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Robert Frank - Don't Blink


ray .

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Just saw this delightful 82 minute film portrait of Robert Frank, and I highly recommend it. It reveals his great sense of humor, and you're introduced to his living space filled with books askew and image stuff all around, along with his collection of cameras. He can't throw anything away and it suits him very well. Nicely done, great music, shows a fair amount of footage from his films, and tracks his life and loss.

 

I don't watch too many films again soon after seeing them, but this will be one.

 

 

The film is available for the next few weeks on mubi.com. There may be a free trial there, or a subscription is pretty reasonable if you like foreign, art, documentary and classic films. There is another documentary on youtube that's mis-titled using the same title.

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Btw looking at the trailer again, it kind of undersells the film. I wasn't convinced from it that I'd enjoy it but figured I had to give it a go given the subject, and was pleasantly surprised.

 

This is Street and Documentary forum, right? Kind of surprises me to see no responses given that the guy is one of the giants of photography- specifically documentary photography… Or has traffic just dropped off on this forum?

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Hey Ray...

 

Yeah, traffic has dropped of. Significantly, it seems. For me it's because there's just too much friction in the log-in process along with ads/ad-block issues.

 

I will check out the vid though. Thanks!

www.citysnaps.net
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If you get the free trial you should be able to view the film, unless the app works differently. At any given time there are 30 films available, each viewable for 30 days, with one expiring each day as a new one is added. Scroll down on the page once you're logged in to see the films available.

 

If anyone can't get a free trial, if you send me your email I can do an invite for a trial. In fact they give subscribers a free month for each friend who signs up for a trial, but that's not important to me, just as a last resort if you can't get it yourself for some reason.

 

Brad, I don't notice much of a log in issue…. I kind of figured the popularity of phone cameras has cut down on interest in this site or more traditional means of doing photography.

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Norman, you might try to contact them. Go to 'Help' and there should be a box there to type a message. It could also be that they didn't select the film for Thailand

because the topic would generally be of more interest in the US.

 

There's another pretty good documentary on youtube if you have access to that. Image quality is a little soft but not too bad.

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Robert Frank was indeed one of the giants of photography, and not just street photography. Very strong work, and he had a great eye. Can't see enough of his work.

 

This is apropos of nothing, but all the forums I used to go to have really dropped off in terms of people participating. The one exception is probably Reddit, but if that's what it takes to get lots of posts I'd rather have a blank screen.

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Perhaps it is worth noting that the original US reviews of Frank's work were extremely negative. The book was taken as an attack on 'Merica'

 

In May, 1960, the editors of Popular Photography collected some of the reviews of The Americans together, from which Downes's can be taken as fairly typical:

Ugliness can be shocking, it can have impact-

like a man spitting in your face;

but it can also be given beauty by a sensitive

photographer. Frank is sensitive, but

apparently he is without love. There is no

pity in his images. They are images of hate

and hopelessness, of desolation and pre-

occupation with death. They are images of

an America seen by a joyless man who

hates the country of his adoption. Is he a

poet as Kerouac, his friend, says he is?

Maybe. But he is also a liar, perversely

basking in the kind of world and the kind

of misery he is perpetually seeking and persistently

creating. It is a world shrouded

in an immense gray tragic boredom. This

is Robert Frank's America, God help him.

For him there is, there can be, no other.

The book seems to me to be a mean use

to put a camera to.-Bruce Downes

 

By the late '60s and into the 80s, many of Frank's critics tried to hide such reviews.

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"The Americans" showed America darkly. That's why it was so appreciated by the left.

“Darkly” is an oversimplification. But, indeed, “the left” doesn’t mind social critique of the sort Frank, and Kerouac, so insightfully offered.

There’s always something new under the sun.
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Frank was so much more than an observer of facts. Taking the pictures and putting together his series was a commentary on what he observed and his photos SHOW a distinct voice and perspective. He was not a bystander to time.
There’s always something new under the sun.
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I never expect a person’s personal opinions to change across different modes of expression.

 

In fact, I expect the opposite.

 

It is interesting that some see the same opinions as more valid when expressed through some particular method as opposed to another.

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I'm not saying Frank didn't have the right to express his opinion as he saw America. The problem is the all encompassing title, The Americans, and the support from many on the left who made it seem that his dark view of America was the only truth. There seems to be little balance which is the reason I don;t like what he was saying nor did many others when the book came out.
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The Americans, and the support from many on the left who made it seem that his dark view of America was the only truth.

I think most viewers of Frank's work know it was one perspective and they found it a compelling one, for a lot of reasons including its consistency, its depth, its texture, and its candor. Many of the same people who like Frank's work also like very different takes on the streets and people of America, such as those of Eggleston, Callahan, Meyerowitz, Winogrand, Maier, Erwitt, and lots of others. I know very few people who only like a dark view of anything, let alone America.

 

I tend not to judge photos or series by their titles and I never thought The Americans was an all-encompassing title. I understand it as Frank's take on America in a particular time and in particular places.

 

Speaking of dark, look at Larry Clarke's Tulsa and you'll see dark. Frank looks positively euphoric compared to Clarke.

 

I don't necessarily want photographers to be balanced, though those who are can be great as well. I like passion and point of view. I deal with it, whether it's "left" or "right," and I'm not so sure it's always all that clear whether it's left or right or if left and right are categories worth applying. If it's good and pointed, I'm not as moved by the politics as I am by really good photos and how they may express the politics, whatever those politics are.

There’s always something new under the sun.
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For what it is worth, I accept pictures I don’t necessarily like as reference points in History and as valid documentation.

They make me think.

But balance is important in Life and agendas are front and center in many cases when it comes to such things.

What is amusing in such cases is the pretense to the contrary.

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