R.I.P. Amos Poe (1949 – December 25, 2025). A 1975 portrait by Fernando Natalici, SIGNED by Natalici, Photograph, 1975. Size: 5 x 7 inches
In the mid-1970s, Amos Poe was one of the shining lights of the downtown art scene. Inspired by the new bands at CBGB, and the improvisational techniques of French New Wave cinema, Poe showed that you did not need a large budget — or any budget at all — to create films reflective of the changing times. His first films Blank Generation (1975), Unmade Beds (1976) and The Foreigner (1978) found an appreciative downtown audience and provided a model for other filmmakers who along with Poe were grouped as part of the No Wave film movement.
In an interview in the catalogue for the 1978 Punk Art exhibition at the Washington Projects for the Arts, Poe described the do-it-yourself ethos that was not only at the heart of his own early filmmaking but which was also at the core of much of the manic creativity then taking place in the East Village. “People used to say, “oh wait…, we’ll get you the money.” But you can’t wait. You really can’t. If you got it, you do it. If you don’t, you do it the best you can, and you do it with what you’ve learned about the media and with whatever art and taste it takes to produce what you see and what you feel.”
Amos Poe moved on to create other films, make music video, and teaching filmmaking at NYU. His early films, however, remain particularly compelling because they successfully capture the spirt of the late 1970’s by incorporating well-known scenesters along with the period’s music, fashion, and visual art. Although today these films are rarely screened, excerpts can be seen on YouTube, and much of their spirit is preserved in the excellent on-set photographs taken by Fernando Natalici. Gallery 98 has a number of vintage resin-coated prints made from the original negatives by Natalici in the early 1990s when Poe’s films were being packaged for VHS video. All prints are signed and annotated by Natalici.
See our collection: No Wave and Independent Film
The Blank Generation, 1975
Amos Poe & Ivan Kral, The Blank Generation (1975), Flyer, 1980. Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
Created in collaboration with Ivan Kral, a member of the Patti Smith Group, Blank Generation is the first film to document the emerging music scene at CBGB. There was no budget. As Poe recalled, “I was shooting with the camera in one hand and with a light in the other. We just kept shooting and I went to each of the bands and said “Okay, I want you to produce the sound.” Then I cut the music into images, and it has a syncopation… (The magazine) Sounds said that it’s… a real Punk film… it’s not just showing it… it’s doing it. They had this thing about the sound and the images not being together as having this violent, rough quality.”
Unmade Beds, 1976
Unmade Beds, Amos Poe, Duncan Hannah, Eric Mitchell, Debbie Harry, Flyer, 1976. Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
Duncan Hannah (the male lead) and Amos Poe, production still used to promote Unmade Beds, photograph by Fernando Natalici, 1976. Size: 5 x 7 inches
“Scene from Unmade Beds with Kitty, Duncan, Eric, and Sarah,” Signed and Annotated on back by Photographer Fernando Natalici, 1976. Size: 5 x 7 inches
Inspired by French New Wave films, Unmade Beds was a narrative film about an alcoholic photographer living in New York who dreams of moving to Paris. According to Poe, “I wanted to start where Godard started, to go back to basics.” Duncan Hannah, the downtown painter who played the role of the photographer Rico, recalled “Amos wrote script each night before the day’s shooting…He screened Breathless for us all before the shoot. From conception to the first day was two weeks. The shoot lasted nine days. Amos gave me a bottle of wine each morning to get prepped.”
The Foreigner, 1978
Amos Poe, The Foreigner, Poster, 1978. Size: 11 x 17 inches
Eric Mitchell in the Bondage Scene from The Foreigner, Photograph by Fernando Natalici, 1977. Size: 5 x 7 inches
Eric Mitchell in The Foreigner, Photograph by Fernando Natalici, 1977. Size: 5 x 7 inches
Eric Mitchell in The Foreigner, Photograph by Fernando Natalici, 1977. Size: 5 x 7 inches
“I produced The Foreigner for $5,000 by getting a loan from a bank for a car and then made a film and didn’t get the car. We shot the film in sequence in ten days…as we were making the film, we’d kind of say then this happens…then that happens. The Foreigner has a lot to do with New York and America. It’s about an alienated person coming to the United States. For every person who makes it in America, there are ten who don’t. It’s like this killing thing. It’s this killing force. The film is about the disintegration of a personality. I have tried to make a psychological dream.” Soon after The Foreigner was completed, it was screened as part of the New American Filmmakers Series at the Whitney Museum and reviewed by the New York Times.
Eric Mitchell and Debbie Harry in an excerpt from The Foreigner
Eric Mitchell and Debbie Harry in The Foreigner. An excerpt on Youtube, 2:17m.
“The Camera is Mightier Than the Gun / A Film More Rare Than Bullets”
Amos Poe, Production Still from Unmade Beds, Photograph by Fernando Natalici, 1976. Size: 5 x 7 inches
