Still image from Unmade Beds by Amos Poe

Anthology Film Archives is presenting four of Amos Poe’s 16mm films from 2/3-5. The filmmaker at the helm of No Wave Cinema will be at the Friday and Saturday screening for the introduction and Q&A. The late 70s in New York City was a time when there was nothing to lose. To many artists, that attitude became the catalyst for a latent creative freedom that summoned raw innocence and pure experimentation. The zeitgeist of the No Wave movement included the oscillation of conscious and subconscious of Charlie Ahearn, Patti Astor, Scott B & Beth B, Steve Buscemi, James Chance, Vincent Gallo, Debbie Harry, Jim Jarmusch, Richard Kern, Ivan Král, Lydia Lunch, Eric Mitchell, Thurston Moore, James Nares, Kembra Pfahler, Amos Poe, John Waters and Nick Zedd, to name a few.

I wanted to do something that approximated the French Nouvelle Vague movement in New York. I had this attitude then that I didn’t know how to make a film, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me, which was kind of like the aesthetic of punk in a way. So, I figured if I couldn’t make a film, I could make a film movement, predicated on the idea of “do it yourself,”…
- Amos Poe’s response to Glen Andreiev’s interview (Films in Review)

Arguably, the antecedent of this film genre, bearing the same name, is punk’s subgenre scene in the Lower East Side. Amos Poe is the first filmmaker who shot the bands that mattered to each other but to no one outside their sphere, like Blondie, Talking Heads, The Ramones, and Tuff Darts. Within less than two years, the hyper-development of his rough style, penchant for mistakes, and influence of the Nouvelle Vague propelled his fervor into employing a film technique such as the “jump-cut”. This visual effect combines two similar shots (a suggested 30 degree angle difference) that produces a “jump” in continuity of the moving image that reveals its process, hence a remark on time and visual memory. Unmade Beds, 1976 intimates Poe’s affair with Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), 1960. His films present his affinity for the everyday and Existentialist philosophy.

 

Please visit the Anthology Film Archive’s website for showtimes:

Night Lunch, 1975, 32 minutes, 16mm. Film by Amos Poe and Ivan Král.

Blank Generation, 1976, 55 minutes, 16mm. Film by Amos Poe and Ivan Král.

Unmade Beds, 1976, 77 minutes, 16mm. Film by Amos Poe, Still Photography by Fernando Natalaci, Music composed by Ivan Král.

The Foreigner, 1978, 95 minutes, 16mm. Film by Amos Poe, Music composed by Ivan Král.

 

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue and 2nd Street
East Village – Lower East Side

Cover image: Still from Unmade Beds - Amos Poe