When the Cannes Film Festival begins this week, it will be its 78th year. And in each one of those years, a member of the Traverso family will have been there to photograph it.
Gilles Traverso, 67, is one of three generations of photographers who has taken pictures of the directors, actors and other members of the film elite who flock to the French city each year for the event.
This year will be his 49th festival. Since he began photographing it alongside his father, Henri, in 1977, Gilles has witnessed the event transform as digital cameras have proliferated, the number of photographers attending has exploded and celebrities have become more inaccessible to the public.
“The Cannes Film Festival is an exaggerated reflection of the time we live in,” he said in an interview in Cannes. But, he added, “What I hate is to say it was better before. I hate that. No, it was not better, it was something different.”
The Traverso family, originally from the Piedmont region of Italy, first moved to Cannes in the mid-19th century. In 1919, Auguste Traverso, then in his early 20s, set up a photography shop just as the city was beginning to evolve from a small fishing village to a vacation destination for the wealthy.
“The jet set from the world come to Cannes, so my great-grandfather thought it was a good idea to make some shots of everything,” Traverso said.
That included the arrival of Louis Lumière, one of the inventors of cinematography, to the train station in Cannes in 1939 to preside over what was intended to be the first film festival. But several days before the festival was supposed to begin, the remaining related events and the festival were canceled because of the outbreak of World War II.
When the festival resumed in 1946, Auguste’s grandson, Henri, then 16, quickly took over photographing it. With the war over, there was a sense of occasion to the early years of the festival that drew stars like Rita Hayworth and Edward G. Robinson. “It was so exciting for everybody, that’s why I think that all the Americans come,” Gilles Traverso said.
Back then, he continued, “it was not strict as now,” and the actors would make themselves easily available to the handful of photographers who covered the event. “The way of life was completely different,” Traverso said.
In a series of shots taken by Henri in 1955, Grace Kelly posed in front of a small boat by the water. At the end, Gilles said, Kelly told his father and the other photographers to “put down your camera,” and “come with me to have a drink.”
That same year, in what became one of Henri’s most famous photos, he simply asked Brigitte Bardot to run down the beach so he could take some shots, and she obliged.
“The stars came to be seen, it was part of the game,” Henri said in an interview for “Cannes Cinema,” a book of the family’s photographs published in 2011 by Gilles and the film critic Serge Toubiana.
In 1967, another one of Henri’s photographs showed Bardot so swarmed by photographers that you could only identify her by her blond head.
Over time, this became a pattern that changed the relationship between the stars and the city. The actors had more security and were not as easily found hanging around on the beach. Parties became more restricted, and photographers were given limited access, or closed out of some events.
Traverso has still managed to photograph many of the world’s biggest stars since his father sent him at 18, hands shaking, to photograph Jane Fonda at the Carlton Hotel on La Croisette, a promenade along the beach known for its high-end hotels and luxury shops. And at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, where the festival has been held since 1983, the hallways are lined with enlarged versions of Traverso photographs.
Outside the building, tourists can pose for pictures on the red-carpet-covered steps, next to life-size versions of 25 of Traverso’s photos. They include stars like Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone, who he says is one of his favorites to photograph. During the festival, it’s where their real-life counterparts arrive for the events and pose for more photos.
Traverso said that despite the less relaxed atmosphere, he still loves the give-and-take he has with his subjects. “If the star wants to play with the photographer, it’s a pleasure,” he said. The Americans are particularly good at it, he added, and know “they have to make also a show when they are in front of a photographer.”
David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes, who has known Traverso since the 1990s, said in an email that his contributions to the festival have been “immense.”
“Through his shots, we witness the evolution of the festival,” Lisnard said. “It is an exhaustive, precise collection with both artistic and historical value.”
Until recently, Traverso would spend the rest of his time taking freelance photographs for local newspapers like Nice-Matin, which described him in a 2016 article as “the white wolf,” who was often spotted riding around town on his motorcycle and smoking cigarettes. According to Nice-Matin, he and members of his family had worked with the paper since 1945.
Thierry Frémaux, the director of the festival, said in an email that the work of the photographers has been crucial to the festival’s success, and that Traverso, whom he has known since 2001, “has a special place in the world of photography: He’s from Cannes and he embodies an extraordinary lineage and family.”
Next year will be Traverso’s 50th festival, “if God and Thierry Frémaux want,” he said. But he is otherwise focused on his family’s legacy, and its vast archive that includes about 200,000 festival photos. He has occasionally displayed some of them in exhibitions in other cities, including New York, London and Tokyo.
Traverso has one child, Alice, 25, who is planning to join the family business looking after the collection, though not necessarily taking pictures. She said in a text that she is “honored” to become part of it, and is “happy to be able to share all this hand-in-hand” with her father.
“What is the most important for me, is the history go on,” Gilles Traverso said.
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