Amos Poe, the experimental filmmaker whose uncooked, do-it-yourself movies captured the emergence of New York’s punk rock scene and helped outline the town’s underground cinema motion of the Nineteen Seventies, has died. He was 76.
Poe died Christmas Day after problems from stage 4 colon most cancers, his household stated in social media posts. He was surrounded by family members.
“We stated goodbye in the present day to @amos.poe – and the world won’t ever be the identical. Thanks, Dad, for bringing a lot gentle, love and laughter to the world,” daughter Emily Poe wrote on Fb.
Born Sept. 30, 1949, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Poe later settled in New York Metropolis, the place he turned a central determine within the Decrease East Facet’s “No Wave Cinema” motion, a unfastened collective of artists who rejected conventional filmmaking conventions in favor of spontaneity, minimal budgets and private expression.
Poe is finest often called the co-writer and co-director of “The Clean Technology,” a gritty, black-and-white portrait of the town’s nascent punk scene. Shot largely contained in the legendary membership CBGB, the movie featured early appearances by artists who would later turn into icons of the style. The film has since been cited by Rolling Stone as one of many best punk movies ever made.
Different notable works embrace “The Foreigner” (1978) and “Subway Riders” (1981), movies that additional cemented Poe’s fame as a chronicler of city alienation and underground tradition.
“Our complete aesthetic was that you just didn’t want professionalism — you wanted inspiration and the need to place your self utterly into it,” Poe informed Reuters in a previous interview.
In later years, Poe’s legacy turned entangled in a authorized dispute along with his “Clean Technology” collaborator Ivan Král, leading to Poe shedding his copyright curiosity within the movie in 2020.
Regardless of that setback, Poe remained a revered determine amongst unbiased filmmakers and punk historians, remembered for capturing a second when artwork, music and insurrection collided in decrease Manhattan.
He’s survived by his spouse, Claudia Summers, and his daughters.
