Robert Frank is 90 years old on Sunday. The great pioneer and iconoclast has become a survivor, celebrated and revered, but still resolutely an outsider. One thing we can be sure of: he won’t be looking back.
While I like many of the photographs in “The Americans” there’s something about the book that I don’t care for. I have the extended edition, which includes contact sheets. You can readily see that shots have been chosen in order to reflect a specific point of view and may not always accurately depict the reality. It’s hard to believe that the 1950s, thought by many to be a golden age in the US, could have been as bleak as Frank makes it look.
Still there’s no denying the influence of “The Americans” so Happy Birthday Mr. Frank!
Below are a couple more pieces on Robert Frank and “The Americans”, which I found interesting.
Robert Frank’s Unsentimental Journey by Charlie LeDuff in Vanity Fair, April 2008