Robert Frank, "The Americans"

[alan c.]

for the curious, i believe that Frank did use screw mount Leicas to shoot the

Americans. Later he used the M cameras; i'm not sure if, for the Americans, he had

switched yet.

 

as a chinese-american, i don't find the use of term "Oriental" racist if it is in the

historical context. as a usage today, i would find it offensive and obsolete because a

present day usage might imply that the speaker approved of the historical context

when "Oriental" was used. But as a quote I think it is fine. Also, to refer to Asia as

"The Orient" is not offensive (although maybe dated?) nor is it offensive when in the

name of something (like the Mandarin Oriental Hotel) or usages like that. the bottom

line is that the hearer usually knows when a phrase is used offensively or not.

Context, tone of voice, all matter more than the word itself. There are fine and subtle

lines, though, especially in our sensitive world. So especially to strangers, perhaps it's

best to use neutral language and defer to a minimum of political correctness, even

knowing that when it is taken too far, politcal correctness can become censorship.

 

Now, Kaplan says "he" when talking about the fifties but let's not forget that there

were talented women already working in photography from the very beginning: Julia

Margaret Cameron, Bernice Abbot, Dorothea Lange, Lee Miller, Margaret Bourke-

White, just to name a few. Certainly, photography was a male dominated field but the

contributions of women should not be ignored.

 

even though i defended Frank's work above i do think though, that just because a

work enters the "classical canon" doesn't make it immune from criticism. I could make

a critique of Frank on many levels: that there's a lot of style as opposed to substance,

that he does allow his politics and emotions to detract from a pure documentary

aesthetic, that he undermined "straight" photography precisely be celebrating the

random, the non-moments, etc. Now I don't happen to think all of that -- but you

could make a very compelling argument -- it really depends on your point of view.

[nesrani]

Anyone who can't see how strong and brilliant Robert Frank's work is, is simply blind to photography.

[jsbc]

What's the "in" word for describing people of East Asian (Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Thai) extraction which replaces oriental?

[101]

Road to nowhere

 

Link to last weekends Guardian newpaper with review of Franks Tate Modern show.

 

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1327418,00.html

 

swelter

[al_kaplan1]

Boris, I may be weird because I've had black friends, some dating back nearly 40 years. I may be stranger still because I have black family, and they're still family to me, I still see them and talk with them several times a week. Craig, the younger son, and I have planned some tarpon fishing trips this winter. Don't judge what you don't understand.

[lee_shively]

There's too much uptightness here. Language is supposed to be descriptive and communicative. "Orient" is east, "Occident" is west, "Negro" is black, etc. There's nothing wrong with the language, it's something wrong with the idiots who use it like it's a weapon and it's something wrong with those who don't see the difference.

[andy m.]

Exactly, Lee.

 

Surely it is what is in one's heart that really counts.

The politically correct terms are not necessarily the same across Europe and the US. It can get a little confusing, even for people with the best of intentions.

[al_kaplan1]

Andy, you hit upon the biggest problem ~ the fact that the "correct" term isn't the same, even in various areas of the United States. Better to go meet and befriend your neighbors than sit at your computer cursing people who mean no harm.

[bob haight]

After after reading this thread, whoever said there is not a consensus of opinion on this forum.

[kent_tolley2]

<i>Better to go meet and befriend your neighbors than sit at your computer cursing people who mean no harm.</I><BR>

Amen Al. And some of our neighbors are right here on this forum so you don't need to go anywhere to befriend your neighbor.

