Hyde Park Pick: Peter Hujar's Day

Rosenkrantz tape-recorded their conversation before it was later transcribed. The conversation and subsequent recordings were intended to form part of a book project which would chronicle a day in the life of a range of artists of the period. The book never materialised, and the recording was lost. In 2019, as part of Peter Hujar’s archives at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, the transcript was unearthed and published as a text in its own right.

Sach’s film brings this book to life. Whilst that journey to screen has a twist or two, the absolute pleasure of the film is the impeccable simplicity of it. With Rebecca Hall taking on the role of Linda Rosenkrantz and Ben Whishaw as Hujar, the film is a faithful recreation of the transcript. Where some award-winning performances are made of grand monologues and physical transformations, this is instead a work of beautiful naturalism. This could be a fly on the wall with Hall and Whishaw, they could be friends who have known each other for years. But it isn’t, it’s a meticulous and surprisingly riveting portrait of 1970s New York and, just as Rosenkrantz intended, the daily life of an artist.

Names drip into the conversation like Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Susan Sontag, which speak to the period and its significance artistically. But they are interspersed with the most everyday of concerns, like what coat to wear, or simple chores like watering the plants.

It’s hard to express quite what a pleasure it is watching Peter Hujar’s Day, but it is a pleasure. Maybe it’s nice to know our artists a little more deeply, to be reminded how human they are. For me, it’s a little something else. There is something gently meditative in watching a conversation unfold, full of interest but lacking in the stress or tension of drama that so often drives great cinema. Especially this week, it’s nice to begin the year with a gentle nudge rather than a shove.

If you enjoy Peter Hujar’s Day as much as I did, you can delve more into Hujar’s world through Stay away from nothing. Available from Village Books, Stay away from nothing shines a spotlight on the deep relationship between Paul Thek and Peter Hujar through the artists’ letters and photographs. Beginning in 1956 and spanning two decades.

Peter Hujar’s Day is now showing at HPPH. You can find times and tickets here.