
Pull My Daisy by Robert Frank, published by Steidl, 2008
Steidl has just reissued a little book,
Pull My Daisy, loaded with photographic power, a document from a phase in Robert Frank�s long
career when Robert abandoned still photography to make his first
film. It is strangely appropriate that Robert�s film would be about
the Beat Generation, which was at the cultural cutting edge at that
time.
In January 1959 Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie started production on
Pull My Daisy. It was a defining moment for Robert: a statement of
an artist continuing along his own path, seemingly changing horses in
midstream. His book of photographs The Americans had just been
published the year before. As a still photographer, Robert had previous
directorial experience working with models and settings for
assignments and advertising work in the magazines. He had also
started a few experimental personal short films.
Pull My Daisy brought together neighbors and painters from the
local downtown art world who had agreed to perform in a scene from
a Jack Kerouac play (the Beat Generation which was never
produced). It was an odd mixture of beat poets, Allen Ginsberg,
Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky, who played themselves, and
painters such as Larry Rivers playing Neal Cassady (Milo), his wife Carolyn
played by �Beltiane� who in reality was a famous European actress
Delphine Seyrig (�Last Year At Marienbad�). Others in the cast
included the Bishop �Mooney Peebles,� really Dick Bellamy, an
artist�s dealer and gallery director, the bishop�s mother played by
Alice Neel, a painter, the Bishop�s sister played by Sally Gross, a
dancer, musician David Amram playing jazz legend Mezz
McGillicuddy, and a touching appearance by Robert Frank�s little
son Pablo. After the film was edited, Jack Kerouac came in and
recorded a voice-over narration � which is a classic in spontaneous
improvisation.
Kerouac�s narration was done in three takes, one for each ten-minute segment (reel) of the film. It was a creative leaping from
inner thoughts to descriptions of action, to quotes from poets,
comments on his poet friends and a discourse on religion��What is
holy? Is baseball holy? Is a cockroach holy? Holy, holy!� Robert
Frank said, �sometimes the camera illustrates Kerouac�s text,
sometimes it is Kerouac who comments on the images.�
Over the years, the film has developed a reputation as spontaneous
filmmaking, unplanned, undirected, improvised, and it does affect
the viewer this way, topped off and guided by Kerouac�s poetic
prose narration. But in actuality the film was planned deliberately
and directed by Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank. The problem was how
to get the �actors� to follow directions. All they wanted to do was
clown around mess things up. David Amram recalls that although
Robert was serious with the filming, �we were doing all we could
to make him laugh.� Although there were scenes, actions and
continuity to be covered and a script to be followed, Alfred
Leslie�s directions could be barely heard over the din. But it was
Robert who worked seriously composing his camera shots, camera
angles, 360-degree pans around the room. Sometimes it seemed as if he
was tolerating the actors rather than directing them. If this was the
�spontaneous� aspect, then the real structuring, discipline and
controlled shaping took place in the editing, where the shots and
sequences were assembled and the inner life (rhythm) of the film
took its form, following the completed filming. It was after this
phase that Kerouac improvised his narration.

Robert Frank with Alfred Leslie and Gregory Corso, photograph by John Cohen, courtesy of the
Deborah Bell Gallery.
Robert had asked me to take photographs of the entire production, so
I witnessed all the actions, improvisations, clowning and serious
efforts to keep to a script. I also photographed the closing party
which was attended by art world luminaries, critics, actors, and Life
Magazine which was desperate for a way to show the Beat Generation
poets to a national readership (Life goes to a beat party). Life
magazine was allowed to the party only if they provided the booze
and refreshments. They asked me to cover (photograph) it as an
assignment for them. Robert told me not to accept their offer, but
instead to photograph it for myself and then lease them the �first
look� rights on a weekly basis. I didn�t know I had this power� and
eventually accumulated enough �rent payments� from Life to finance my
own excursion to photograph and record music in east Kentucky later
that year.
In those days there were few venues for independent film� the phrase
hardly existed. There was one film series, Cinema 16, in NYC at
that time, and the New Yorker Theater did occasional screening of non
�mainstream stuff.
Pull My Daisy premiered there later that year.
In 1961 Grove Press issued a small size 60 page book called Pull My
Daisy, consisting largely of 16 mm stills from the film itself, as
well as Jack Kerouac�s narration, both as a text and as titles
beneath the images. There was an intro by Jerry Tallmer, and a few
of my production photos were scattered throughout. That book has
been out of print for more than forty years, even as the fame and
influence of the film created its own artistic legend.
In summer of 1960, Jonas Mekas�s magazine Film Culture connected the
French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) to the New American Cinema, and
Pull My Daisy played a significant role in that article along
with Come Back, Africa, On the Bowery and John Cassavetes 1959
film Shadows. Mekas wrote, �Daisy is not a film of plot, action
or logical statement� [It is] the only truly beat film if there is
one. . . an expression of the new generation�s unconscious and
spontaneous rejection of the middle class way. It is � despite its
apparent robe of nonsense, the most truthful American film. There is
no lie, no pretension, no moralizing in it.�
About 13 years ago (1995), in conjunction with a Whitney Museum
retrospective on Beat Generation art (Beat Culture and the New
America, 1950-65), a curator contacted me about doing a book about
Pull My Daisy, using many of my production stills. I asked Robert
Frank his thoughts on this, and he was totally not in favor. He said
the book he had already done for Grove was just fine, and nothing
needed to be added. I was impressed by his deep sense of conviction
on this. The little book, then 30 years out of print, was the
authentic statement, document and presentation, done at the time of
the film. Anything else would be after the fact, interpretation,
with historical significance and critical comments added.
It is wonderful that Steidl has chosen to re-publish the
Pull My
Daisy book now, in its original form (with a few subtle elegant
design changes). It�s the real thing, the source, as it was
intended, an authentic document of a work of art. Robert Frank�s
first film.
[note from the editor: The fact that John Cohen took some of the photographs included in Pull My Daisy would normally keep us from publishing the above text as a review. However, in light of Cohen's relative distance from the publication of the book, and the way in which he address said book, we feel the classification is justified.]