Anyone who has seen the movie, preferably with its original soundtrack, will know that Paparazzo is anything but brash. He tails reporter Marcelo much of the time, mainly asking for lifts in the little Triumph… yes, there’s a bit of a scramble when Anita Ekberg’s character comes down from the aircraft at Ciampino airport, but brash?
I did the Via Veneto walk many, many years ago, after a night out with a group of young people, friends of a relative living there, and we had a bit of a giggle doing the pap number, with me pretending to be chasing one of the girls in the group past the cafe’s, she covering her face and yelling no foto! no foto! Anybody who knew photography even back then wouldn’t have been impressed with my Exakta and little grey Braun flash. Yet, that set-up occasion aside, it was surprising just how willing I found groups of glam young women seated at those café tables were to get snapped. I believe that today’s frozen-assed females have no idea just how much entertainment, how many dreams they have willingly thrown away for themselves. God, how I wish the European Economic Community - and British membership of it - had existed back in the 50s and 60s… I would never have left that city.
Anyway, the camera of choice for those guys was actually a Rolleiflex 2.8: bigger negs.
