Original subtitles

[soft piano music]

[soft piano music]

[soft music]

Yeah, let's go in here.

This is the place, it's the neighborhood.

Yeah.

[police siren wails]

I'm contemplating on moving out.

I've been here long enough but I like it a lot for a long time

but now it's poison like the sign said.

It's poison.

It is totally changing and, you know,

another... another...

another thing has taken hold of it

and it's... different.

The yuppies, they have a right to live too

but I don't want to live amongst them.

I don't even want to live next to them but I have no choice.

Yeah.

But, you know, it's part of New York

and New York is a very good city so,

you know, wherever you look around it has a character

and, you know, it isn't a pretty life, it isn't a sweet life

but it's the real life that I look for and that I've got.

[soft music]

[old time music playing]

ROBERT FRANK: This film is about the past

which goes back 19 years when Mary and I got married.

We got married on 11th Street.

I had a loft there

and the first thing we moved in there was a piano.

Soon after, Pablo, our first child, was born.

[old time music playing]

I like images and so to make images may be came sort of

natural because I didn't want to do anything else.

I didn't want to go to school.

There was a nice man living above us in Zurich

who was a retoucher of photographs

and I liked him very much

and so when I was about 17, I went to this man

and said I want to learn what you do.

He was a wonderful man. He taught me

a different kind of life than my parents lived.

That was the beginning.

That's how I looked when I was just learning photography,

staying with this man.

Then I went to the Army and this was even earlier on,

was at my grandmother's house with a dog

and I remember his name and his name was Rex.

So it's wonderful that these photographs survived.

You grow up in a place and the culture of that place

or your parents and your situation, it influences you,

there was a war going on, Switzerland was a place

that was closed off from everywhere,

you couldn't get out

and you were afraid that the Nazis would invade Switzerland.

Of course it had an influence on the Jews so, you know, you hear

the talk of my parents trying to maybe leave Switzerland,

go to South America or get a passport and whatever

because my father was -- he was stateless

because he'd lost his German citizenship as a Jew

so only my mother had a Swiss passport.

They were problems they had and as a young boy, you know,

you watch it

and I always thought they would make up their mind

for something but they didn't, they stayed in Switzerland

which was probably the right thing

but it certainly convinced me to get out of Switzerland,

to get out of Europe, really

and anyhow it was mandatory that you would go somewhere

- and learn English. - [phone rings]

OK, this might be my saving grace.

Hello.

[emotional piano music]

Leaving Switzerland, coming to America

felt like the door opened, we were free

and I liked it, I liked it a lot.

It was just another world where you could move,

where you could take a train, go somewhere, you know, travel.

[emotional piano music]

I got a job, I had to look pretty hard at that time

but I got a job because I showed my portfolio to Harper's Bazaar

and that's how it started, my career.

[piano music]

At that time as a photographer I searched for

very clear and strong pictures and...

you know I was attracted by what you call sombre events

or I was attracted by...

MAN: Sorry, we keep running out of film.

INTERVIEWER: Robert, I'm just going to ask you again...

Well look, forget it, look I'm not an actor, you know,

I can't go through this shit, you know.

I mean, there's no spontaneity in this,

it's completely against my nature what's happening here.

So if the crew can't get it together with the film,

let's go out to Coney Island, let's play there

and let's look at the landscape with my photographs

and see this man is looking, something he did 50 years ago,

can you tell me is that guy still around?

I mean this is shit, you know, I can't do it.

[busy street sounds]

Sir.

Have you any idea where that was?

I photographed that about 50 years ago.

No, I don't.

I think it was here and it's all gone.

I have no idea where that was.

- No. it's here but... - Sorry.

Let's find a real old guy.

[laughing] He would know

but it's got to be somebody like me.

I guess like it would to be like around, I guess...

Like where they have the amusement rides and stuff

- Yeah... - Are the best people to ask.

Yeah. OK.

OK. Thanks.

Wait a minute, wait, turn off the camera.

- Turn off the camera. - OK.

My friend just wrote a booked called

"Coney Island: Lost and Found".

I'd like you to meet him, he should be right nearby.

Let me see if I can get him on the phone.

He was just on the next block a few minutes ago.

Charles Denson was a photographer and a reporter

for the "San Francisco Chronicle".

Have you see the book "Lost and Found" by Charles Denson.

It's the history of Coney Island.

300 photographs.

Oh, that's right there.

ROBERT FRANK: What do you recognize there?

Well that's where the train station used to be, right there.

That's the train station?

Yeah, the entrance to the train station right there.

I'm going to look over there but I think it was here, I think it

was here.

It was right there, it was right there.

It was right there.

It's the entrance to the train station right here.

ROBERT FRANK: How old are you?

MAN: Right here. I am 41.

- So you knew it as a kid? - Yeah.

- Bye. - Thanks a lot.

[motorcycle revs]

The guy recognized it just from that little corner

of the picture.

That was the train station, he was good.

He's 48 so he remembered coming here.

Well I've become a New Yorker, this is my city, you know,

I don't go back to Zurich, you know, it's not my town

but I wouldn't go to Kansas City

but I think if I would be a young person today

I wouldn't pay the price that you have to pay

to live in New York. I'm not talking about rent.

It's very -- you pay here, you know, it's like the sea,

it always takes away something from you.

So you have to be strong and preferably you have be young.

Before coming to America I went to Paris.

See how few cars there are.

That's when I really loved the city

and I never liked a city as much as I loved Paris.

And then I took a similar picture in New York

and you see how rough it gets in New York.

I mean I don't have that kind of delicate feeling

or love for a city, it's rough.

So this is Chatham Square just after they tore down

the elevated subway, I forgot now what year that was.

It was in the sixties of seventies.

