One early winter Thursday in 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz recorded photographer Peter Hujar as he recounted his activities over a 24-hour period. What was meant to spark a larger creative project never came to fruition, but finds new life some 50 years later in Peter Hujar’s Day (2025), directed by Ira Sachs. Starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, who perform most of the audio recording’s transcript verbatim, the film unfolds as a series of tableaux within Rosenkrantz’s boho ’70s apartment. Both an offbeat buddy film of the highest order (who wouldn’t delight in the two boogying to a Tennessee Jim record?) and a tender portrait of Hujar’s hustle prior to art-world fame, Peter Hujar’s Day reminds us that, between two brainy, brilliant friends, no topic can ever be boring, and even the most mundane experience can inform an artist’s output.
In the languid film shot on 16mm Kodak, we move from one part of Rosenkrantz’s abode to the next; from the sun-blanched balcony to the candlelit kitchen, the pair are carefully staged while the camera remains static. What transpires between them feels candid and loose, of a piece, perhaps, with Sachs being the rare director who eschews rehearsals. From their discussion of Susan Sontag’s sway over the gallery scene to their disbelief at the rising cost of cigarettes (56 cents!), we are there with them as curious observers, the click of the tape recorder marking each segment of the conversation spread out over the course of a single day.
To be sure, Whishaw can captivate while cracking a pistachio, and Hall is arresting pouring a pot of tea. But without the ruminative banter between the two, the film would deliquesce into so much star-gazing. Whishaw and Hall share a chemistry befitting those who’ve laughed, loathed, and loafed together for years. As Hujar’s interlocutor, Linda volleys droll barbs and earnest follow-up questions; her countenance is a subtle canvas of responses to Peter’s longing. “I would like my work to … stand by itself without a single star in it,” he quietly admits. When she tears up toward the end of the film, we are left to wonder if it is out of pity for her friend’s social striving, her own stymied creative aspirations, or both.
Hall and Whishaw in Peter Hujar’s Day
If conspicuously artful, Peter Hujar’s Day avoids preciousness as it does nostalgia. Hujar eats so little, and so poorly, that his stomach becomes bloated after a few puny sandwiches. His photos are repeatedly published by major magazines, which then repeatedly find ways to avoid paying for them. Hot water is shut off frequently across the East Village. We learn that Allen Ginsberg — either sarcastically or sincerely — has suggested that Hujar try fellatio as a means of ingratiating himself with the gay literati.
But for all its gritty realism, the film speaks to the power of at least two imperiled art forms: the time-melting medium of film itself and that of the hours-long, in-person conversation. Exiting the screening, I felt like I’d spent an entire day with two complicated, creative friends. I also found myself wistful for the last time I shared a long, lingering talk with someone sans digital disruption.
In the past, I’ve written that Hujar’s portraits capture the “pedestrian peculiar, or the quotidian queer.” Sachs’s film equally achieves this in his own contemplative visual language. We are invited to look — and to listen — with the same irresistible ardor of his subjects.
“I would like my work to … stand by itself without a single star in it,” said Hujar.
Peter Hujar’s Day (2025) is directed by Ira Sachs. After its showing at the New York Film Festival, it will open on November 7 at Film at Lincoln Center, accompanied by a selection of Hujar’s portraits on view at the Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan).