[kent_tolley2]

But back to Frank and The Americans - he helps invent the photograph book form for display as opposed to hanging photos in galleries which was the common and only way up until then. He wants you to take in the entire collection. It is an emerging form and Frank is one of it's mothers. Bill's original criticism is with one photo taken "out of context" and with that he hopes to dismiss Frank to the archives as a has-been or worse a failed photog even in his time. Bill approaches The Americans in the old, pre-Frank way: one photo, one critique and each photograph tells an entire story and stands alone. If you're going to critique art at least take it on it's own terms. Don't bring some idea of shoulda-woulda-coulda and then fault the art for failing to comply with your "shoulds." The photos can stand alone as the poems in Leaves of Grass can stand alone. But you can read them all together as one big poem. It is with the collection of these Americans that Frank tries to show you this country as it was in the 50's.

[des adams]

The road to nowhere is good. Interesting but really its redundant.

 

Alan Chin thanks for having a go at answering my question about Robert Franks camera.

 

Where I come from there was this little rhyme the parents used as the voice of reason to comfort the children. It went sticks and stones may break my bones but nicknames never hurt me. A trite little ditty because insults do hurt even artists but the good news is that with insults one can come back and fight another day. Maybe. And we apparently need that sort of comfort. And why not life is a tough place. Great art itself though is above reason and insult and does not respond to it or represent it. Neither does art date if it does its not art. Art is not history but art consoles. Hamlet is as relevant to-day as when Wily the Shake penned it and so it is with Robert Franks work. The Americans is not about the 1950s it is about the human condition. The book The Americans is like a box of mirrors. You can say you really dig it or think its crap but it?s impervious. It has a life of its own. It comes from somewhere else and points to somewhere else. People have tried to explain his work? Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and clearly this here is my vanity. I think his work conjures up a mystery that points towards the truth and what it celebrates is that truth is a mystery. Art above all else is impervious to explanation. Any attempted explanation or analysis quickly gets tied up in bottomless ambiguity. I have never yet met anyone who can even explain themselves.

 

But please what camera and lens and film did he use? If anyone knows I?d really like to know.

[robert_macdonald]

"But please what camera and lens and film did he use? If anyone knows I'd really like to know"

 

When I met him last summer he told me he used a 50 and a 90. In a book by Allen Ginsburg, Ginsburg states that he used a Sonnar(most likely a 1.5). I would assume the 90 was an elmar. Camera wise is tougher. He said a Leica with two windows when I talked to him, which definetly means a III series. Not sure which one though, either was he.

[des adams]

Robert thanks very much. I love it that he didnt know.

[james_itard1]

The Americans would seem to come out of a series of books beginning with Brassai's Paris by Night, Bill Brandt's book on the English, and Walker Evans' American Pictures. All of them have photographs which build upon, or sort of rescue, others...

I'm suprised no one has mention Louis Faure in connection with Frank. Both started at Harper's Bazaar (under Brodovitch) in the late 40's, and [supposedly] shared the same darkroom, and something of the same esthetic. The pictures Faure takes are sometimes more compositionally complex than Frank's, but his cast of characters are a bit too b-movieish, and a bit too predictably pathetic. Frank's people are nobler, just in a bad situation...

The photograph of Frank's that really made a difference for me was the movie premiere one, where the actress at the center is softly out of focus--like a marble statue bust--and the jealous crowd is in sharp relief. Frank may have just made a mistake in zone focusing but he was sure smart enough to keep it in the book, though it broke all the conventional rules at the time...

Am curious what other individual Frank photos--in addition to this one and the New Orleans bus one with all its little windows and photographs within photographs--have made a difference to other photographers in this forum...

[boris_chan1]

Al K: "I may be weird........"

 

No, you're all too normal.

 

"I may be stranger still because I have black family........"

 

Well you're certainly not the only person on this thread with black

family, but you may be the only person with black family "ranting"

in defense of the use of the word negro.

 

"Don't judge what you don't understand."

 

Al, nobody forced you to make your comments regarding

so-called political-correctness. As this is a discussion forum I'll

feel free to respond, either negatively or positively, to points

made by you or anyone else - it's not about "judging". If the forum

title is changed to AL TALKS, WE LISTEN then I'll review my

policy on this.

