I first fell in love with Adrian Grenier in 1999 when he played Chase Hammond, Melissa Joan Hart’s love interest in Drive Me Crazy. How can a lady resist that perfectly coiffed hair, chiseled features and piercing eyes? In 2004, he won America over with his role as the handsome movie star Vincent Chase on HBO’s Entourage. The show’s success has allowed Grenier to work as he sees fit, selectively choosing roles and dedicating his time to projects of passion. Teenage Paparazzo is Grenier’s exploration of the way in which celebrity infiltrates all aspects and all ages of society.
While Grenier may be the filmmaker here, he is also the celebrity who acts as the catalyst for the story. When 13-year-old aspiring photographer Austin Visschedyk takes his first paparazzi picture of Adrian Grenier, a spark is ignited, launching him into the world of celebrity tabloid photos and glamour. It’s a little hard not to notice an adorable blonde teenager snapping photos of you at 2am, and when Grenier saw him on the red carpet late one night, he approached him. He needed to know more, and thus the idea for Teenage Papparazzo was born.
When the film began, I wasn’t quite sure how Grenier was going to be able to pull off a coherent feature length film while talking to the Paparazzi. But as Adrian and Austin’s relationship grew, the story began to unfold, on screen and off.
Austin soon began to draw attention from newspapers, television networks and tabloids alike, boosting his ego and warping him into a shell of the motivated young man Grenier had met at the start of his film. Grenier couldn’t help but feel responsible for Austin’s newfound lust for fame. What started out as a curiosity for Grenier soon led to a deeper exploration of society’s obsessions with glamour, fame and celebrity.
The editors did a great job of integrating thoughtful social commentary from experts and personal experiences from celebrities into the film, and the pace steadily increased, answering each and every question it brought up. Graphics were used throughout the film to move things along, from tabloid excerpts to moving logos. My personal favorite was the technique in which one of the inspirations for the film, Thomas de Zengotita, was placed within billboards for a few of his interviews, giving a unique visual element to his interviews.
Zengotita wrote the book Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It, and Grenier took a number of the author’s arguments and applied them to his film. The psychology behind society’s obsession with pop culture is explored through Austin’s desire for fame and money, and it’s done in a tactful manner. No one is portrayed in a negative light, as Grenier takes great care to find out every side to a story before forming an opinion about it. For an actor who initially dismissed paparazzi as the inhuman mosquitoes most people see them as, Grenier was eventually able to delve deeper. By infiltrating their world as well as the tabloid publication world and the world of celebrity he is now part of, the filmmaker was able to gain a broader perspective on a topic he thought was relatively narrow. This clarity is well-conveyed through the film, which has your attention from start to finish.
I was enthralled by the film. Not to say that Grenier is some sort of genius or that he’s made a profound discovery about society. But I’m just like any other girl in her 20s...I read the pop culture magazine from time to time, I gossip about who’s dating who, and I can’t help but be curious about who looks better in that dress. Stars and pop culture permeate the film, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the shoes of the assistant tasked with getting releases for the plethora of logos and background extras involved in the film. Ultimately both Adrian and Austin realize they have been exploiting one another for their owns means. Austin for fame, Adrian for the sake of his film. But they discovered much more about themselves and society than they could have imagined, and in the end, what they both found was a friend.
DVD Bonus Features
Additional interview with Austin, his mom and the experts on: Public Safety, Texting, Living The Life, Celebrity Commodity, Friendship First, Hazards Of The Job, Immortality, Freedom Of Speech, Real News, Heroes, Famous Paparazzi, Seeing The Light.
"Teenage Paparazzo" is on sale March 29, 2011 and is not rated. Documentary. Directed by Adrian Grenier. Written by Adrian Grenier, Thomas de Zengotita. Starring Adrian Grenier, Austin Visschedyk , Louis Black, Paris Hilton.