But then did America, you know, got married

and this was Pablo when he was just a few months old

and I like it because it's a wonderful picture

of some passerby, it's a trucking district

and we left Pablo outside

and then a man comes by and just fixes his hand.

It's a very nice gesture.

I think today it doesn't happen in the city anymore

so I like that picture.

Right after Pablo was born, when he was about six months old,

Mary left for Europe and I joined her there

and we traveled around in Europe.

We went to Paris, to Spain, to England

and then back to America.

[lively French music]

Intuition is a very important part of my brain, to speak of,

I never really had a concept of something, it was always

following the intuition before I really thought.

So the city of Paris really gave me that free intuition

because everything was so beautiful and so on.

I really loved the flowers;

I loved the buildings.

So that's why I wanted you to see the pictures

of the flowers.

[lively French music]

So we can look at all these slides

because the photographs are gone,

they are sold to the highest bidder, whatever, you know.

Actually they're in Japan, so...

But we look at them

and I really felt it was romantic.

It was like a love affair with that city.

I can't complain, I would complain now about Paris

but now it's late, you know.

So I'm very happy that I felt then like that

and, you know, it's not manipulated.

It was really a city that liked to show the flowers

and sell them and have markets for the flowers.

Sort of was an echo throughout the city.

I think they are not sentimental which is maybe the thing

I like about them and sometimes, you know, it's from far away,

sometimes it's very close, sometimes it's with people,

sometimes without.

There was never posed except this was my friend

when he was on New Year's Day bringing

tulips to his girlfriend.

He wasn't posed but maybe I asked him to hold it longer,

I forgot now.

There's a photographer, I knew an American photographer

who lived in Paris, who lived there since a long time,

Louis Stettner.

[lively French music]

- [busy street sounds] - [bell tolls]

In London it was different because, you know,

I wanted to get some kind of like a classic picture,

you know, the banquets and all that.

It was wonderful because they didn't pay any attention to you,

which today they would tell you to fuck off and turn away.

But these people had such class,

I mean they completely ignored you, they would just walk by.

It was really a wonderful setting for a photographer.

You couldn't get it better so I made use of it.

And then I decided to go to Wales.

I go down with them in the mines once or twice.

I mean, I knew how they'd come in the morning,

their shifts they had.

They were heroic figures in a way

and I think it shows in the pictures.

[machinery clanging]

It was really a story on that man I got to know

and I lived in his house and that was a wonderful man.

Every story is a little bit different really.

During the time I was in Europe and right after I came back

I continued to work on assignment

besides photographing my family.

During this time, many...

I took many of the photographs that became

quite well known, famous

and were later exhibited and reproduced in many places.

In America I wanted to do it differently.

There was no more romanticism really.

There was a look at the way

a country that I didn't really know

that I only lived in for a couple of years.

So the Americans was the first time I made a trip

across the country.

Sometimes I would travel with my wife and my children

but most of the time I was alone.

I had applied for a Guggenheim Grant which I got

because Walker Evans helped me to get it

and so it was the big change in my career

and it was at the right time because I was,

you know, in really good shape

and it was really a hard trip

but I really felt often something very strong

from the people I remember,

the singing in Reno and there's gambling

and, you know, I'd stay around a lot

and there was a guy winning all that money in cash

and then he stood there, all his money in his pockets,

all the silver coins.

I looked at him and he looks at me

and he says "Here, you want some money?

You need some money?" It was a wonderful gesture

and, you know, it's things like this, you know,

look at poor people, how they try to survive

or they have, you know, like a lonely time

it can be in America and whatever,

what a tough country it is.

And also I saw for the first time

the way, you know, blacks were treated

and it's really, it was surprising to me.

[Southern hymnal music]

[Southern hymnal music]

ROBERT FRANK: Later on in the South

I picked up a black man, I think it was in Mississippi.

I opened the front door and the guy says, he was a yeoman,

I think he was a preacher, he said

"No, I can't come in the front door,

I'll sit in the back and I'll ride with you"

and I said "OK".

And so we drove to the next town, he got out there

and shortly after a cop stopped me

and said "You picked up a nigger, what for?"

And I said "Yeah..."

I wasn't that used to the kind of, how rough there are".

I did not get arrested then but the guy let me go

but he said "You're not supposed to do that"

so, you know.

But when I got arrested it was when I was driving alone

in Arkansas and, you know, the guy just said

"You're suspicious" and that's it, throw you into jail.

And it was a bad experience and, yeah.

But it didn't make me hate America, it just...

It made me understand, you know, how people can be, you know.

So it made me just feel more for photographing black people

and observing them and observing how elegant they were

in comparison to the fat white people.

So, you know, you learn a lot traveling,

you learn a lot when you're a photographer

and that's what probably makes the difference,

if you have some brain and some feeling for people,

you're going to be a good photographer.

[smooth jazz music]

COMMENTATOR: Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice

with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand.

He sucked a sad poem right out of America on to film,

taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.

To Robert Frank, I now give this message.

You've got eyes and I see that little old lonely elevator girl

looking up sighing in an elevator full of blurred demons,

what's her name and address?

[smooth jazz music]

ROBERT FRANK: This is a picture of New Orleans

and there's a parade and I liked it, the crowd in the street.

This is one of my best pictures.

It's a wonderful way the people move, so many different people

and you can see their faces and it's stopped, you know,

it's a frame that's just absolutely wonderful,

you know, how they cross, this way and that way

and in the back and the front,

you know, it's these accidents that happen

but little by little you see what moves you.

The pictures have to talk, not me.

So be it, you know.

[smooth jazz music]

COMMENTATOR:Frank has concentrated almost exclusively on the tawdry,

the lonely and the sad images which are part

but not all of American life.

