Film
Robert Frank Retrospective: Program 7
Thursday, June 25, 2009
7 p.m.
Additional Info
Run—New Order, 1989, 4 min., video
Summer Cannibals—Patti Smith, 1996, 4 min., video
Fernando, 2008, 12 min., video
Tunnel, 2005, 5 min., video
True Story, 2004, 26 min., color and black-and-white, video
Total running time: 51 min.
Image: Robert Frank, True Story (still), 2004; photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Robert Frank
SFMOMA would like to thank the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, home of the Robert Frank Film and Video Archive, for its support in providing prints and other assistance for this program.
Frank made Fernando in honor of a Swiss artist friend of his who passed away.
Tunnel was created to premiere under the Swiss Alps at an event held during final blasting through the midpoint of the twenty-one-mile Lotschberg Tunnel in 2005. The film was censored, along with several others slated to screen that night. Advisory: Contains scenes of explicit animal violence (slaughter).
Frank’s most recent film, True Story, premiered in October 2004 at the exhibition Robert Frank Story Lines at the Tate Modern. Speaking in voiceover, the artist narrates scenes shot in his homes in New York and Nova Scotia. His rambling commentary returns to familiar themes of memory, and the loss of friends and family members. Brief excerpts from earlier films are shown, along with Frank’s photographs, the art of his wife, June Leaf, and extraordinarily detailed letters written by his son, Pablo (1951-94). Alternately poignant, reflective, self-mocking, and angry, this candid autobiography reveals Frank’s late-career preoccupations.