The Americans - Robert Frank

I believe that The Americans became so relevant for mainly two reasons: the contradiction or exposé of the “American Dream”, and the candid, real look of the photographs.

First, at that time, The United States were seen or perceived by the world as a big free wealthy nation, a place where everybody could succeed and achieve anything, and what Frank’s photographs actually do is that they tell a different story. They capture in a way the real American culture, one full with diversity, one that is not always that magical and special, instead, one that shows injustice, racial discrimination, everyday chores and jobs. It just shows the dynamics of the people, how they occupied the spaces and related to each other.

His pictures represent life and people as they were. And this leads to the second point, the pictures are so real and authentic. I love how candid they are, and that he takes them when people are not aware of the camera but he also gets really close to them, so a lot of them are able to convey emotion in that way.

I could also argue that they are relevant up till now because it was a very interesting period of time which is now frozen in Frank’s pictures.

Furthermore, I’d like to add that the movie “Don’t Blink” is really dynamic and I liked how we were able to get to know a bit more of Robert Frank and how his mind works. It was really interesting to see how he talked about the pictures, and also to see the space he inhabited, with all his stuff and souvenirs form all over. As we are allowed to see in the movie, he made things for himself, and I think that that makes his work to have a really personal and clear point of view.