Amos Poe, a pioneer of the No Wave cinema movement, succumbed to colon cancer on December 25.
Amos Poe, the experimental filmmaker who documented the emerging New York City punk scene in the ’70s, has died at the age of 76. According to Deadline, his family announced that Poe passed away on December 25 following a three year battle with colon cancer.
Widely regarded as the first punk filmmaker, Amos Poe was a pioneer of the No Wave film movement, which paralleled No Wave music with its focus on immediacy, authenticity, and a marked disregard for technical orthodoxy. His most well known work is the 1976 documentary The Blank Generation, which he co-directed with Ivan Král of the Patti Smith Group. Basically a zero budget compilation of concert clips, the film features early performances from Blondie, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, New York Dolls, The Heartbreakers, and more, mostly shot at iconic venues such as CBGB, The Bottom Line, and Max’s Kansas City, along with other locations in The Bowery and the Lower East.
In later years, a copyright dispute with Král resulted in Poe’s credit being reduced to co-editor. Král, who himself died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 71, also ended up with the rights to many of Poe’s later films, including Unmade Beds, The Foreigner, Subway Riders, and Empire II, as a result of the 2012 lawsuit.
But despite all the litigious unpleasantness, The Blank Generation remains an essential artefact of the early New York scene, and a must see film for fans of the music. And, perhaps due to the murky chain of ownership, the entire thing, which runs a brisk 53 minutes and change, is on YouTube – at least for now.
Amos Poe is survived by his wife, Claudia Summers, and three children.
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