Guggenheim 463--"Helen of Troy" premiere, Hollywood 1956

Robert Frank made this contact sheet at the premiere of "Helen of Troy" in Hollywood, sometime in the mid-1950s. I'm thinking about Frank circling some of these images in red. What caught his eye? The architecture, the lights, the people under umbrellas? The repetition of these motifs across the sheet is like a rhythm, each frame a note in a visual song. I wonder if Frank felt like an outsider here, documenting this spectacle with a critical eye. His choice to highlight certain frames, with those emphatic red circles, seems to say, "Look at this, look closer." It’s almost as if he is saying, "what is this strange world of celebrity, and how can I capture its essence?" Painters and photographers are doing something similar, trying to capture a moment, and then letting it go. Ultimately, Frank's sheet feels like an intimate glimpse into the mind of an artist, and the way they find meaning in the everyday.