COMMENTATOR #2: Frank is sensitive but apparently he is without love

There is no pity in his images.

They are images of hate and hopelessness, of...

COMMENTATOR #3:Is he a poet as Kerouac, his friend, says he is?

Maybe. But he is also a liar,

perversely basking in the kind of world,

in the kind of misery...

COMMENTATOR #4:Overall, Frank has created many beautiful pictures.

Overall he has created also...

COMMENTATOR #5:Frank's book actually explores a very limited aspect of life

in the United States

and it is the least attractive aspect at that.

ROBERT FRANK: The reaction surprised me because people thought

it was an anti-American story.

So then it took ten years to then change.

But I do like America, I became an American

and that's what I know best.

So we can go and see June in the studio maybe.

Talk about love, you know.

[smooth piano music]

I think it's important how a man lives

and I think it's important how true artists can live together

and I am very proud of my wife

and the way we managed to live together for so long

and some difficult times

and we are both artists and it didn't interfere

and it takes some doing.

Ouch.

ROBERT FRANK: I'm independent and she's even more independent

in what she does, follows what she believes in

and she really works every day

on a totally different idea that I work on.

So she taught me a lot

and I always learned a lot from women artists.

JUNE LEAF: Here.

Here.

OK, see.

Actually it's wrong because what's significant about it

is that when she steps...

See, she steps and she steps into nothing.

See, when she steps down, there shouldn't be anything there.

ROBERT FRANK: Is that man me or is it somebody else.

Who's the man?

It's not a man, it's a pregnant woman.

I'll try her in here on this little stage.

I mean I'll try anything so that's the end of the story

and I thought that it would not be boring to have you see me

actually have an idea.

What's the point of talking though,

this isn't doing anything.

Living with Robert, I don't know anyone else whereby

I would get the energy that I get, I have it anyway,

and the fact that I get so much energy from living with him

'cause we're so opposite and I never know what to expect,

I mean I leave him for ten minutes

and when I come back I can never second guess what's on his mind

or anything but also my work gives me the energy

to ride the waves with him

because he's a very, he challenges himself a lot,

you know, and he can never rest at anything,

he can't let anyone else rest at anything, so and...

So I think I'm the right person for him

because I can stay on that rocky boat.

I can, you know, I have good sea legs,

that's what it's like in this house.

We watch each other, I think that's what she, I don't know...

We never fight but every now and then we each scream,

very loud, just very loud.

I mean, just all of a sudden.

This is new, because I'm not a yeller.

But how you scream.

How do I scream?

I'm not going to do it now because I'll break

all your equipment.

You want me to do it? Nah.

You've got the idea.

ROBERT FRANK: No, you do it.

[loud scream]

ROBERT FRANK: That's right.

sometimes it has to be like that, you know,

that you have to scream because...

And he didn't used to do it but I notice he liked it.

I didn't expect him to and now he screams.

So come on, scream your scream.

- No. - Come on, be fair, be fair.

Come on.

I can't do it now because there's no reason now.

It's a theater now.

- Oh, you... - You had, no, no.

- Well he screams... - Well it's just, you know,

you have enough of everything then you scream like [screams[.

[June laughs]

You know and that's...

JUNE LEAF: Don't you love it?

So, you know, maybe this is a little theater

but I wanted to get June in because, you know,

June and I, although we work on very different things,

we work together about life, you know,

and the whole thing is about life,

what I get to watch her do her work

and not be discouraged and continue to work and work.

I mean it encourages me, it helps me.

I think I get a lot watching an artist, you know, work

and the struggle she has putting a show together.

And, you know, it's so different for me and...

Robert is like a man with chopsticks

and he watches and watches

and then he takes the two chopsticks

and he just picks the most...

lasting, essential thing out of the chaos, you know,

he just, he has that marvelous way

to select something very powerful.

[gentle jazz music]

[machinery clanging]

ROBERT FRANK: The Ford factory isn't the kind of romantic place to go

because it's gigantic, it's so important,

you know, in America, the car, Ford, it was so overpowering,

the noise and it's also very hot in these big machines.

[gentle jazz music]

[machinery clanging]

I'm not happy about anything; I'm just not afraid of anything.

So if the picture is good, if it's not straight

and if it's a little bit crooked, if it's grainy,

it's still a good picture.

I mean there's no happiness about this so...

This is in Hoboken when they had I think 200 Centennial.

This is where the picture with the flag, you know,

that's so well known but it's...

When I moved the camera a little bit to the right.

If you find a contact sheet you can see how it has a lot to do

with how you can move around, you move or you find other

things, you know, because the things go away, you know.

We have to be there when it's there.

I think this is in Coney Island,

yeah, which has all the ingredients.

- [waves lapping] - [indistinct voices]

What I remember is, you know, the people lying here

on a very hot day on a 4th of July

and I remember there was more people

and there was more radios, more music.

As it was so hot, nobody wanted to go back into the city

so they stayed here and slept here

and I kept on taking pictures right through the night.

So if you look at the contact sheets,

there's not that many pictures really because, you know,

it's sort of discreet, you have to do it quick, you know.

I had a little camera, you know, it was just between,

between those people sleeping or resting

and me trying to get some good pictures.

- [indistinct voices shouting] - [waves lapping]

And then I would photograph a girl that's standing there

with her towel around her, you know,

that's probably what I would photograph.

- [indistinct voices shouting] - [waves lapping]

I think I was looking more for the kind of loneliness

that people had to lie down on a blanket alone

and be not surrounded by people because it was night

so everybody had plenty of space

so there was a kind of a lonely feeling

and I think that's what I also tried to express

in my photographs, to see a man walking away being alone,

looking at the water and having a hat on

but if we would come here at 9:00 tonight

we might have more of that feeling.

