The Hollywood Reporter article quotes Martin Scorsese: "If you’re looking for the origins of film culture in America, look no further than Amos Vogel. Amos opened the doors to every possibility in film viewing, film exhibiton, film curating and film appreciation. He was also unfailingly generous, encouraging and supportive of so many young filmmakers, including me when I was just starting to make my first pictures. No doubt about it — the man was a giant." In 1963, Vogel founded the New York Film Festival with Richard Roud.
Amos Vogel, creator of the influential Manhattan avant garde film club Cinema 16 and co-founder of the New York Film Festival, died Tuesday in his apartment off Washington Square Park. He was 91.
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With New York missing the serious film societies prevalent in his native Austria, Vogel and his wife Marcia in 1947 founded Cinema 16 for moviegoers thirsty for "films you cannot see elsewhere."
During the next 16 years, Vogel opened the public's eyes to such filmmakers as Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner,Kenneth Anger, Brian De Palma,Georges Franju, Richard Lester, Nagisa Oshima,Roman Polanski, Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette,Carlos Saura, François Truffaut and Agnes Varda and to such films as John Cassavetes’ Shadows (1959). At its height, the nonprofit Cinema 16 boasted a membership of 6,000 and regularly sold out 1,500-seat screenings.