Director: Ira Sachs
Writer: Ira Sachs
Stars: Rebecca Hall, Ben Whishaw
Synopsis: Conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and Linda Rosenkrantz from 1974 sheds light on New York’s vibrant downtown art world and the introspective journey of an artist’s life.
Peter Hujar’s Day feels dry by design. After all, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Ira Sachs’ latest film is a two-hander chamber piece pulled from a transcript of photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) detailing his previous day to friend and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall). A relaxed and very great Whishaw details these past moments in a very lackadaisical manner. To an audience, it’s exciting as he rattles off the names of cultural icons he interacted with. The list goes on and on. But to Hujar, these are just people he knows. He still worries about getting paid for photography credits. He gets annoyed with certain interactions. He will occasionally tell a white lie. In some instances, it’s to avoid extended discussions. Other times, he does so without even thinking. Despite his working with some of the most legendary artists who were floating around New York City in the 1970s, he’s just another person on the planet mulling over the mundanities of life. But it’s in those details, both minor and major, that make our lives what they are. And with Sachs’ latest film, he explores these details through vivid recreation, unmatched curiosity, and a clear passion for the simplicity of life. He also goes ahead and finds a way to deliver all of this as a potent thesis on the power of cinema.
Hujar begins by explaining an early morning interaction he had the previous day. As he sat beside somebody having another conversation, he states how he “could’ve listened but wasn’t interested.” It’s quite funny, like much of this film’s deadpan humor is. But it poses an interesting question. By that same token Hujar states, why should we be any more compelled by the day he’s detailing? The answer feels cliché, but it’s simply the power of cinema. In this recreation, we are able to experience a conversation that was previously lost to time. Is it not magical that we can witness a day that occurred 50 years ago? It’s been translated through a page, through a lens, and finally, through a screen. But this day that Hujar is recounting, however trivial it may appear to an audience or even how it appeared to him at the time, will now live forever. And there’s an innate beauty in that.
Perhaps more than anything, Peter Hujar’s Day makes for a compelling cinematic experience. It doesn’t quite fit into the vein of slow cinema, but it at least borrows the style and structure of this style of film. At less than 80 minutes long however, the film is an absolute breeze. In that short time, Sachs forces us to consider just how much can happen in such little time. He also begs us to question the thought of how many moments we can miss in an equal amount of time. At one point, Hujar makes note of how he went back to bed for a nap without removing any of his clothes. He then goes on to say how, upon waking up, he put his clothes back on. Rosenkrantz calls him out on lying, to which Hujar completely admits his mistake. In any other type of film, this would likely force an audience to question whether the narrator is unreliable or not. But here, this folly speaks to something different. In Peter Hujar’s Day, a trivial sequence like this speaks to the moments we can recall most versus the ones that remain fuzzy shortly after occurring before fading into oblivion. And this is why a film like this matters. No matter how trivial, it’s nice to know that we can have and return to a living document of our lives as we experience them.
To look at the day Sachs is recreating on an even larger scale, this is why a project like Rosenkrantz’ is not only so exciting, but matters so deeply. As Hujar nears the end of his day, he points out how, prior to writing down the notes he’d refer to for Rosenkrantz, he initially thought he had wasted a day. He feared there was nothing to report. It’s a feeling that is all too relatable for basically any human on the planet. But here is the physical proof of a day that was not only not wasted, but lived through extensively. Even after being lost for so long, it has been frozen in amber. This is as raw and as realistic as one can get: merely saying out loud what you did within a 24-hour-period. From there, Sachs layers on a ton of artifice to this day. At the very least, it makes for a thought-provoking experiment.
These experimental interstitials and stylistic flairs work to varying degrees in my opinion. Sachs doesn’t shy away from the artifice of cinema. In fact, he appears to revel in it with Peter Hujar’s Day. Visible boom mics appear during shot set-ups. We see clapper boards and mid-scene outfit changes alongside Whishaw and Hall preparing for their respective roles. This transcript from which the film is pulling directly from is an uncut, pure exploration of Hujar’s mind. Even still, Sachs reminds us that what we are seeing is, at the end of the day, play. In Hujar’s recollections, there are, no doubt, liberties taken here and there. It’s a natural facet of storytelling. As Hujar goes through his day to the best of his ability, Sachs reminds us that his film, too, is just a story being told to an audience. These interstitials, though maybe not always necessary, serve as those concrete reminders. And in those reminders, this retelling of a day morphs into a rumination on life. How we interpret our day to day activities ultimately creates the story of our lives one page at a time. And at such a brisk runtime, all should feel welcomed and invited into the day of Peter Hujar through the framework of Sachs’ film.
Peter Hujar’s Day is celebrating its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in the Premieres category.