It still would be light.

- [indistinct voices shouting] - [waves lapping]

There's me except I didn't have such a big camera.

- [indistinct voices shouting] - [waves lapping]

Well it's nice to come back here.

It's just remarkable that the people don't change.

These are the same people, you know,

some are more dark, some are less dark,

it's the same, same thing, you know.

You look at the pictures and you look at the pictures

that a cameraman now takes, there's not much difference.

You see how I walk around, how I, you know,

go from one place to the next, to the next to the next.

I choose a reality that exists, you know,

and maybe I'm careful that in my framing that it is preserved.

You must be somebody famous right?

Or you're going to become more famous.

- They are working on it. - Uh huh. OK.

We'll be able to sit here next year.

Well, yeah.

What's this about?

WOMAN: Why are you being interviewed?

MAN: What's special about you, we want to know?

I did some photography 50 years ago.

- I came here and photographed - Uh huh.

So they're doing a documentary about you?

They're doing a documentary on you?

ROBERT FRANK: Sort of, yeah, yeah.

So in 50 years, they're going to do me, right?

Well depends what you do, what you could do?

Shake hands with him.

- Nice to meet you. - What do you do?

I'm a teacher.

- Here at the Yeshiva? - At the Yeshiva in New Jersey.

- In New Jersey. - Yeah.

So you come here and...

Come here to see famous people being interviewed.

[laughter]

Yeah but you have to look this way, not that way.

We turned around specially.

- OK. - Alright.

[accordion music playing]

ROBERT FRANK: That's what I know to do, is about life, you know.

If I travel through America

it's my life that travels through America,

I'm not being sent by some guy to say, you know,

give me photographs from New Orleans to South Carolina.

It's, you know, even if I go to a place like a convention,

it's, you know, I steal the credentials

to get in on the floor, you know,

because I'm curious about that life

and being there it becomes sort of part of my life.

[crowd chanting]

And then when I get thrown out or I'm tired, then I leave

and then I have to get to another story

whereas June gets an idea every day, every day.

I don't get an idea every year.

I get an idea maybe...

I had the last idea in 1960 or 1970.

But so it's wonderful to live as a person that can say that

and can say truthfully, you know.

So it's, you know, my... Right?

Thanks, that was really nice, Robert.

Really nice.

[upbeat jazz music]

[camera shutter clicks]

[upbeat jazz music]

ROBERT FRANK: By photographing from a moving bus,

I knew that there was element of chance involved in it

and also I could not change my distance, it was made.

You didn't have really much choice,

you had to believe in that the moment would come

as the bus would go and stop and I would look up.

[camera shutter clicks]

[camera shutter clicks]

[camera shutter clicks]

[smooth jazz music]

I took a lot of pictures, I mean, there were a lot

of contact sheets with these bus pictures

and then I choose maybe first 30 of them

down to maybe 12 or 16 or...

And some I really like and then I printed it, you know,

with a gray background.

[smooth jazz music]

I don't want to be a hero, I don't want to be a judge,

I always thought it's terrible to be a judge.

People talk very respectfully of people who are judges.

I think that's, I always thought

it's terrifying to be a judge and, you know,

because it's a political pulse most often,

it's a political influence, political,

sitting down somewhere in a place doing your time

and then you become a judge

and then you can send some miserable fuck to the prison,

you know, for doing some dope or something, you know.

Judges aren't heroes.

What made you think of a judge?

- I don't know, I think... - I never heard you say that.

Well I don't want to be a hero

but a judge is even worse than being a hero.

JUNE LEAF: So is it bad to be a hero?

I don't like be portrayed as a hero. I don't like...

Well, aside from you... - That's no reason.

No, aside from you, I wonder why people,

'cause I know people the way they react to him:

"Robert Frank, oh I wanted to kill myself

before I saw the Americans" or "I didn't want to live"

or, you know "Robert Frank".

You know, I hear this all the time, you know,

and I say "Yeah, yeah, I get it".

But I don't really understand...

I mean, there's a simple explanation,

they're probably is.

It's nice to get recognition but it's sometimes, you know,

too much and it's, you know, it weighs on you

and then when the commercialism came in,

then it kills everything.

[old-time commercial music]

ANNOUNCER:Cool, that's how I like to get on a hot summer day.

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They're cool and compact, easy to pack,

space saving, cool and light to carry.

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Cool and full of flavor.

The cans seal all the good taste in, tight.

Cool and convenient.

No deposit, no returns, no fussing.

Get your favorite brands of soft drinks in no-return cans

and have a cool weekend.

The real nail in the coffin of all this was the commercialism

that I benefited from, you know, my living it permits me to

take airplane tickets, the expensive apartment,

but that's the nail in the coffin for this photography.

Because then everybody, you know, everybody...

everybody wants a piece of the pie and then it gets diluted,

it gets mass produced and it kills everything

and that happened in photography.

[old-time singing]

And then, you know, I started to make films.

I didn't want to do photography anymore

'cause the photographer does not talk to the people really.

I mean I look at them and take a picture, I walk away.

But then when you go to films then it taught me to communicate

and I learned, I go on.

JACK KEROUAC:She's a painter and her husband's a railroad brakeman

and he's coming home in a couple of hours,

about five hours from the local.

Of course, the room's in a mess,

there's her husband's coat on the chair.

Been there for three days.

Neck ties and his tortured socks.

She has to get the kid up to go to school, Pablo.

He says, "Do I have to eat that stuff all over again,

that farina?"

I ain't going to say that, I'm going to live 100 years

but I've been eating farina for about 100 years."

[rhythmic banging]

She says button your fly and go out and answer the door.

Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg there.

Man their beer cans out on the table bringing up all the wine,

wearing hoods and parkas, falling on the couch,

all bursting with poetry while she's saying

"Now you get your coat, get your little hat

and we're going to go off to school".

