Robert Frank in Vanity Fair
The April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair—the one with Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler on the cover—has an interesting article on Robert Frank worth checking out. Here’s an excerpt from the end:
Robert Frank is an enigma: hard and empathetic and melancholic all at once. He abhors schmaltziness and syrup. I asked him if he would like to see a photograph of my baby. He answered, “Why should I want to see that?”
It is the same with him about photography. Digital photography destroys memory, he believes, with its ability to erase. Art school is another problem, teaching students to be blind. Editors are worse—they poke the artist’s eyes out. Photography: One minute it’s not art at all. Then perhaps it is. And then again it is not. That’s Robert Frank.
“There are too many images,” he said. “Too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It’s just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn’t an art anymore. Maybe it never was.”
And maybe it is his fault. Who would believe that a hairy little man could take snapshots of nothing and make millions of dollars? Anyone can take a snapshot. So, maybe, anyone can be famous if he gets lucky once.
Frank watched the dancers for a long spell, until his wife appeared, twirling among them. The old man laughed a real laugh. “I am happy today.”
We smoked a cigarette and said nothing. There was no more to ask, which was good. He had no more to say. Then this occurred to me: “Do you carry any photographs in your wallet?”, I asked.
“One maybe.”
He removed his billfold from his back pocket, flipped through some receipts and a medical-insurance card. There it was. The only picture the master carried was a business-card photograph of Niagara Falls with block lettering underneath it that read, niagara falls, in case its holder should forget what it was he was looking at.
“It must be very beautiful, very romantic,” he said somewhat hopefully. As it turned out, Robert Frank had never been to Niagara Falls. “Is it? Romantic?”
“Yes, quite romantic,” I lied. Let the old man be happy.
Labels: actors, Amy Poehler, magazines, photographers, Robert Frank, Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey
posted by Liz at 4:53 PM
3 Comments:
He sure never got to look at (or read) Alec Soth's Niagara...
I think he tends to be a bit dismissive every now and then. When you think of all he has accomplished and how widely revered he is, I am not well impressed when I hear the grumpy old man in him.
On Cartier Bresson he famously uttered: "You never felt that he was moved by something that was happening, other than the beauty of it, or just the composition." He might be right, but I much prefer to think of him as the authoritative voice of a true milestone in the history of the photo book. Or as the quaint old sage that improvises a last dance before returning to the press at Steidlville, as is recounted by Joel Sternfeld on the introductory notes to his forthcoming (last "director's cut" version of) "The Americans".
Yeah, I read Sternfeld's piece, and I have to say, I much prefer that image of Frank to the one in Vanity Fair, though I'm willing to believe that there's truth in both of them.
I chose this portion of the VF piece to quote because, as I read the article, I was thinking of Alec Soth for some reason, and so to find this mention of Niagara at the end, well, it was perfect.
I am learning, slowly, so slowly, to separate my impressions of the photographer as a person from my impressions of the photographs he makes. In school, I always did best in the classes taught by people I admired and respected; when the teacher sucked, I didn't even try. If I read an interview with a photographer whose work I've always admired, and that person is other than what I've hoped he would be, I have to work to not let it affect my perceptions of the photographs. The fact is, some real assholes can make beautiful work, but when beautiful work is made by wonderful people, it just makes it all the better, for me at least.
Liz, I agree 100% with that. And in fact the examples of BW made by SRA's are not at all scarce. In this conversation on Photography which took place at the NYPL last November there is one speaker which outstandingly fulfills both categories. If you haven't listened to it, I do recommend it -the conversation as a whole, that is. Not strictly what the real asshole had to say.
I think it touches upon interesting issues, some of which had to be abandoned and were not followed through, owing in part to certain interventions...
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