Amos Poe, No Wave Filmmaker Who Chronicled New York Punk, Dies at 76

Amos Poe, a leading figure in New York’s No Wave film movement who documented the city’s punk and post-punk scene, died on Dec. 25 at his home in Manhattan. He was 76. The cause was colon cancer, his wife, Claudia Summers, said. Poe arrived in Manhattan after dropping out of the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1972 and quickly began making experimental films.

He shot early works including a reshot projection of Citizen Kane and the stunt short "Banana on Asphalt," and worked as an editor and cameraman at a porn studio while filming musicians at downtown clubs. His 1976 movie "The Blank Generation," made with Ivan Kral on a shoestring and with sound deliberately uncoupled from the image, became a home-movie chronicle of the scene and established his underground reputation through midnight screenings.

He also made "Unmade Beds" (1976) and "The Foreigner" (1978); "Unmade Beds" screened at the Deauville American Film Festival, and later efforts included varied critical responses and stalled attempts at mainstream success, such as being fired partway through "Rocket Gibraltar" (1988) and failing to find a distributor for "Triple Bogey on a Par 5 Hole" (1991).

Rolling Stone named "The Blank Generation" one of the 25 greatest punk rock movies in 2021. Born Amos Porges on Sept. 30, 1949, in Tel Aviv, he moved with his family to Long Island as a child and later changed his surname to Poe.

Key Topics

Culture, Amos Poe, No Wave, Unmade Beds, Cbgb, East Village