In 1958, the Paris-based publisher Robert Delpire had the foresight to release Robert Frank’s sheaf of plainspoken, black-and-white images, The Americans. Delpire insisted, however, on a cover of Saul Steinberg’s pencil doodles, a fact presented in An American Journey, Philippe Séclier’s documentary which retraces the 15,000 miles that the Swiss-born legend drove to create the book.

Opening today at Film Forum, it’s more of a soft-focused supplement to the current Frank-ophilia in New York, with the Met honoring the artist through a retrospective of his filmography (which includes the Beat portrait Pull My Daisy and the pumice-stoned Cocksucker Blues) and a stunning exhibition of his enduring, mid-century documents of life in the land of the free. After the jump, watch the Jack Kerouac-narrated short Pull My Daisy, which stars Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Read More »

Mick Jagger snorting coke amidst nude roadies and Keith Richards pre-Pirates of the Caribbean III?? That’s not hedonism, no, that’s the Cocksucker Blues. For Rolling Stones fans and those curious what rock stars were once like, the band’s banned 1972 documentary, Cocksucker Blues, has made its way on to the internet. Commissioned by the band to cover their 1972 North American tour, noted photographer Robert Frank directed this piece of cinema verite, which was eventually banned from an official release. Due to the aforementioned rock star antics, the Stones fought to prevent the film from reaching the television/silver screen. As Richards once famously explained, “if anyone in America saw it, we’d never be let in the country again.” Read More »