Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ira Sachs
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall
In 1974 the writer Linda Rosenkrantz embarked on an ultimately curtailed project. Rosenkrantz had the idea that she would conduct a series of casual interviews in her New York apartment with her many friends from the city's then thriving artistic community. Rather than asking set questions, Rosenkrantz would simply ask her subjects to recount every event of the previous day. One friend she got around to interviewing was the portrait photographer Peter Hujar. A transcript of her conversation with Hujar was published in 2021.
That transcript now provides the basis of the script for Ira Sachs' Peter Hujar's Day. These two very New York people are played by a pair of Brits in Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw. The accuracy of the accents is up for debate, but they fully convince as products of this era.
The film is set entirely within the walls of Rosenkrantz's apartment. Actually, that's not entirely accurate; there are occasional diversions to the roof and balcony. Given how it essentially consists of two people talking, it might be considered a "filmed play," but it isn't structured in any traditionally dramatic manner. There are no defined acts, no climax, and the resolution only comes when Hujar runs out of things to recount about his previous day.
That day sees Hujar deal with various friends and clients in personal and professional settings, sometimes overlapping. There is a pre-AIDS, pre-MeToo candidness in how Hujar speaks about these people, both men and women, in a sexual manner while Rosenkrantz smiles knowingly, neither shocked nor offering approval. Names like Susan Sontag, Lauren Hutton and Fran Leibowitz are casually dropped. A visit to the home of Allen Ginsberg is recounted as a professional chore. If Hujar's life hadn't ended so early (he passed away in 1987, a victim of the AIDS epidemic) he might have looked back on this time and laughed at how he took it for granted, but in 1974 it's just another Tuesday for a New York photographer.
Hall displays a commendable lack of ego in happily playing second fiddle here. Her role largely requires her to sit back and listen, and she does so with the convincing curiosity of a writer who knows their subjects are more interesting than themselves. This is very much the Ben Whishaw show, and he is elegantly captivating here. There is no attempt on his part to structure Hujar's rambling anecdotes for tidy dramatic effect, and the resulting effect is of watching a man who isn't a natural storyteller telling the sort of stories a storyteller would kill for. He'll be halfway through an amusing recounting of meeting Ginsberg only to drift off into an unrelated tangent, Rosenkrantz attempting to subtly prod him back on course like a toddler gently poking a paper boat on a park pond. Whether Hujar's stories are true or accurate is uncertain, though he seems to have entirely invented a fake social figure by the name of "Topaz Caucasian."
The appeal of a film like Peter Hujar's Day is admittedly limited. It will hold most interest for fans of its two subjects and the actors portraying them. As someone who has always held a fascination with 1970s New York, I was something of the target audience for Hujar's recollections, but even at a mere 75 minutes the film comes close to stretching the limits of its appeal. As an experiment, harsher critics may question its very point, but Sachs' film offers a chance to see two of our best working actors excel in two distinct styles of acting in a one-sided face off.
Peter Hujar's Day is in UK/ROI cinemas from January 2nd.
