Frank discussion

Ann Satterfield: What do you think talent is?

Robert Frank: What is talent? Luck! Talent is not enough. That's what I think.

Satterfield: Is that all you have to say about it, that it's luck? You said it's important for artists to have. You mentioned some other things...

Frank: Talent is not enough in the sense that, if you really are an artist, you are obsessed completely. You are possessed by it. It's not talent. It's your life. I have met very few people who had that, very few.

Satterfield: So it's a strong feeling of wanting to say something? Or, feeling very strongly about wanting to say something; or feeling very strongly about certain aspects of life?

Frank: It's more in getting it out. Yes, in you is something that's continuously coming up, coming out of your mouth, out of your ears. It comes out. It has to come out. Not because you just want to make a film. It's a matter of being alive. I don't think I'm that kind of person. As I said, I've met very few. It's really a totally obsessive quality that can't be stopped. So it's different than talent. People with talent work in television.

Transcribed from a Robert Frank workshop in Rochester, NY, 11/5/88 (The Pictures Are a Necessity, 1989, William S. Johnson, ed.)