A new film reveals the com­pli­cat­ed genius of Robert Frank

Robert Frank’s 1958 book ​‘The Amer­i­cans, has been described as ​“per­haps the most influ­en­tial pho­tog­ra­phy book of the 20^th cen­tu­ry.” Best known for chron­i­cling the so-called Beat gen­er­a­tion with his cam­era, Frank col­lab­o­rat­ed with Jack Ker­ouac and Allen Gins­berg on his first short film, Pull My Daisy, and went on to make a num­ber of films over the ensu­ing decades. Per­haps his most famous – cer­tain­ly his most con­tro­ver­sial – work is 1972’s Cock­suck­er Blues, the banned Rolling Stones film which cap­tured the band in their full hedo­nis­tic swing. Frank’s pho­tographs also appeared on the cov­er of the band’s album from the same year, ​‘Exile on Main Street’.

At 91, Frank is still active but lives in a state of semi-reclu­sion, rarely grant­i­ng inter­view requests. It stands to rea­son, then, that a new fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary about him should come from some­one with­in his inner cir­cle. Lau­ra Israel has been work­ing with Frank as an edi­tor for years and in Don’t Blink has cre­at­ed an inti­mate and visu­al­ly arrest­ing account of Frank over the years. ​“I remem­ber see­ing Robert Frank’s film Me and My Broth­er at Anthol­o­gy Film Archives in NYC” Israel tells LWLies, ​“I loved the film – it’s so relent­less. There were some tech­niques in the edit­ing that I recog­nised as being so-called cut­ting edge in music videos at that time. I remem­ber feel­ing a bit sur­prised to see that Robert had already used many of these quirky exper­i­men­tal film tech­niques years ago and incor­po­rat­ed them into a fea­ture length film.”

Years of trust in Israel and the promise of a small crew tempt­ed Frank to per­mit an inva­sion of his pri­va­cy, although the noto­ri­ous­ly can­tan­ker­ous artist was not always will­ing to do things con­ven­tion­al­ly. ​“We did find out very ear­ly on that Robert was not going to take direc­tion,” Israel reveals. ​“He pulled down the win­dow shade at one point and [Direc­tor of Pho­tog­ra­phy] Lisa Rin­zler asked him to pull it up again, as she had missed the shot. He quick­ly pulled the shade down and said, ​‘That’s it!’ So we didn’t give him direc­tion after that – either we got the shot or we didn’t.”

Ear­ly on Frank says in the film,“Most peo­ple when they become aware of the cam­era, change,” and Israel affirms, ​“Robert is always aware when there is a cam­era on and point­ed at him. There was only one time he real­ly didn’t respond well to the cam­era on him, and it was a moment I chose to include in the final cut – when images of the Rolling Stones were being pro­ject­ed on and in back of him. He refers to it as ​‘hate­ful footage’. Then I react and say, ​‘cut’ and he starts laugh­ing. So of course I had to include it in the film. You can’t tell the way it is edit­ed, but then we all start­ed laugh­ing because we realised Robert was tak­ing the piss. I think this exchange also punc­tu­ates what he says about Cock­suck­er Blues and what hap­pened between him and the Stones.”

Aside from cap­tur­ing a large­ly nat­ur­al and relaxed Frank at home and out and about with his friends and wife, the film also has a faint under­cur­rent of a valen­tine to New York, cap­tur­ing as it does the extent to which the city has changed in the 50 years Frank has lived there. ​“I am so nos­tal­gic for that New York, that East Vil­lage.” Israel says, ​“I think you can tell my love of New York from Don’t Blink. I was so hap­py to use The Kills song ​‘What New York Used to Be’ at the end of the film.”

Reflect­ing on Frank’s char­ac­ter from her time spent with him and his work, Israel says, ​“Robert’s life and work are deeply entwined. His love of the detour in art car­ries over to the free­wheel­ing, open man­ner in which he con­ducts his life. I think his biggest influ­ence comes from two words he says in the film, ​‘Spon­ta­neous intuition.’

Don’t Blink screens at Sen­so­ria Fes­ti­val in Sheffield on Sat­ur­day 8 October.