Ira Sachs’ 2010 short film Last Address presents an unadorned montage of New York City apartment buildings and rowhouses, each of which once housed an artist who died of AIDS, among them Félix González-Torres, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the subject of Sachs’ latest film, photographer Peter Hujar. Hujar and David Wojnarowicz lived at 189 2nd Ave., and at the time Sachs captures it, the building is dominated by scaffolding, with its primary tenant being a movie theater. In turning his gaze to buildings that, from the outside, are utterly unremarkable, Sachs revivifies the artists who lived in them, snuffed out too early by disease and institutions that viewed queer people as dispensable.
Sachs’ new film, Peter Hujar’s Day, is a more intimate extension of the project to illuminate the lives of those lost to AIDS. With minimal alterations, Sachs restages the transcript of a recorded conversation between Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz on December 19, 1974, in which Hujar describes the events of his previous day in close detail — part of an abandoned project by Rosenkrantz to record and publish the recounted days of a group of her friends. Having laid dormant in the archives of the Morgan Library & Museum, the transcript was rediscovered, then published with Rosenkrantz’s participation by Magic Hour Press in 2019, leading the way for Sachs’ film. Appropriately for an adaptation of an archival document, the film is a tender, tactile remounting of a near-forgotten moment in time. Yet it’s most remarkable for how it feels to be taking place in the exact present moment. Far from a distantly respectful memorial, the vital, immersive Peter Hujar’s Day emanates life in every frame.
Peter Hujar’s day, as told by Peter (Ben Whishaw) to Linda (Rebecca Hall) in various spaces in her roomy apartment, with occasional jaunts to the roof and the sidewalk (at least in Sachs’ framing of the conversation), was an uneventful one by his standards. He wakes up late, shows photos he’s taken of Lauren Hutton to a French editor of Elle who briefly stops by, takes a nap, has a difficult appointment shooting portraits of Allen Ginsberg for the New York Times, takes another nap, dines on Chinese takeout with a friend who has stopped by to take a hot shower, and does some work in his darkroom before going to sleep. Regular phone calls from friends pepper his day.
As transcribed by Rosenkrantz and recreated by Sachs, Hujar told the story of his day in a relaxed, discursive style, with the two of them going off on regular conversational tangents, befitting of their close friendship. What will seem most notable to contemporary viewers is likely Hujar’s regular, casual contact with many now-legendary figures: In addition to Hutton and Ginsberg, Hujar mentions encounters with Rod Stewart and William S. Burroughs, and he describes chatting on the phone with Susan Sontag and Fran Lebowitz. Yet these people were largely not remarkable to Hujar and Rosenkrantz; their idea of “stars,” as revealed in a later exchange in the film, were Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, while the largely literary and artistic figures that populate their conversation were friends and colleagues they met frequently. Photographing Ginsberg was no more notable for Hujar than the prior day’s lunch of a liverwurst sandwich on Pepperidge Farm bread.
Shot on 16mm film by director of photography Alex Ashe, Peter Hujar’s Day is suffused with a warm, nostalgic glow. Likewise, the camera movement, compositions, and Affonso Gonçalves’ editing are reminiscent of the era’s cinema — a few mid-sentence cuts that shake up otherwise static shots of close conversation bring to mind Breathless, while elsewhere some slow zooms on Whishaw echo Robert Altman. If some level of period nostalgia is baked into the film’s form, as well as its content, Whishaw and Hall’s naturalistic performances lend the film a complete sense of immediacy and spontaneity.
Whishaw, who physically embodies Hujar through subtle yet transformative vocal and behavioral choices, brilliantly projects both the lackadaisical boredom of describing, beat by beat, an average day, while communicating in asides and subtext his artistic dedication. Hall matches Whishaw simply by listening with interest. If Linda is partially an audience surrogate, Hall still embodies her with a deceptively light, yet precise approach. As a result of Hall’s unassumingly complex work, Rosenkrantz’s deep care for her friend and her own probing artistic mind are both clear, compelling, and fully dimensional. But while their performances are individually exceptional, it’s the easy chemistry and affection they share that truly enliven Sachs’ film. One gets the sense they are looking in on two actual, longtime friends catching up, exchanging bits of gossip about friends, and checking in on each other’s health.
Peter Hujar’s Day is so relaxed and inviting to watch unfold that, when the story of Hujar’s day does finally come to a close, it is jarring, almost upsetting. After he describes going to sleep, Sachs keeps Whishaw in closeup, then plunges his face in darkness. Practically speaking, it looks like a lamp has been turned off in the apartment, but on the metaphoric level, one can’t shake the metatextual knowledge of Hujar’s premature death at 53 in 1987. The emotional impact is profound, and Sachs reaches this quiet catharsis through a steady accumulation of detail — the conversation has unfolded leisurely, but with such careful attention paid to each seemingly tiny aspect of Hujar’s prior day that the shape of a dozen hours begins to mimic the arc of an entire life. Hujar’s artistry, his friendships and his solitude, his passions and frustrations: all are encapsulated within the microcosm of December 18, 1974, and are given an additional layer of meaning when shared with and received by Rosenkrantz. Within the most outwardly modest of frames, Sachs has crafted a loving, capacious ode to Peter Hujar’s inestimable life and work.
DIRECTOR: Ira Sachs; CAST: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall; DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films; IN THEATERS: November 7; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 16 min.
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