Left to right: Robert Frank, Archie Rankin, and son, Reggie Rankin, Mabou, 2001. Photograph taken by a friend of Robert’s.
Remembering Robert Frank (1924-2019)
-by John Gillis
World renowned photographer and film maker Robert Frank passed away last week in Inverness County where he made his home on a seasonal basis since 1969.
Despite being considered a recluse by some, Frank made many friends in Cape Breton in his half-century here.
Frank was already a legend in photography circles and was recognized as a pioneer in the burgeoning American independent film community before moving to Cape Breton.
He taught some of the first workshops in film making at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax at the invitation of then-president Garry Neil Kennedy.
Frank made many short films in Cape Breton, and a feature film, Candy Mountain (1987), co-directed with Rudy Wurlitzer, was partially shot on locations in Mabou and Glace Bay as well as in New York City.
Born in Switzerland, Frank took an early interest in photography and apprenticed there in the trade before moving to New York as a young man. In New York, Frank soon gained employment as a photographer for several high-profile magazines and apprenticed with the likes of American photography legends Walker Evans and Edward Steichen, director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's Department of Photography and curator of the Family of Man photography exhibit.
In the mid-1950s, shortly after his marriage to his first wife Mary (the mother of his two children, Andrea and Pablo), Frank won a Guggenheim Fellowship which he used to travel extensively throughout the United States, producing his now famous book, The Americans. Considered bleak at the time and initially panned by critics and fellow photographers, the work nevertheless became seminal in the history of photography and went on to influence generations of photographers who followed.
Following the success of The Americans, Frank became somewhat disillusioned by still photography, preferring to engage with his subjects through film and video rather than “turning away” from them or “hunting” them for pictures.
Frank was excited by the prospects and opportunities America had to offer but soon found the pursuit of money, status and the struggles of the poor and the minorities to be something that disturbed him deeply about his new country.
In 1972, pleased with the cover photography work Frank had completed for their Exile on Main Street album, The Rolling Stones asked him to create a documentary on their upcoming American tour. The Stones loved the film but felt if it was shown in the United States, they would never be allowed in the country again. A copyright battle ensued and rumour has it that a local sheriff in Cape Breton was instructed to come to Frank’s house to confiscate his copy of the film. Frank, known for his wry and cutting sense of humour, apparently purposely provided the sheriff with the wrong film cannister. Later, he legally won the right to show the film several times a year as long as he was present at the screening.
Following his death, The Rolling Stones posted the following message on their official Facebook page:
“We’re very sad to hear the news that the visionary photographer and film maker Robert Frank has died. Robert collaborated with us on a number of projects including the cover design of Exile On Main Street and directed the Cocksucker Blues documentary. He was an incredible artist whose unique style broke the mould. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.
Several of Frank’s fans have since asked the band to finally permit a full release of the documentary.
As students of photography and fine arts in the early 1980s, myself and Jimmy Rankin were frequent visitors to Robert and June Leaf’s home in Mabou where they welcomed and entertained our curiosity about photography, music and the arts. We reveled in hearing stories about photographers, writers and musicians that we were beginning to study, and Robert and June were always generous with their time and support.
Frank was known to march to the beat of his own drummer. He could be uncompromising. He trusted his instincts and intuition and always sought to break new ground in his work rather than repeat previous successes. While working with him on the feature film Candy Mountain, I recall each evening the crew would receive a call-sheet telling us where to be the next morning, who would be needed and what scenes we’d be shooting. I remember the crew being somewhat mystified one morning when Robert suspended those plans to spontaneously film a scene with an elderly gentleman named Alex Gillis of Mabou Harbour. The scene turned out to be one of the highlights of the film. As with so many of Robert’s films, the lines between fiction and fact, documentary or feature, were often blurred.
As a director, Frank was adamant that the international film crew that worked on Candy Mountain treated the local people fairly. He also made sure that the producers and finance people funding the production had no access or artistic influence on the film set.
Over the years, I and some of my photographer friends have had opportunities to have work critiqued by Frank, and he was kind enough on several occasions to attend our shows and offer comments. He was always honest in assessing your work, providing great insight and encouraging you to think about what you were trying to achieve. Looking over the credits of many of his films and reading interviews with fellow artists, it’s clear that Frank provided many young artists with opportunities which no doubt helped them in their future endeavours.
