With the passing of filmmaker and photographer Robert Frank this week, the world said goodbye to the last Beat Generation filmmaker.

Robert Frank was born in Switzerland in 1924.

From an early age, he showed an extraordinary talent for photography and was to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955. He was to use this money to travel across 50s America and document what he saw.

Franks subsequent photographs painted a gritty but touching portrait of an America that most at the time choose to ignore.

His book The Americans was heralded by many at the time as being a monumental work that gave a voice to many of America’s minorities and subcultures.

The Americans was forwarded by legendary Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, who summed up Frank’s photos with the phrase “You Got Eyes!”

Thanks to the success of the Americans, Frank was to go on to become one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers.

This success, and the relationships it fostered, was also to allow Frank to spread his wings into movies.

From 1959 onwards, Frank was to make a series of interesting movies, right up until the last decade of his life.

He made a total of 18 movies, many of which are still critically claimed.

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From Photographer To Counterculture Movie Maker

Just one year after the release of the Americans, for his first film, Robert Frank was to team up with principle Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac along with other writers from the movement such as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso.

The movie, Pull My Daisy, was written by Jack Kerouac who also features as the film’s narrator.

The film is loosely based on the real-life events surrounding beat muse Neal Cassady and his wife after they invited a Bishop to dinner.

What should have been a relatively conservative affair turned into a comic charade when friends of Neil Cassidy, including poets, writers, and other misfits, arrived unannounced.

These individuals, with the liberal values and openness, turned the evening on its head as they began to act in ways that we’re not the convention for the time.

Despite Kerouac’s accreditation as the movie’s writer, the film was largely improvised by both the actors as well as Kerouac the narrator.

Pull my Daisy has been accredited as being one of the few real beat movies ever made. It contains all the elements of the Beat Generation movement.

Me and My Brother is arguably Frank’s most powerful film. It tells the tale of the relationship between Peter Orlovsky, another beat generation writer, and his mentally ill brother Julius.

At times the film becomes almost unbearable to watch as Peter devotes all of his energy to the care of his brother.

Ultimately, the film becomes an in-depth analysis of behavioral norms as well as our treatment of those that don’t conform to what we accept as being normal.

It was Frank’s eighth film, Cocksucker Blues, which was to gain Frank the most notoriety as a filmmaker.

Cocksucker Blues Is a documentary film that chronicles a 1972 musical tour by the British band The Rolling Stones.

Shot largely in the Cinema Verité style, the film paints a no holes barred picture of the group and their life on the road.

In a time of extreme mainstream conservatism, the film shows members of the band with groupies and also engaging in drug use such as smoking marijuana and injecting heroin.

The film was such an open representations of the band that the group was to try to have it banned.

Due to their concern over its content, which could have easily have resulted in a career-ending scandal, The Rolling Stones initiated court proceedings to stop the film being seen.

Frank bravely defied the band to ensure that his honest account of life behind the curtain with The Rolling Stones could be seen.

In what must have become one of the few cases in history, the court order forbade the film from being shown unless director Frank was present at the screening.

It was not until years later, when the film gained wider distribution and was eventually shared online, that Cocksucker Blues was to be seen by audiences who came to regarded as a valuable and powerful piece of cinema.

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Post Beat Days

While Frank was never the kind of filmmaker that was going to become a commercial success, he did continue to make experimental films at the rate of one every few years.

Of these later works, the most notable was Candy Mountain, which starred legendary counter-culture musician Tom Waits.

The movie was the third collaboration with American novelist and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer. It won the San Sebastián International Film Festival’s “Silver Seashell Award” in 1987.

Frank’s early works in film secured his reputation as one of the best Beat Generation filmmakers of all time.

Sadly, we have already lost the other great filmmakers of this movement, and so with Frank’s passing, we say goodbye to the last.

This generation of filmmakers influenced the post Beat movie makers such as Harmony Korine, Gus van Sant, and Terry Gilliam.

These filmmakers we’re able to achieve much better critical and commercial success thanks to changing values that allowed for more acceptance of bizarre and rebellious behavior.

Were it not for filmmakers such as Robert Frank, then we would not have films such as Drugstore Cowboy and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The world owes a great debt of gratitude to this brave and visionary filmmaker.

Rest in peace Robert Frank.

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