Emilio Lari
the photographer
Emilio Lari, born in 1939; his frame is that of a rugby player, which he was during the Fifties in Milan and for the National Team. Just as rugby is a low-profile sport but is meant for determined people, being a set photographer - as Lari has been all his life - requires similar qualities. Determination is necessary to cover a role often considered minor on movie sets; a role performed best when one is capable of “disappearing”, of becoming invisible.
During the Dolce Vita’s image fever, and possibly thanks to his newshound physique du rôle, Lari was “discovered” by the main man of the agencies, Pierluigi Pratulon, became his assistant and worked on the sets of historic films as De Sica’s “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”.
He left for England in 1963, one objective in mind: to shoot photos of the Beatles. And he accomplished it in 1965, when he met Richard Lester, director of “Help!”.
During the same period he worked for different weekly magazines as L’Europeo and L’Espresso, as well as for other English and French newspapers.
But the movies were always, and above all else, his main interest. He worked on the set of many famous European and American movies.
In 1972 he met Francis Ford Coppola and worked for all three “The Godfather” movies. In 1978 he shot a special on Marlene Dietrich on the set of “Just a Gigolo”, her last movie performance. In 1980, United Artist asked him fro a special on “Raging Bull”, while in 1985 he was on the set of “Lady Hawk”, starring a young and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer.
In Italy he worked with Fellini, among others; and the unforgettable photos of Fellini side by side with Mastroianni dressed up as Mandrake where shot on the set of “Intervista”.
Lari is not only a set photographer: he is a photographer in a wider sense. Nonetheless, he certainly is a photographer of his own kind, with his intense, strong social relationships and his discreetness on the set which enables him to practically become transparent.
An eclectic character, attracted to people and to the world, resourceful - as demonstrated by his first trip to England -;capable of covering different fields as music, fashion and sports; always open to new stimuli - as was his experience with Playboy in Los Angeles during the ‘80s.
His active and vital presence over such along number of years allows us today to have an extraordinary account of many events and personages.
His photos have been used to document or recall historic moments of the movie industry (and have been published in photography books) and of the art world in a broader sense, as with the “Piazza del Popolo ’60-‘70” exhibition on the Mario Schifano and Tano Festa artistic school. Or as today with “Back to Help!”
emiliolari@backtohelp.com