ROBERT FRANK: "Pull My Daisy" was a faultless film because Kerouac,

with his genius for words,

he pulled it through, faultless, you know.

28 minutes of whatever it was, I mean...

There was no script there but when you have a guy like this,

he could do it and you don't find that very often, you know.

It was his idea to make a film that was silent

and then he would narrate it, he would tell the story

the way, you know, he got the idea from

Symphony Sid on the radio at that time, so...

But that was the only time it worked in my films really.

JACK KEROUAC:Al, let's get on then,

be courtly and polite as befits poets.

[bright music]

So, all he poets meet. The railroad poet,

"Good evening, bishop."

"I'm awfully glad to see you, sir."

And then the, oh, well he's delighted, then he meets

the other poet, the Russian poet,

the Italian poet, the Jewish poet.

The lady that is the bishop's mother is taking off her gloves

and oh boy, the wife runs around fixing everything

and they help her off with her coat

and oh Miles says "Won't you sit here?"

He looked at the film once with the earphones,

somebody was playing music and he was listening to the music

and then he just did it, ten segments each,

you know, in the studio, and just spoke it and I think

only once we repeated one segment or part of it.

[cool jazz music]

JACK KEROUAC:Now Allen's saying, "Bishop.

Are holy flowers holy? Is the world holy?

Is glasses holy? Is time holy?

Is all white moonlight holy?

Empty rooms are holy?

Kneel holy.

Come on bishop, tell us. Toy holy, Byzantine holy?

Mark holy? Is the American flag holy?

Is girl holy? Is your sister holy?

What is holy? Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy.

In car holy? In light holy?

Is holy, holy? Are you holy?

[swinging jazz music]

I see that, I think it's best that I can go now

and go make my holy offices

[chuckling] if you know what I mean and...

ROBERT FRANK: "Pull My Daisy" was a story of the bishop coming in

and that music plays and the wife is unhappy,

just a bunch of beatniks there, I mean,

and these are all poets so I mean that was a readymade dish.

But the other films, they do rely on intuition

and they, you know, poetry.

Maybe some parts become poetry because it,

you know, people are poetic.

[indistinct shouting]

- Say something, say something. - Say something.

- Say something. - Say something.

- Again, louder. - Quiet!

Louder.

Louder.

Julius says say something.

[indistinct shouting]

A lot of you are unaware you see, all of you,

with all your dozens and trillions of eyes

and hair lengths are not aware

that my brother for the last 13 years

has been in a mental hospital.

And I've been trying to get him out for ten years.

But the doctors are so stupid and old-fashioned

that ten years ago they said he had to have a nurse around

24 hours a day.

But finally the things have changed, and now he's out

and he's sitting before you and his first name is Julius

and he used to be a bodybuilder with a fantastic body.

And Robert Frank here is making a movie of him,

because Robert says, you know,

"When Julius looks at a statue or a Picasso ass,

Julius takes a look and he walks around the whole statue."

And that's his little thing and he is very funny and very odd.

You see in a mental hospital they give you Thorazine.

And if anyone here as ever had Thorazine,

and I tried and sampled my brother's Thorazine,

it knocks you out.

It's worser, worser than pot.

It's worser than marijuana

'cause it disenfocuses your eyes!

And disenfocus your bowels!

[audience laughs]

You see, and so he has a big bowel hang up.

[audience laughs]

ROBERT FRANK: It was sort of my first attempt at a long film.

But I knew Peter Orlovsky and I knew Allen and I thought this is

a wonderful couple and then in comes that catatonic brother.

So I got very interested and then, you know, going along,

making these scenes and that's I think when you say

poetry comes in, I mean it, it sometimes happened

with this man that was so out of it

and so, you know, free in a way, but silent.

[bells toll]

[bell music]

It was really a very sensitive mind at, at work

and the sort of fragmented work to which I responded.

It was something that I had a feeling for it

and that's how it happened.

JACK KEROUAC:So morning comes and noon comes and, and so I'm,

I've gotten up out of bed and I see Julius is still sleeping

so I wake him up and tell him to get up.

And he gets up but he doesn't go to wash his face

or brush his teeth or go to the bathroom

or start to make breakfast.

He just gets up and stares at his mattress

and his wrinkled sheets, you know.

And so then I've gotta tell him like to put his clothes on.

So he does that.

Then he doesn't do anything else after that.

So then I tell him to wash his face you know,

"Come on Julius, let's go, let's get going, let's do the things,

you know, we have to do throughout the day."

And so he does 'em one by one, but he has to be told

each thing to do otherwise he just sort of stands there

and looks at his mattress, you know.

Sometimes I figure well maybe,

let's see what he does, maybe he'll get up on his own,

maybe he'll go wash his face on his own.

But if I don't say anything he just sleeps in bed all day!

Well I certainly wouldn't call it a family film.

I don't think you know there was no family.

I mean that was their family.

Maybe that was these big poets. I mean Corso and Allen,

his brother. I mean it was a poetic family in that way.

And I think it had a lot of that time in it --

going to California and the book store.

I mean it had that time, that, that kind of...

You know, it was, there was...

You know there was some optimism I think in the air.

People didn't worry so much.

They had some dreams, you know, possible.

It's different from now, because now

there's no more dreaming really.

Bombing range mapped in the distance.

Crime prevention show sponsored by Wrigley's spearmint.

Much delight in weeping.

Ecstasy in singing.

Laughter rises.

That confound staring idiot mayors

and stoning politicians eyeing thy breast.

O man of America be born!

[harmonica playing]

Prajnaparmita Sutra over coffee.

Vortex of telephone radio ,bank aircraft, nightclub, newspaper,

streets illuminated by bright emptiness.

