Reviews

The Americans by Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac

jonjeffryes's review

5.0

I'd say skip the Kerouac intro and let the pictures speak for themselves...some pretty amazing snapshots of America from the 1950s.

philipcrowther's review

5.0

holy text

collismeanshill's review

The majority of them wouldn't garner much more than a second glance today, but I can see why this collection of photos set the nation on edge when it came out. Unpretty, unposed, and unpolished. It showed the everyday as it was. He kicked opened the door (and shattered the hinges) for the rest of us.

awhipp17's review

4.0

i think if i had some classroom to discuss this in or had my parents or grandparents to tell me what the pictures mean to them, how it makes them feel, what it makes them remember, that i could connect more with the photographs. although, i do connect immediately with several of them. its been a while since i've read kerouac, but his introduction to these photos felt very drug-hazed. i do love his line 'the gray film that caught the actual pink juice of human kind' though. several pictures were from Detroit and Ann Arbor, so i appreciated seeing those shots. i also did get the sense of flow between photographs every so often: a car covered in a fancy tarp with sun shining and palm trees coming right before a body covered by a tarp from an auto accident on a snowy day in rural nowhere.

bubblegumfactory's review

3.0

beautiful images leaving me with mixed emotions.
will write a long piece on favourite images (and not so fav pieces) soon.