to steal his film; [7]Brigitte Bardot had her boyfriend hose him down. Most notoriously, [8]Jacqueline Onassis won a lawsuit against him in 1973, a court order for him to stay 25 feet away from her and her children. For years, he drove each day from the Bronx, where he had built a lab in his father’s basement, to premieres, galleries, 15)Park Avenue. “In 1967, I got Jacqueline at the Wildenstein Gallery. I followed her to her apartment, and once you know where they live, that’s where you have to be. They’re like a mouse coming out of a hole.”
In those days, Galella was regarded as a bug, a parasite. (The word paparazzo is derived from an Italian word for mosquito.) But from Galella’s perspective, he was always misunderstood. His art was a corrective to the artifice of the star system. It was a kind of forced 16)Turing test of celebrity, determining whether the star is human. Only by seeing someone shocked and spontaneous can you tell if their charisma is genuine. “I’m very quick, that was the technique: fast-shoot, fast-shoot! I don’t even look through the viewfinder. And you 17)nail the picture like that, you get the surprise expression. Beauty that radiates from within.”
Galella talks to me about his favourite, most iconic photo, Windblown Jacqueline, an image of Jacqueline Onassis striding down the street, her hair blowing into her eyes as she turns her face, smiling, toward him―she didn’t realise Galella was there when she turned toward his cab’s honking horn. “I call it the Mona Lisa smile.”
Galella is eager to distinguish himself from the more aggressive breed of paparazzo―both the
old-style European photographers willing to break into a star’s bedroom and the new generation,
zooming in on 18)cellulite and bad plastic surgery. That wasn’t his style, he says. He’d hover, chatting up doormen, improvising with a combination of
19)brass and discretion. Still, he found plenty of
violence. In 1973, he followed [9]Marlon Brando down to Chinatown, only to have Brando punch out five of his teeth (Brando had to go to hospital with an infected hand). The two settled out of court, and later Galella returned to shoot the actor wearing a special football helmet, with Ron printed on the front.
…
我第壹次見到羅恩?格拉拉是在闖入他家後。這位臭名昭著的狗仔隊員和他的妻子貝蒂住在新澤西州郊區壹幢新古典主義風格的豪宅裏。門前有壹個白色大理石噴泉，大門嵌上羅馬石柱邊框。石階最底部是壹塊厚厚的水泥板，上面有格拉拉的手印和龍飛鳳舞式的簽名，很有好萊塢星光大道的風格。我走上前，按了幾次門鈴，但門鈴好像壞了。於是我扯開嗓子大叫：“餵？餵？”我終於扭開門把手，猶豫地打開了壹條縫隙。第壹眼看見的就是壹排排炯炯有神的藍眼睛，包括伊麗莎白?泰勒、芭芭拉?史翠珊和羅伯
特?雷德福的。大約有十張黑白照片被精心地立置於大畫架上，相中人物的虹膜全是染上色彩的――儼然壹個名人肖像畫廊。
突然，格拉拉出現，拄著拍攝用的三腳架當拐杖使。不久前他剛做了膝蓋手術。“餵，進來！”他大聲說著，聲音友善但粗啞。即使已77歲高齡，格拉拉看起來仍相當偉岸雄壯，五官粗獷，鼻子扁塌，時不時大笑幾聲。我們走過地毯和壁爐架，走向餐桌，那上面堆放著許多閃閃發亮的書和出版物。
我們坐在廚房裏，格拉拉和我壹起愉快地回憶著過去的風光日子，他最初把鏡頭對準好萊塢的那段日子。格拉拉是意大利移民的後裔。朝鮮戰爭期間，他在空軍服役時，第壹次接觸照相機，同時還買了壹本名叫《如何拍攝動人藝術照》的書。借著依照《退伍軍人權利法案》國家提供的教育機會，他進了藝術學院念書，那時他曾不很認真地考慮過當壹名陶藝家，或者舞蹈教師。但是名人對他總是充滿吸引力――他說，他很好奇，想測試壹下，看看他們的光芒是不是真的。事實是，他最後得出結論，任何人都可以成為偶像。真正的“明星”是照相機，那些名人的權勢全拜這“魔法媒介”所賜。
本文為全文原貌 未安裝PDF瀏覽器用戶請先下載安裝 原版全文 他的第壹張賣出好價錢的照片僅僅是壹個小女孩的照片――他試圖拍攝女演員瓊?洛克哈特的女兒，但是沒有得到允許，於是他拍了另壹個女孩，由此賺到62美元。“但是，在發現名人八卦新聞這壹賣點之後，我把自己的技能發揮到淋漓盡致。”格拉拉滿意地說，“壹張伊麗莎白?泰勒或列儂姐妹的照片賣給那些雜誌可以賺到1000美元。購買照片的雜誌包括《故事影片》、《摩登銀幕》，當然還有《國家詢問者》。”那個時候，好萊塢攝影主要是些光鮮亮麗的藝術照，典型美國公關機器的產物。格拉拉崇尚歐洲人的海盜精神，再加上他那進取求拓的熱情，將高超的藝術技巧和幾近狂熱的獻身精神融合發揮。
1978年，他已經是那個時代最令人恐懼的狗仔――不是唯壹的壹個，但絕對是最出名最頑固的。理查德?伯頓曾雇打手去偷他的膠卷；碧姬?芭鐸曾讓她男朋友用水管噴趕他離開。最廣為人知的是，1973年，傑奎琳?奧納西斯和他打官司獲勝，法庭命令他不得靠近傑奎琳及其子女25英尺（約7.62米）的範圍內。多年來，他每天從位於紐約布朗克斯區的工作室（用他父親的地下室改建而成）開車到明星出沒的首映式、畫廊和派克大街。“1967年，我在懷爾登斯坦畫廊拍攝到傑奎琳。我跟蹤她到她的公寓。壹旦知道他們的住所，那就是妳守候的地方。他們就像出洞的老鼠。”
那些日子，格拉拉被看成禍害、寄生蟲（paparazzo，即“狗仔”，該詞源於意大利語的mosquito，即“蚊子”）。但在格拉拉看來，他覺得自己壹直被人們誤解。他的作品是對虛偽明星體制的糾正，好像強迫他們接受壹種名人“圖靈測試”，檢驗明星是否只是普通人。只有看到他們受驚和隨性時的舉止才能了解他們的魅力是否真實。“我的動作很快，這就是技巧：快速拍攝！快，快！我甚至不看取景器。那樣抓拍出來的照片才能定格住受驚的表情。美從裏面散發出來。”
格拉拉談到他最喜歡的照片，最經典的照片，“風中的傑奎琳?奧納西斯”――她大步走在街上，風把頭發吹進她的眼睛，她轉頭，微笑著，面對他――當時格拉拉乘坐的出租車的喇叭鳴響著，她卻全然沒有意識到格拉拉就在出租車裏面。“我稱之為蒙娜麗莎的微笑。”
格拉拉急於把自己和那些更咄咄逼人的狗仔隊區別開。無論是那些喜歡闖進明星臥室的老派歐洲狗仔，還是聚焦明星贅肉和糟糕整容手術的新壹代狗仔，他都不認同他們的風格。他會在周圍盤旋，和門衛閑聊，厚著臉皮也不失謹慎，隨機應變。雖然如此，他沒少遭遇暴行。1973年，他跟蹤馬龍?白蘭度到唐人街，結果被白蘭度打掉了5顆牙齒（白蘭度手部也受傷了，得去看病）。兩人最後庭外和解。之後，格拉拉還去拍過白蘭度，頭戴特制的橄欖球頭盔，頭盔前面印著他自己的名字。
（待續）
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