Like the beatniks that he befriended, Robert had a love/hate relationship with the road. I recall him once saying “the road is not what it used to be.” He also told a funny story about how in all his travels throughout North America, the cleanest service station he ever encountered was Archie’s Esso in Mabou.
Long-time friend Reggie Rankin noted that Frank deplored mediocrity but he valued the goodness in people.
“He got to know many of the older generation around here at the time; people like John Archie Rankin, Alex Rory Beaton, Johnny ‘Little Dougald’ Beaton and Charlie Joe MacLean. He really admired the dignity and integrity of these people,” said Reggie.
Singer songwriter Jimmy Rankin recalls meeting Frank one morning at The Mabou Credit Union.
Rankin, who was a frequent visitor to New York anyway at that time (dating his future wife, Mia), said, “Robert asked me, ‘Do you want to go to New York?’ I asked him, ‘when are you leaving?’ He said, ‘this afternoon,’ meaning in about an hour.”
Rankin said sure and they made the 20-hour road-trip that day, switching driving duties, Rankin enthralled with stories about people Robert had met and known.
Frank often made highly personal films, exploring loss, failure, success and the desire to create and to express.
Bobby MacMillan of Mabou had known Frank since the mid-1970s. A frequent customer of MacMillan’s General Store, Frank was curious about the lives of the local people, MacMillan told The Oran this week.
“We became friends over the years. He was interested in the people here. About 2002 or so, after I had closed the store, I was delivering The Chronicle Herald in the mornings. He was interested that I was doing that and he asked me if it would be okay to make a movie of me on my delivery route. I said it was okay. He showed up alright, at 3:00 in the morning and out we went, finishing at about 10:00 a.m.,” said MacMillan.
Paper Route, the Frank film that ensued from the outing, has been shown worldwide at museums, film festivals and Frank’s exhibits.
The 23-minute colour film is described by museums as follows: “The artist (Frank) joins Robert MacMillan on a wintry, pre-dawn morning and accompanies him on his daily route delivering newspapers to towns in the rural Nova Scotia community where Frank has had a second home for many years. Chatting amiably in voice over as his camera observes the landscape and MacMillan’s encounters with his customers, Frank conducts a rambling interview inspired by his own desire to better understand how people live their lives.”
“For 23 minutes he keeps his eye on this world’s barren beauty through a cracked windshield, which is about as perfect a metaphor for his persistence of vision as I can imagine,” Manohla Dargis wrote in a 2008 review of the film.
Asked how he felt about the film, MacMillan said he enjoyed it and is proud that Frank made it.
“I used to visit Robert and June. He was interested in stories and I think they loved coming back here every summer. He thought the world of me and I thought the world of him,” said MacMillan.
Bob Martin was a friend of Robert’s who ran a photography business in Port Hawkesbury for decades. Frank would often stop in to his shop to have film processed or to purchase supplies.
“When I downsized 7 years ago, I gave Robert all my instant film as digital was in since 2004. Robert was never a fan of digital photography. As a prominent American photographer noted recently, phone cameras have taken the sexiness out of street photography. Robert used to come in to the studio with 120 film from his Hasselblad – lots of great stories and wisdom. Many days June would come shopping to Port Hawkesbury and Robert would stay at the shop until she was finished. I used to send his 120 film by Inverness Freight, Robert MacKinnon, to Mabou when he stopped traveling to town. He could be difficult and cranky at times but that was his brain on fire as he had no time for small talk. He always kept saying ‘keep your eyes open’,” said Martin.
Reggie Rankin became friends with Robert and June in the early 1970s.
“He was always very generous with his friends. We did some traveling together. He enjoyed going to some of the more remote places in Cape Breton – Meat Cove, the Margarees, going to people’s houses and meeting them. He joined me on a trip to Pangnirtung, Nunavut, in 1992. We stayed about a week with some of my friends. A few years later, he called me and asked me to come down to New York to help him identify some of the photos he took up there for a book that he made,” said Reggie.
Frank loved living in Cape Breton and he was probably quite happy to spend his final days here.
“I have a good feeling about living in that house in Mabou,” Frank told a magazine writer back in 2013. “It’s a place I have more feeling about. I have much more attachment to the place in Canada. (Our place on Bleecker Street in New York) happens to be a nice house but it is still temporary,” he said.
As Reggie Rankin so eloquently concluded, “Robert had an enormous amount of courage and conviction. He was one of a kind. He leaves a huge space, but much great work and many great memories. I much appreciated our friendship.”
Rest in peace, Robert.