They're just making a little film here, you know.

Everybody does.

Yeah, well.

Yeah, this is wonderful, you know.

Nature in the city.

[indistinct]

- Hi, Andrea. - Hi.

- How are things? - Good.

- Okay. - Hi.

Hey. What's happening?

[indistinct]

- Wanna come in? - Huh? Okay.

Good.

ROBERT FRANK: Both my children went to a school in Vermont at that time.

And I think it was sort of already critical, the marriage.

And it was I think a very honest film, you know,

to try to talk to my children.

It was already difficult I think

and it would prove to be more difficult,

certainly with my son, so.

ROBERT FRANK: You always said you wanted normal parents.

- Do you remember that? - Yeah.

ROBERT FRANK: Well I think you have now what is very normal surroundings.

- Here? Up here? - What? Are you kidding?

This is not normal.

This is the most un-normal situation.

This is abnormal?

This is the only school like this in the world.

This is the most abnormal there is.

ROBERT FRANK: Well what do you think of all the communes

that are coming up all over the places?

Looks very...

PABLO FRANK: Well, are they each one separate?

I mean they all might have the same idea behind 'em

but I don't, we saw a lot of them on the trip

and they're not, they're not meeting the problems...

No, he's talking about the stuff in New Mexico

- that's starting right and... - Yeah.

Well I saw ones, the other ones too, on the coast.

No, those were entirely different.

-They're not entirely different. -Mennonite community.

-Yeah, I mean they're... -They're not entirely different.

No, he's talking about the new communities like this.

The Mennonite community isn't going...

ROBERT FRANK: Like up here where everybody runs it altogether

runs something. Some are very disciplined.

Here it's very disciplined.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's normal!

It's absolutely...

ROBERT FRANK: It showed me that my children were already on their own way.

I mean I'm always talking more about my son who did change

and needed more attention at that time

than I could give him.

So he moved out of the school right after that

and then his life became very difficult and...

it was difficult to help him.

ROBERT FRANK: Just like to know why you can't,

you think you can't enjoy life like other people?

Why do you have to carry the whole world on your shoulder

like a caddy?

This heavy instrument.

'Cause I don't like, I don't like just... earth's gravity.

I wanna see what the gravity is like on the other planets.

I wanna, I wanna investigate Mars.

You know, he manifested this strange behavior.

He was alone, he couldn't really get along with people

and help them and...

and he just, I thought...

he made a very difficult life for himself.

And I did try to help and wherever he lived I went there

and the girlfriends and it broke apart little by little.

ROBERT FRANK: So, Pablo, what is it?

- Job 30... - Again.

Job 38, 22.

- GIRL: Jobe. - Jobe.

GIRL: Well it's a job to do. It's a job to...

That's true. That's true, you're right.

I won't argue with you.

- PABLO: Job 38 22. - GIRL: This is our new house.

The earth's in the ice, the ice is in the desert.

ROBERT FRANK: What's the happiest moment you have with [indistinct]?

When she said...

to be -- I should, if I wanted to live to be 800

I should do it somewhere else.

[laughter]

ROBERT FRANK: Whatever was wrong in his head it started to go

and then... there was the hospitals

and psychiatrists and institutions.

ROBERT FRANK: Pablo in the hospital and we are trying to get him out.

[trippy music]

Let's be more happy, Pablo.

Let's have a good time together.

Are you sticking with the plan, Pablo?

What is the day today? Wednesday.

Wednesday.

So when I come back on Saturday you'll have your hair cut?

Yeah.

Like to say something to your dad?

- It's what? - It's dirty.

- You remember Peter? - Peter?

- Peter Orlovsky. - Yeah.

- He used to do that. - Yeah.

It's pretty good.

Have to call up Allen tonight.

You know that film I made in Colorado?

PABLO: Yeah, you showed me.

As I walk back...

from the visit with Pablo...

I always have hope.

But I realize that...

I will try.

And I think...

it means a lot to him if I try. He knows when I'm trying.

I just don't know... how long I can do it.

It was a hard road to be on.

And, yeah, it got increasingly harder all the time

and more, more, more desperate and more, more lonely for him

and beyond help in a way.

[guitar strumming]

MAN: Well, that's all of my story, Mr Reporter.

Just tell 'em I'm real sorry for what I done.

WOMAN: I think of Pablo, his big, sad, mischievous eyes, wide eyes.

He always looked like he had a secret.

I remember seeing him for the last time in Washington,

proud in the new shirt June gave him.

But he also seemed so very tired.

A person like that depends on love from his parents,

which he didn't get enough of.

And the worse his situation got with his mind

the more he needed them

and the more difficult it was to give it to him.

So this was a very extremely difficult period in my life,

and June was very helpful.

But you know it...

So, that's how it ended.

[somber piano music]

Well,

looking at one of Pablo's many letters...

many letters from his tortured life.

His fighting and his dreams.

He wanted to say... everything.

But he wanted to get rid of his loneliness, of being alone.

[sad music]

I always liked to turn around a corner, you know,

because there's something around that corner.

As long as you're curious about it,

you know, that's when life is interesting...

if you're curious. Yeah.

When I lived here for 30 years of my life

I had really no money.

[indistinct]

I had a loft and I was lying on the coach

and I looked up at the ceiling and I said,

"I sure don't want to die here.

I have to get another place to go and, you know."

And that's when I asked June to go to Nova Scotia

and try to find a place. And so that, that's when it happened.

It was 1971 I think.

[bright string music]

When we came here it was early spring I think

and it was very desolate.

There were no trees, no trees, nothing.

The only house you could see was that house over there.

[bright oboe music]

You know, how could I not react to it?

This was a lucky chance.

