Frank Films: The Film and Video Work of Robert Frank

[Frank, Robert] Burger-Utzer, Brigitta & Stefan Grissemann

ISBN 10: 3865218156 / ISBN 13: 9783865218155

Published by Steidl, Göttingen, Germany, 2009

About this Item

4to, 272 pp, paperback. Profusely illustrated in color. Still sealed in the publisher's original shrinkwrap. Robert Frank turned to filmmaking towards the end of the 1950s, interrupting his swift rise to fame after The Americans. This volume presents essays by Amy Taubin, Philip Brookman, Stefan Grisseman, Thomas Miessgang, Kent Jones, Michael Barchet, Pia Neuman and Bert Rebhandl, an interview with Allen Ginsberg, and new stills made from videotapes to Frank's specifications.,"I put my Leica in a cupboard. Enough of lying in wait, pursuing, sometimes catching the essence of the black and the white, the knowledge where God is. I make films. Now I speak to the people in my viewfinder." Robert Frank Robert Frank turned to filmmaking at the end of the 1950s. Although he has made 27 films, the work is largely a well kept secret. Frank approaches each film project as a new experience, challenging the medium and its possibilities at every turn. He has amalgamated documentary, fiction, and autobiography, cutting across genres. This book offers a visually unique approach to Frank's films: only new stills taken from videotapes have been used and they add up to a visual essay on Frank's cinema that establishes an engaging dialogue with his photographic work. Each film is introduced with detailed analysis, discussing the history and the aesthetics of Frank's film work. An interview with Allen Ginsberg provides an insider view. Together the texts and images offer an innovative and in-depth approach to the oeuvre of one of the greatest and most restless artists of the 20th century." - From the publisher.

Seller Inventory # 32340

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Frank Films: The Film and Video Work of Robert Frank
• Publisher: Steidl, Göttingen, Germany
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3865218156
• ISBN 13: 9783865218155
• Binding: Soft cover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Photography
  • Art
  • Film

About this title

Synopsis

A unique approach to Robert Frank's film and video work

On the heels of Steidl's DVD releases of Robert Frank's films, and as a part of their impressive ongoing project to make all of Frank's output available, Frank Films redresses the imbalance of critical attention paid to his work in cinema--an oeuvre as esteemed among cinephiles as his photography is elsewhere. Frank turned to filmmaking towards the end of the 1950s, interrupting his swift rise to fame after The Americans. Frank describes "a decision: I put my Leica in a cupboard. Enough of lying in wait, pursuing, sometimes catching the essence of the black and the white, the knowledge where God is. I make films. Now I speak to the people in my viewfinder." Never content to walk the same path twice, he has approached each of his 27 films as a new experience, so that his films have proved difficult to categorize, especially in their amalgamation of documentary, fiction and autobiography. Frank Films presents essays by Amy Taubin, Philip Brookman, Stefan Grisseman, Thomas Miessgang, Kent Jones, Michael Barchet, Pia Neuman and Bert Rebhandl, an interview with Allen Ginsberg and essays by various authors examining each film and video in detail. Visually, Frank Films provides a unique approach to the work, since--at his request--only new stills made from videotapes have been used for reproduction.

Robert Frank was born in Zurich in 1924 to parents of Jewish descent. He immigrated to the United States two years after World War II ended, and since then he has produced work that changed the history of art and photography. Groundbreaking projects include The Americans, Lines of My Hand, Black White and Things, Pull My Daisy and Cocksucker Blues. Frank was the subject of a major retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in 1994. He was the recipient of the Hasselblad Award in 1996. A major exhibition organized by The National Gallery of Art, Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans," is touring nationally in 2009, with stops in Washington, San Francisco and New York.