You know what our attitude was toward people who didn’t like avant-garde films? ‘Oh, you don’t like it? We’ll show it again.’
April 26, 2012 7:05 AM   Subscribe

Amos Vogel, the founder of the Cinema 16 film society in New York City and later co-founder of the New York Film Festival, has died at the age of 91.

Escaping the Nazi's encroachment on Austria in 1938, the socially and politically minded Vogel founded Cinema 16 as a way for people to be exposed to the width and breadth of film as an analog to film societies he belonged to back in his native Vienna. Ardently and unapologetically socialist, he brought his worldview into the programs he curated for Cinema 16, from the works of Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger to the anti-semetic propaganda film THE ETERNAL JEW (previously). His celebrated book, FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART, a magnificently verbose and lucid tome, chronicles the avant-garde and the outre (exhaustive list of films), making a case for the perpetuation of film as art (it's profusely illustrated too!). A documentary named after the book was made a few years ago about Vogel and Cinema 16, including extended interviews with the man himself. The entire documentary can be viewed here.
posted by theartandsound (4 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
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posted by xingcat at 7:07 AM on April 26, 2012


Thanks for posting. Here's a good intro to Vogel and Film as a Subversive Art.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:23 AM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]


Thanks for that link. I forgot to include that link in the post!
posted by theartandsound at 9:32 AM on April 26, 2012


Subversive Art increased my mental horizons more than all but a very, very few of the books I've read.

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posted by Trurl at 9:51 AM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]


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