Fate. Luck. Destiny.

Something.

[bright oboe music]

Well I wanted to get away from New York.

I didn't know what would happen.

But seeing the scenery here it was very clear

that if I, we decided to live here

it would be a considerable change in every way about life.

So, it was a big decision that would reflect

in the work I would do.

[bright oboe music]

[bright string music]

[bright oboe music]

I wanted to say how it feels to be here.

How does it feel, you know?

If you make movies you point your camera at somebody else,

you know, you make the stories, you make... you know.

But being here alone then you have to, you have to sort of

create something that will show maybe in one photograph

or in a series of two photographs

how does it feel to be here.

[bright string music]

[birds chirping]

[howling]

In the beginning it was really...

you had to just prove that you could do it alone here;

build something, heat your house,

cook your food, go to town, stay in, stay in,

wait 'til the wind settles down.

I mean these were all things that influenced

these lonely landscapes, besides my own life that,

that were part of it sometimes in some pictures.

[somber string music]

Do you think you'll go back to the city?

I don't know. I would never live there and bring up my children

as the city is now.

And I heard it's not gonna get any better.

ROBERT FRANK: When my daughter finished high school in Vermont

and she moved up here for a few months to be with me,

and she got a job in the --

there was a kind of a home for damaged people and older people,

she worked there for a while and she liked it very much

and she was really very good with the people here.

And... then... she decided to travel and she had a boyfriend.

She went back to New York and then she left

to go alone on a trip to Mexico.

And, then she... in Mexico... then she went to Guatemala

and the last letter I got from her was that she was working

sort of in a small airline with a German girl

and they used to fly to Tikal to the ruins,

and she would alternate with the girl.

And that's how the plane crashed.

It was, it was around Christmas time 1977...

- JUNE: '74. - '74.

And she was 20 years old and... that's how she died.

And, you know, but... she was really... full of life you know.

So... yeah.

[lively fiddle playing]

[indistinct announcer speaking]

[lively fiddle playing]

ROBERT FRANK: You can commemorate a loss,

silently you can write about it,

you can make a song about it,

you, naturally have felt this was the place

to do something about her memory,

first of all because she lived here with us,

so it was natural to help me get over,

over that tragedy and, you know...

Maybe, maybe it was more painful to be here and live through it

or, so that time would ease the memory but...

that's, that's how it happened and...

tragedy can strike you, you know,

from one day to the other so...

But maybe that pain is reflective in

some of the pictures, that loneliness you feel

if your child is gone and, so...

I guess it was, it would not have produced a work like this

in New York, you know.

New York, there's so many other things that push you.

Here you are left alone with it, with your memory

or your thoughts and you... reacted to it and you...

it occupied you.

And this is Andrea.

Today she would be 40.

Then maybe she would have children.

I know what she thinks.

Maybe it was too much to, in the videos to continuously

examine yourself or what you do, or what you didn't do,

what you hope to do, what you can do, and so on, you know,

and... so then it was time to take a trip,

go back to New York and see what people are really doing.

So it's back and forth, you know, coming home, leaving home.

But it certainly gave me ideas that I could transform

into a video, into a photograph, I could do it.

This is Hotel Montana, Paris, July 1993, [indistinct].

So... these are the negatives I selected.

And so these were, this was really...

sort of... strong about the...

you know, the chairs in the hall, these French light bulbs

and the ceiling, you know, falling down.

The view from the window, and then there's June waking up.

I don't, I'm not sure about this one, maybe I only would try

to make something with these four pictures.

You know, then, then...

Often I would have to go to the dark room

and work in the dark room with the guy

and see which one fits together.

Often it would end up then there would be just two pictures,

and maybe this will be the best, say Hotel Montana.

And then the date or, you know, and then, so it...

Very often it would only happen in the dark room,

that, you know... that I would know how it fits together,

because then you see it enlarged and you have a fairly good idea,

so I'd go into the dark room with four or five negatives

[indistinct] and then, and print it,

because it's complicated printing, you know,

it's not like on the computer, you have to, you know.

And then, you know... it says Hotel Montana.

I mean once you do it on the negative, that's done so...

Unless I do it right away on the negative I don't go

and scratch it in later, it's unethical, it's not...

it's not polite!

It's not... you know... you've got to be polite. No.

Just to show you at the end, you know,

when I decide in the dark room how I want it, you know,

and if there's writing in it.

So I use four pictures and then in the dark room I do this

and, that should say "At Home",

and then maybe I write later on the print or not,

but that would happen with the pictures of the Montana Hotel.

Or then... this, you know, two pictures...

but writing here was on the mirror, in marble, so...

You know, and then there was some writing on the negative

but that's reversed then, yeah so... scratched in.

That's why I like the Polaroid because the Polaroid

sometimes the accident, the emulsion goes off or whatever,

you know, if you're lucky it comes out right.

So... yeah...

Anything else the public needs to know?

[cool jazz music]

If you continue doing the same thing in a way, I mean,

but in photography you have to make a tremendous effort

not to repeat,

because the camera repeats and repeats and repeats so...

you have to be strong and inventive and believe

in something that you can change it, you know,

I think I've stopped believing it now,

but I'm old enough to, not to believe in fairy tales.

But it was wonderful to live here, to build the studio,

to, you know, watch June work, make a trip.

You know, shovel snow, shovel snow, you know,

sometimes it took a fucking day to get out of this place,

shoveling the snow.

[items clang]

But she used to get very, not jealous, but she used to get

really furious that I get all the attention

and I hardly do any work, you know,

I lie there, I think about it,

and there she works every day, and...

No I didn't mind that so much.

She's okay now, she's gonna have a big show...

so it's okay.

She will...

