Frank Films – The Film and Video Work of Robert Frank

“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.