Punk filmmaker Amos Poe, 76, died of cancer on Dec. 25. Poe was also called a “No Wave” and “Remodernist” filmmaker, and if you can explain what those mean, I will have you over for tea. Born in Israel, Poe made both concert films and linear stories. His 1976 The Blank Generation featured Richard Hell, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, and Wayne County; other films he wrote and/or directed included Unmade Beds, The Foreigner, Subway Riders, Alphabet City, Just an American Boy, and A Walk in the Park. Jaime Levinas wrote that Poe “borrowed the restless spirit of the French New Wave and fused it with the raw, chaotic electricity of New York’s 1970s and ’80s downtown art and music scene.” He recalled Poe saying during the filmmaking classes he taught, “Why don’t you make one character really tall and the other one a midget?” “What if he had an eye patch and talked through one of those throat speakers?” (Why do I hear this in the voice of Andy Warhol?).