No, I didn't mind that so much, what I would mind is when people

would write about you, how you live here all alone,

this brave isolated hermit lives here

and naturally that got up... and that used to get on my nerves!

'Cause we did everything together and... apart.

[music playing]

ANNOUNCER: More fine music for Sunday morning.

[music playing]

Why do you wanna make these pictures?

[music playing]

ROBERT FRANK: June never, never made an image of herself as an artist,

it was just her work, whereas I did make up an image

of the living in the shack you know...

there's no communication, nobody around then, you know....

He didn't say that.

Sometimes I said to people "I do go fish, you know",

make ends meet, but, yeah...

So you know, you... it's a different lifestyles

but we do live together and we make the best of it.

[waves lapping]

He just gets to the heart of things

and people can't imagine that he needs anyone.

They like maybe to think that "all by himself up there

in this shack, it's against the elements,

he's figured all this out", okay, that's a beautiful image.

So, so I have to say "It's true".

For several months she was alone in this shack

and worked in this shack all alone, nobody to help her.

And nobody helped me!

She had to, you know, go into town

and try to get a loaf of bread somewhere, you know.

I was just a rolling stone, yeah.

- Well, come to think of it! - Yeah!

It's a true story. [laughing]

[piano music, indistinct singing]

ROBERT FRANK: The film has become an important document of that time,

1973 or whatever it was,

as good as I can make it, as good as I wanted to make it,

just the limitations that you have as a documentary filmmaker,

and they showed what they wanted to show and not more.

[scream]

[dog barking]

MICK JAGGER: Robbie keep says that if we keep along this road

we'll get something good to eat.

There's fucking nothing!

Ahmed and Bobby had this terrible thing...

this is the most uninteresting drive in the world.

I think it's quite nice, don't you, to get out of that plane

thing for a while, to get away from those 39 people, man,

anything is fucking wonderful!

I mean I didn't care where it was, even if it was driving

on a highway man, through fucking Montana, you know.

Disgust and... their behavior of the Rolling Stones

after the film, it's kind of...

it's kind of boring to me

and I know everybody is interested but it's a...

it's a rather sad and pathetic story

in terms of how they handled it,

but, you know, they paid me for it, and that was it.

I delivered the film, Jagger said

"Keith came out better than me,"

and that was his comment, and let it be.

End slate.

ROBERT FRANK: When Jagger asked me to make a film

I said I could only make a film with one guy that would help me

and he said "I only want one other person around"

and I said "Well, this is the guy",

and it turned out very well because Danny lived

more the life than they imagined or, you know,

Danny did the real thing which was the undoing of his life,

whereas they saved themselves very nicely.

So...

But he was instrumental in the film first of all because he...

he, you know, he, he was... they liked him very much

because of his connections in that world and...

He helped me a lot but at the end of the film...

it was difficult for him with the condition he was in,

with dope and...

although they did promise to help him, they did not.

So... he tried to get out of it as best that he could and...

continued on that road which proved to be fatal.

ROBERT FRANK: Danny...

Danny disappeared from his boat.

I think it was 1973...

traveling from South America back to the States.

[bell dings]

You know I just think life is hard, you know,

and, but it goes on.

So I think that interests me, that the real futures continue.

The essence of all these films was the people that I got

to know, like my children and Danny, my friend.

See the traffic takes it away like the waves

in the ocean, you know.

[somber piano music]

The roots one has, they certainly affect you.

You feel them and your roots, you think about your father,

you think about your mother, you think you're like them,

but I didn't want to go back to my roots,

and I'm happy about that, that I persevered

and didn't have to go back.

Many people can't, you know, they have to stay where

they are, it's too hard to move around like that.

It's difficult as you get older you know,

you can't really go back any more,

you can only go that little distance that's left.

Yeah, I think Jewish character has something that I often

think about, you know, when I talk about roots.

I don't know why I'm a Jew, you know,

because my father made it up and so on!

But it has something to do with, it gives you the sensitivity,

or it gives you, it gives you strength,

or it gives you... you know, it gives, it gives you something

that if you're strong enough that you can use it.

After my father was buried in 1976 in Zurich

my mother gave me the coat.

"This is your father's coat.

It is very good and warm, not worn at all.

Please take it with you to New York and wear it".

I hung up the coat in the small room in our house,

in it all my film cans, one window and one aloe plant.

I did not wear the coat for many years.

As time goes by I'm thinking more of my father

and how I might become more like him.

On 14th Street I buy a Russian Lenin medal

with a shining red star.

The medal looks good on the coat, it changes everything.

The coat stays with the plant, and the film cans,

and when I'm in New York on a cold day

I sometimes wear the coat with the medal.

The writing under the photo is like sending a postcard.

The medal on the coat an imaginary past,

the plant is alive and waiting and growing

and I'm getting old.

It's a pretty good coat, he must have bought that in the 30's.

Yeah.

Okay.

Swollen toes.

Nails falling out.

Gum disease, itching.

Pain.

Irregular heartbeat.

No more pissing.

Constipation.

It's a grim picture.

It's a natural disaster, growing old.

It's an adjustment and you have to be careful

not to be bitter about it,

not to become a nasty old man, but...

sometimes it's better to be a nasty old man

than to be too polite and too, you know...

You heard me?

You heard me?

You heard me, you fucking crows!

Here I feel I'm a survivor.

All the people have gone. They've moved away for good.

I have never gotten a postcard from them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's sad, I mean it's sad if I look up all my days here,

it's sad, I mean... you know, there are really a few people

left, so naturally it's...

but that's what happens if you get old, you know, then...

everybody... everybody out for lunch!

Okay.

Yeah.

[lively accordion music]

Hello, hello?

No, not me, it's not me!

[laughing]

Yeah... okay.

[lively accordion music]

[pensive piano music]