Frank spent time travelling across 48 states in the USA taking photos to understand why it was promoted as the land of the free. Jack Kerouac stated the photographs that followed had never been seen before and so ‘for this he would definitely be hailed as a great artist in his field’. (Jack Kerouac, The Americans, 1958, page 7)
Frank has been born to wealthy parents in 1924 and lived under threat during World War Two because of his Jewish heritage. He was very rebellious as a child and later travelled Europe and then onto America. He wanted to see what was happening in the US because the media had always promoted it as the land of the free.
The images in Frank’s book The Americans were taken between 1955 and 1956 when the world was trying to change after the Second World War. Frank was greatly influenced by people around him and his images from this period focus on patriotism, racism, dividing of the classes and everyday culture. His images also show how technology was changing and a lot of them feature jukeboxes. I think all of his images are extremely powerful and I like the way he doesn’t always focus on the obvious. In one of his images at Hollywood film premiere, the star is blurred and he captures the people’s faces and expressions from behind her. It shows how we, as consumers look at celebrity and follow them when it doesn’t really affect our own life and this image shows this. I also like how he looked at how people were deliberately separated such as the image of people on the bus where the blacks and whites are separate and the woman in the front almost looks indignant that she has to share the bus at all.
I also like the image of the black woman holding the white baby. Instantly it makes us think of that she is the child’s nanny and that is fifty years after Franks images were taken. Frank was disappointed at the lack of spirituality in America and how religion wasn’t really seen. He was however impressed at the number of people in the cities, compare his Paris photo of the Arc Du Triomphe to any image now of any major city to see a change. Some of his photos show the super highways, empty of cars but these new roads linking the people all together over this vast expanse of land.
Frank looked at a range of things in the country, he photographed the American flag to symbolise their patriotism. I was shocked when working in America a couple of years ago when I dropped the American flag and they made me burn it because it was disrespectful. At the time I thought they were insane but it shows how they feel about their country. Many people have the misconception and stereotypes about the Americans but I do think, looking back that it is uplifting that they are proud to be an American and of living in this country. I was shocked to find that hardly any of the children I worked with had a passport. They said they do not need to leave their state or country as it has everything they needed and they didn’t desire to go anywhere else. This was extremely strange to me as I was abroad for four months at the time and enjoying every minute of it.
The Americas, Robert Frank, 1958
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