Street Cred

Related Content

• Facebook's Swoon a Symptom of Wall Street's Sickness
  May 22, 2012
• "Burn Wall Street": Otto von Danger Politicizes His Art
  May 2, 2012
• OccupySF: How To Get Laid by the 99 Percent
  October 26, 2011
• Why Musicians Matter to the Occupy Movement
  October 14, 2011
• Bouncer Talks Occupy with The Man at Sutter Station
  December 21, 2011

More About

• Celine Danhier
• Amos Poe
• Celine Danhier
• Financial Markets
• Financial Markets

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Blank City is a self-defeating user-friendly primer on a group of films whose aura was enhanced by the fact that one had to brave scenester gatekeepers to find them. A loose history of underground movies from the hybridized gallery-art/loft-rock/filmmaking scene that coalesced in downtown NYC in the '70s and early '80s, in punk's aftermath, Celine Danhier's chronology begins with Amos Poe's Unmade Beds (1976) and ends with the rise of MTV, real estate, Wall Street, AIDS, or whatever other external factor is to take the blame for the dry-up. Along the way, there are glimpses of the CBGB-era films of Poe, Eric Mitchell, and James Nares, and the '80s "Cinema of Transgression," which encompasses the work of Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, and David Wojnarowicz. Nothing in this assemblage of clips will convince anyone not already sold on the enduring artistic importance of these movements beyond the world bounded by 14th Street and the Holland Tunnel. Danhier has made a lifestyle-nostalgia oral history after the popular Please Kill Me model, but gets none of the tall tales and internecine grudging that made that tome so entertaining. Nor does she once interrogate a parade of interviewees as they retell the legend of guttered Olde NYC from upmarket contemporary surroundings — a decision that ironically shows lickspittle respect for a scene marked by youthful home rule.
June 3-16, 2011