What do you think?
Rate this book
The Frenchman: A Photographic Interview with Fernandel
Making a highly original visual Q&A with France's most beloved comic actor In New York in 1948, photographer Philippe Halsman had a chance meeting with Fernandel, a French movie star from the vaudeville tradition, and asked the actor to participate in a completely original photographic experiment. Halsman would ask Fernandel questions about America to which he would respond using only facial expressions. With his wide, lovable horse-face, Fernandel mimicked the answers to such questions as "Does the average Frenchman still pinch pretty girls in a crowd?" (silly grin) and "What was your reaction to the great American game of baseball?" (perplexed). Fernandel`s reactions are laugh-out-loud funny, and the book that resulted from this unusual collaboration is nothing short of wonderful. The Frenchman has been out of print for over fifty years, but TASCHEN`s reprint thankfully brings it back to life.
- GenresFilmHumorPhotographyArt
108 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2005
1 person is currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Philippe Halsman
34 books3 followers(Latvian: Filips Halsmans, German: Philipp Halsmann)
Philippe Halsman was an American portrait photographer. He was born in Riga in the part of the Russian Empire which later became Latvia, and died in New York City.
In September 1928, 22-year-old Halsman was accused of his father's murder while they were on a hiking trip in the Austrian Tyrol, an area rife with antisemitism. Despite his protested innocence, endorsed by many important European intellectuals including Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Jakob Wassermann, Erich Fromm, Paul Painlevé, Heinrich Eduard Jacob, and Rudolf Olden, Halsman spent two years in prison, contracting tuberculosis there. His letters from prison were published as a book in 1930: Briefe aus der Haft an eine Freundin. He was pardoned by the President of Austria, Wilhelm Miklas, and released in October 1930.
Halsman began to take photographs in Paris in the 1930s. He opened a portrait studio in Montparnasse in 1934, where he photographed André Gide, Marc Chagall, André Malraux, Le Corbusier and other writers and artists, using an innovative twin-lens reflex camera that he had designed himself.
He arrived in the United States in 1940, just after the fall of France, having obtained an emergency visa, aided by family friend Albert Einstein (whom he later famously photographed in 1947).
In the course of his prolific career in America, Halsman produced reportage and covers for most major American magazines, including a staggering 101 covers for Life magazine. His assignments brought him face-to-face with many of the century’s leading personalities. In the early 1950s, Halsman began to ask his subjects to jump for his camera at the conclusion of each sitting. These uniquely witty and energetic images have become an important part of his photographic legacy.
Philippe Halsman was an American portrait photographer. He was born in Riga in the part of the Russian Empire which later became Latvia, and died in New York City.
In September 1928, 22-year-old Halsman was accused of his father's murder while they were on a hiking trip in the Austrian Tyrol, an area rife with antisemitism. Despite his protested innocence, endorsed by many important European intellectuals including Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Jakob Wassermann, Erich Fromm, Paul Painlevé, Heinrich Eduard Jacob, and Rudolf Olden, Halsman spent two years in prison, contracting tuberculosis there. His letters from prison were published as a book in 1930: Briefe aus der Haft an eine Freundin. He was pardoned by the President of Austria, Wilhelm Miklas, and released in October 1930.
Halsman began to take photographs in Paris in the 1930s. He opened a portrait studio in Montparnasse in 1934, where he photographed André Gide, Marc Chagall, André Malraux, Le Corbusier and other writers and artists, using an innovative twin-lens reflex camera that he had designed himself.
He arrived in the United States in 1940, just after the fall of France, having obtained an emergency visa, aided by family friend Albert Einstein (whom he later famously photographed in 1947).
In the course of his prolific career in America, Halsman produced reportage and covers for most major American magazines, including a staggering 101 covers for Life magazine. His assignments brought him face-to-face with many of the century’s leading personalities. In the early 1950s, Halsman began to ask his subjects to jump for his camera at the conclusion of each sitting. These uniquely witty and energetic images have become an important part of his photographic legacy.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 23, 2019
[R.I.P. this vintage book. It had survived decades of who knows how many owners only to find an ignominious fate in my storage area, drenched and unrecoverable from a water pipe leak. The following is the previously written review.]
--
Half Price Books was chucking this retro curio (a 1949 first edition) on the clearance nostalgia shelf with Ustinov's Diplomats (see my review of that), each at $1. They were too weird to pass up and in any case I will sell them on ebay.
If you know anything about the classic international cinema, particularly the French movies of the 1930s and 1940s, it would be hard not to come across the actor, Fernandel. Even though this book was fashioned as a "Frenchman encounters America" one-off joke, and was aimed at the American market after a few of its photos were printed in Life magazine, the French actor with the toothy "horse face" and the meaty palette of open-faced expressions was still largely unknown in the States. The book touts itself as an "original" photo-essay Q&A in which a question by an American reporter is posed and Fernandel's "answer" is expressed as a still photo on the next page (to heighten the surprise and mild comic effect). The questions are, to paraphrase, of the level of: "What do you think of American girls?" To which the answer of course is Fernandel glowing with the expected lascivious "Oo la la" expression.
Yeah, it's not that much, but Fernandel did have an amazingly expressive face, the kind they don't make anymore for the movies, and this goofy little thing provided me a few minutes of archeological interest.
(KevinR@Ky read and reviewed 5-9-2017)
--
Half Price Books was chucking this retro curio (a 1949 first edition) on the clearance nostalgia shelf with Ustinov's Diplomats (see my review of that), each at $1. They were too weird to pass up and in any case I will sell them on ebay.
If you know anything about the classic international cinema, particularly the French movies of the 1930s and 1940s, it would be hard not to come across the actor, Fernandel. Even though this book was fashioned as a "Frenchman encounters America" one-off joke, and was aimed at the American market after a few of its photos were printed in Life magazine, the French actor with the toothy "horse face" and the meaty palette of open-faced expressions was still largely unknown in the States. The book touts itself as an "original" photo-essay Q&A in which a question by an American reporter is posed and Fernandel's "answer" is expressed as a still photo on the next page (to heighten the surprise and mild comic effect). The questions are, to paraphrase, of the level of: "What do you think of American girls?" To which the answer of course is Fernandel glowing with the expected lascivious "Oo la la" expression.
Yeah, it's not that much, but Fernandel did have an amazingly expressive face, the kind they don't make anymore for the movies, and this goofy little thing provided me a few minutes of archeological interest.
(KevinR@Ky read and reviewed 5-9-2017)
May 6, 2008
it is what it says it is.
August 5, 2016
One of the best photobooks I have had.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews