[Leica] Beholder of the Eye - Frank

[bdcolen at earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)]

Absolutely, incontrovertibly, dead-on true.

The Americans is not political. It is not at all an accurate portrait of
America in the late 1950s. It is a brilliant photographic record of a
Swiss photographer's road trip across America, a road trip in which his
eye was drawn by the dark, the brooding, the anti-Rockwell side of
America. But if anyone doubts Frank's powers as a photographer at that
point in his life, all they have to do is look carefully at the photo of
the New Orleans street car - sheer visual genius. 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Tim Atherton
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 3:51 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: RE: [Leica] Beholder of the Eye - Frank



> Then Robert Frank has what sort of eye?

Has (after 40 years here) or had?  (perhaps it's more Euro/Canadian
now...)

The Americans is absolutely a European eye looking at the US in that
particular time. In fact it is highly unlikely an "American"
photographer could have come up with anything approaching that view. The
closest would be, perhaps, Winogrand's Guggenheim cris-crossing the US
in 1964 - and he does indeed come to it all with a rather different
"eye" from Frank.

The Americans could, I think, only have been done by an outsider - this
outsider happening to be a European.

tim

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