Tag Archives: Philippe Séclier

American Journey

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Pictures are worth a thousand words.

Taking pictures is an art, and like Robert said, you need passion AND purpose.

The documentary presented us a guy who went around and took pictures of what he saw. What I probably liked most about his photos were its complete randomness. Robert took pictures that ranged from the flag with the boy in it, to outside his hotel at Butte. And to compile it into a book and called “The Americans”, Robert Frank had to have a lot of guts, because like they said in the movie, Americans got very defensive about it. It showed the “American Dream” and the “American Nightmare”. I truly admire Seclier for taking the time to follow the footsteps and piece back everything. It is rather a tough task.

For some reason this film kind of reminded me of the book “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer. It follows the journey of a man who took a journey across America. Anyone else think this?

 

~Christopher Chong

American Journey

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This documentary seemed more focused on Philippe Séclier’s personal journey that about Robert Frank’s book. To me, it felt like Philippe decided he was going repeat Frank’s journey and decided he might as well film it. The documentary was not particularly well thought out. Many of the places Séclier visited because they were photographed in Frank’s book, The Americans, no longer existed, which made it rather insignificant to have in the documentary. Also, many of the people that were interviewed in the documentary did not know much about the book and often did not remember when Frank came around. The two best parts of the documentary were the interviews with Frank’s printer and publisher because they provided stories about the process of making this book and also the true purpose of making this book. These were really only the two interviews that provided good insight into the making of The Americans.