Blast ’em

The world of paparazzi and celebrity assault photography sounds like a great topic for a movie, but the risk of simply replicating and extending this world rather than analyzing it is fairly high. This Canadian documentarymost of which centers on photographer Victor Malafronte pursuing Michael J. Fox, Sigourney Weaver, and other stars, though other celebrity photographers are also profiled and intervieweddoesn’t entirely avoid this pitfall. But it does do a pretty good job of explaining how the market value of certain celebrity photos (e.g., of John F. Kennedy Jr. on roller skates) gets defined and redefined, how the photos are marketed and used, and how the hostile relations between many photographers and the celebrities they shoot fuel as well as undercut their mutual dependencies. Directed by Joseph Blasioli, who also wrote the script, and Egidio Coccimiglio. (JR)

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