Paparazzi is a 1963 French short documentary film directed by Jacques Rozier. Alongside Le Parti des choses, by the same director and released the same year, it documents the Italian shooting of another Nouvelle Vague film, Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris.
Content
The film documents the filming of Godard's Contempt in Capri, in and around the Villa Malaparte from May 17 until May 20, 1963. It focuses in particular on numerous paparazzi's relentless efforts to photograph Brigitte Bardot, one of the big stars of European cinema at the time.
Appear in the film
Michel Piccoli
Brigitte Bardot
Jean-Luc Godard
Fritz Lang
Jack Palance
Giorgia Moll
Narrators
Jean Lescot
Davide Tonelli
Reception
A retrospective presentation of the film explains: "The sustained rhythm of the film follows the tensions between the paparazzi and the troupe. Rozier seems amused by this nervous atmosphere, to which he imparts the kind of inspired and playful tone that we find in the majority of his films. Like Renoir and Vigo, he is a free filmmaker. He observes insistently, with a detached but amused gaze, translating the world he gradually discovers around him into images through his own poetics and with the help of colourful and charismatic characters."