Robert Frank

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“I dunno why I’m a Jew ya know? Because my fathers made that happen and so on. But it has something to do... It gives you sensitivity, it gives you strength. It gives you something, if you’re strong enough you can use it” - Robert Frank, ‘Leaving Home, Coming Home. South Bank Documentary’

I watched a documentary on Robert Frank, a photographer I hadn’t heard of until I was assigned to watch a documentary about him funded by the Tate. A man born in Switzerland, 1924 he describes how he remembers seeing in his young adult life confusion and problems. His parents jewish, and his father no longer holding a citizenship, were under a lot of pressure whether to move or stay. They stayed in the end which he thinks was a good choice. 

He moved to America, and loved it. I imagine living with the stress of Nazis invading and taking your family, a huge weight would be lifted off his shoulders. Throughout the documentary he never talks a lot about his native country Switzerland, he never looks back. He considers himself an American and now has an American citizenship. 

He had two children, Pablo Frank and Andrea Frank have both passed away. Andrea in a plane crash , and Pablo died in a psychiatric hospital in Pennsylvania. 

Documentaries about old photographers I have seen before, have never been so lonely. William Klein did a documentary about his life and career made by the BBC shot mostly in New York. He lost his wife the year before but he seemed to have plenty of friends and still has an uplifting personality. William Eggleston’s documentary was full of people he met and knew, revelling a more serious character but fun in his own way. Robert Frank’s documentary had only him and his wife in it, Frank seemed drained and sad I though. I also felt that he never really fitted in anywhere. America, not being his native country and Switzerland being to painful or out of touch for him to want to go back. The feeling of isolation and loneliness was a feeling I felt throughout the film. 

Maybe though being an independent photographer is a lonely job and eventually moulds you into a lonely person. The man I suppose, has had a lot of suffering in his life growing up in fear of being captured by Nazis and then later, loosing his two children. He is also a man of the moment and hates staged events like documentaries, and made it very clear whilst they were filming at some points. He was probably fed up being filmed while they were making a lot of it. 

I like his photographs of America and am a fan of his work and the modernisation of photography with blurred images and “bad” contrasts. All of his images tell a story. 

Perhaps it is not the lonely people that seem to be alone, that are lonely. Maybe it is the people that are well accomplished with friends that are lonely because they need people. That is the question I ask myself seeing Frank’s documentary, was he always lonely in a way?