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No wave cinema was an underground filmmaking movement that flourished on the Lower East Side of New York City[4] from about 1976 to 1985. Associated with (and partially sponsored by) the artists’ group Collaborative Projects,[5] no wave cinema was a stripped-down style of guerrilla filmmaking that emphasized dark edgy mood and unrehearsed immediacy above many other artistic concerns – similar to the parallel no wave music movement in its raw and rapid style.[6]
| Years active | 1976-1985 |
|---|---|
| Location | United States |
| Influences |
|
No wave cinema, also known as New Cinema (after a short-lived screening room on St. Mark’s Place run by several filmmakers on the scene), had a significant impact on underground film. They were influenced by the works of Andy Warhol, John Cassavetes, George Kuchar, Ron Rice, John Waters and Jack Smith.[7][8][9] The No wave cinema of Scott B and Beth B, Eric Mitchell, Jamie Nares, Amos Poe, Diego Cortez and others spawned a new generation of independent filmmaking in New York that included Jim Jarmusch, Tom DiCillo, Steve Buscemi, and Vincent Gallo, as well as the Cinema of Transgression movement of Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Kembra Pfahler, and Gordon Stevenson. Other filmmakers associated with No wave cinema included Lizzie Borden, Bradley Eros, Aline Mare, Jeanne Liotta, Charlie Ahearn, Coleen Fitzgibbon, David Wojnarowicz, Manuel DeLanda, Vivienne Dick, Jon Moritsugu, Susan Seidelman, Kathryn Bigelow, Casper Cunningham, and Casandra Stark Mele.[10][11]
In 1978, Jamie Nares released a well-known no wave Super 8 film titled Rome 78, her only venture into feature-length, plot-driven film. Despite its large cast in period costumes, the work was not intended as a serious undertaking, as the actors interject self-conscious laughter into scenes and deliver seemingly improvised lines with over-the-top bravado. The film features no wave cinema regular Lydia Lunch along with Mitchell, James Chance, John Lurie, Judy Rifka, Jim Sutcliffe, Lance Loud, Mitch Corber, Patti Astor, artist David McDermott of McDermott & McGough, and Kristian Hoffman, among others.[12]
Coleen Fitzgibbon and Alan W. Moore created an 11:41-minute film in 1978 (finished in 2009) of a no wave concert to benefit Colab called X Magazine Benefit, documenting performances of DNA, James Chance and the Contortions, and Boris Policeband in NYC in the late 1970s. Shot in black and white Super 8 and edited on video, the film captures the gritty look and sound of the music scene during that era. In 2013 it was exhibited at Salon 94, an art gallery in New York City.[13]
List of notable No wave films
- The Blank Generation (1976)
- Unmade Beds (1976)
- Rome 78 (1978)
- Black Box (1978)
- The Foreigner (1978)
- The Driller Killer (1979)
- Permanent Vacation (1980)
- Underground U.S.A. (1980)
- The Offenders (1980)
- Ms. 45 (1981)
- Vortex (1981)
- Smithereens (1982)
- Born in Flames (1983)
- Mutable Fire (1984)
- Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
- The Way It Is or Eurydice in the Avenues (1985)
Sources:[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]
Like the later Dogme 95 creative movement, No Wave Cinema has been described as a defining period in low budget film production.[31]
Stranger Than Paradise was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2002.[32][33][34]
In 2010, French filmmaker Céline Danhier created a documentary film titled Blank City.[35] The film presents an oral history of the no wave cinema and Cinema of Transgression movements[36] through interviews with Jarmusch, Kern, Buscemi, Poe, Seidelman, Ahearn, Zedd, John Waters, Blondie’s Debbie Harry, hip-hop legend Fab 5 Freddy, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and Jack Sargeant. The soundtrack includes music by Patti Smith, Television, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, James Chance and the Contortions, Bush Tetras and Sonic Youth.[37][38]
In 2011, the Museum of Arts and Design celebrated the movement with the retrospective "No Wave Cinema", which included works by Jarmusch, Kern, Mitchell, Poe, Zedd, Scot and Beth B., Lizzie Borden, Edo Bertoglio and Kembra Pfahler.[39][40]
In 2023, the No Wave movement, including No Wave Cinema, received institutional recognition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris with a Nicolas Ballet curated exhibition entitled Who You Staring At: Culture visuelle de la scène no wave des années 1970 et 1980 (Visual culture of the no wave scene in the 1970s and 1980s). Featured in the installation was Scott B and Beth B's 11 minute film Letters to Dad (1979). An interview with Beth B, No Wave film screenings and musical performances, with three recorded conversations with No Wave artists, were included as part of the exhibition.[41]
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