Amos Vogel

Scholar, cheerleader and entrepreneur of avant-garde film, Amos Vogel taught generations of Americans to expand their vision of movies. This Austrian migr, who died April 24 in New York City at 91, founded the Cinema 16 film club in 1947 with his wife Marcia; there he showed a challenging range of programs, from Maya Deren art films to Nazi propaganda (for study purposes, not indoctrination). In 1963 he and Richard Roud launched the New York Film Festival–Cinema 16 on a grander scale–which quickly became the nation’s top showcase for serious movies. A cheerful dynamo who enlightened students at Harvard, NYU and Penn, Vogel wrote the 1974 book Film as a Subversive Art, a crucial text for those who believe in cinema’s power to storm the barricades of the status quo. In this most timid of film eras, his voice remains a call to arms for adventurous directors and moviegoers.