[kent_tolley2]

Back to the thread- <BR>

What really pisses me off is when someone like Robert Frank goes to extraordinary ends to create something insightful and critical of the time and place in stunningly original photographs and carefully places them in sequence in a new emerging form, has to fight like hell to get the thing published and Bill comes along in his armchair and his self-elevated position and dismisses The Americans to the trash heap. That's pretty rude.

[kent_tolley2]

I don't have a copy and will take Bill Mitchell's off his hands since he probably has no need for it and won't open it again. Whadda ya say Bill?

[msitaraman]

I can understand if the consensus is that Robert Frank was hugely influential. If he was, he was.

 

What I can't understand in this thread is why the consensus seems to be that Robert Frank is sacred, and must not be criticized. I say that not because of my opinion of Robert Frank - I have not looked at his pictures enough to have an opinion - but one senses that the community here is standing guard , circled around a pedestal with baseball bats, as it were, challenging anyone saying that the master must be lowered down to ground level and examined again.

 

So to speak...

 

;-)

[boris_chan1]

Mani, I don't think anybody is saying that Frank is beyond

criticism. Frank, like Eggleston, tends to polarise opinion -

people either "get it" or they don't. What makes both of them

really relevant is the fact that their influence arcs across almost

every photographic genre - reportage, fashion,

landscape........They really have altered how photographers see.

Their influence on current photography is way more pervasive

than, for example, HCB.

[henricus]

Bill,<p> I'll give you a buck and a quarter American for that there book what has pictures in it. Shucks, I'll even pay for postage, jist to hep ya out.

 

 

<p>:-)

[markci]

Ridiculous. Nobody suggested that anybody was above intelligent critcism, but Bill hasn't done any. Throwing around meaningless terms like "doesn't work" and "doesn't hold up" certainly doesn't qualify. You might as well criticize it for being "poopy.

[thomas_sullivan]

<br>does anyone know where <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/frank/">Storylines</a> Exhibition is going to go after it leaves the Tate? Like is it coming to NYC or Philadelphia? This assumes of course, that it is going to travel in the first place.

[michael s.]

I was actually going to sit this one out, and found myself in strong agreement with Alan Chin when he wrote:

 

>>>[T]he bottom line is that the hearer usually knows when a phrase is used offensively or not. Context, tone of voice, all matter more than the word itself.>>>

 

 

But I saw the potshot from "Boris Chan":

 

>>>Al, your "some of my best friends are black" routine just doesn't stand up.>>>

 

And I saw that "Boris'" broadside was seconded by Jeff. Unfortunate.

 

Guys, I think you're way out of line. I don't think it's a "routine" at all. I believe the man has Black friends and family, and cares about them, and cares about racism. I think Al's the genuine article.

 

Al was commenting on the word "Negro" to offer historical context. And if you believe he was mistaken in his assertions, please listen to some of Rev. Martin Luther King's speeches.

 

Al mentioned the popular use of some other expressions, too. It wasn't intended as a scholarly treatise -- just a few first-hand experiences and observations. If your experiences differ, that's fine. Tell us about them. Don't indulge in name-calling.

 

Any of us who live, or have lived, in big American cities cannot deny that all kinds of "offensive" words are used constantly and loudly -- sometimes offensively, sometimes humorously, and sometimes with fondness and respect. The question of "license" becomes significant. And intent matters a great deal.

 

I do think you're right about Robert Frank, though, Boris. Since my interest in photography is a comparatively recent thing, I checked "The Americans" out from a local library some months ago. The photos have stuck with me. I haven't looked at enough photography yet to comment critically on where exactly Frank's work 'fits in,' but it's powerful.

[michael s.]

Tom S. - I saw this statement about the Robert Frank exhibit at www.photography.about.com:

 

>>>The retrospective is a joint venture with the Tate, Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Fotostiftung Schweiz, and will be seen in a slightly extended version at Winterthur later in 2005.>>>