Robert Frank: Three Films. Tonight. Posted on May 7, 2009 by Brecht
Robert Frank, Pull My Daisy (still), 1958; photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Robert Frank
The first program of the extensive Robert Frank retrospective has arrived—prepare yourself for a turbulent voyage. The Americans evinced an underlying interest in narrative, and before it had been released in book form, Frank had made the leap into filmmaking, in the process helping to launch the spectacular era of “Underground Movies”. This movement, rising from the intensely passionate world of New York cinephilia in what might be termed its “alternative” forms, would swell to become one of the dominant fixtures of the New York scene for more than a decade, before long making its influence felt around the world. Made at a time when it still seemed possible to propose a self-sustaining “counter-cinema” to the established genre forms of Hollywood features, Frank’s beginning forays were short, but were nonetheless major salvos towards the creation of a renewed cinematic culture.
