On December 19th, 1974 writer Linda Rosenkrantz invited her close friend, photographer Peter Hujar, to her New York apartment on the Upper East Side to describe in detail how he had spent the entirety of the previous day. The tape-recorded conversation was part of a planned larger project by Rosenkrantz, intended to gather the recollections of how a number of artist friends had each occupied themselves on a single day. While the full work was never completed, a transcript of Hujar and Rosenkrantz’s exchange was discovered in the photographer’s archive at the Morgan Library and published in book form, as Peter Hujar’s Day, in 2021.
In a cover quote, fellow photographer Nan Goldin described the book as “Peter’s sexiest self-portrait. Read it and weep if you didn’t know him. Or read it and weep if you did that we lost him.” A prolific artist and an integral part of New York’s Downtown scene of the 70s and 80s, Hujar died of AIDS-related complications in 1987 at the age of 53. A single book of his photography was published during his lifetime, Portraits in Life and Death (republished last year) with an introduction by Susan Sontag, who is among the notable contemporaries and friends whom he photographed and mentions to Rosenkrantz, including some who are still living and remain prominent New York figures like Fran Lebowitz.
When filmmaker Ira Sachs came across Rosenkrantz’s book while shooting Passages in Paris, he decided to adapt it for the screen, partly as a way to continue and build upon his collaboration with actor Ben Whishaw, as he shared with The Queer Review in a recent interview. The result is an exquisitely intimate portrait of Hujar’s friendship with Rosenkrantz, portrayed by Rebecca Hall who delivers a masterclass in listening with her remarkable, tender, in-the-moment performance. While Whishaw offers a gentle, unassuming tour-de-force opposite her as Hujar, in an appealingly natural, richly lived-in, nuanced turn. They make for a delightful on-screen pairing.
With the text itself dealing with a mix of the quotidian (like the exact price he paid for a pack of cigarettes) and the poignant, even the unexpectedly profound, much of the pleasure of the film comes from being in the company of these two people who are enjoy being present with each other, spending their current day focused on the minutiae of the previous one. At a time when there were no electronic devices in people’s pockets or vibrating notifications to divert their attention from the person sitting in front of them.
Sachs masterfully opens up what is essentially a long one-sided conversation between two people in a single location, into something truly cinematic and captivating. Shot on 16mm film, the director revels in the beauty of cinematographer Alex Ashe’s composition and use of natural light, that draws attention to its own artistry in a way that in turn makes the viewer appreciate Hujar’s craft. Like Linda leaning against an interior wall as a shaft of golden hour winter sunlight streams through the window of her apartment and catches her face. While Ashe’s slow zooms on Whishaw, a nod to 60s and 70s cinema, draw us in as they emulate Linda’s attentiveness to what Peter is saying. Stylized at times—such as the photography montages that observe Linda and Peter in a series of vignettes as if they are posing for portraits, blurring the line between actor and character—the film exudes a playful, inviting warmth.
Another inspired element that heightens our attention, and prevents the film from feeling like an extended recreation, is the way the audience is made aware of and somehow complicit in its telling through various intrusions. As the film opens, we hear the voices of the crew on set as Peter steps into an elevator, with the clapper board slating the first take; later there is a shot of the sound recordist positioning the boom microphone above the actors’ heads in an exterior shot. At frequent intervals, the screen fades to white, which along with the flecks and crackles, actively reminds us that we are watching a film created in the present day that is in dialogue with real past events.
There is also pleasure to be had in taking in the variety of locations used within Linda’s apartment—with faithful, yet nicely restrained period production design by Stephen Phelps—from the initial living room setup, with Peter reclined on a sofa as he smokes, rather like a therapy session; to the physical closeness of the two friends lying on Linda’s sheepskin rug covered bed; to them talking on her building’s rooftop with a view of the city; to sharing food at the dining room table. Both characters have multiple outfit changes as the day progresses, without that being at all jarring, as costume designers Eric Damon and Khadija Zeggaï stick to the same tones within their palette.
The editing by Affonso Gonçalves (a frequent collaborator of Sachs and Todd Hyanes) keeps things continually visually engaging too as he builds an intoxicating flow to the film, though he is not afraid to keep in some involving long takes. Techniques such as slow transitions make us aware of time passing as the friends talk, underscoring the purpose behind Linda’s intended project to examine how we spend the hours and days that make up our lives. In Hujar’s case, this offers a rare and often fascinating insight into an artist’s personal life and their process, as well as how he observes and encounters the world. From Peter trying to decide what coat he should wear to meet Allen Ginsberg on his first freelance assignment for The New York Times, to his description of his interaction with him and frustration as he tried to form a connection with his photographic subject, then being disappointed by the eventual results in his dark room. His recollection of his day takes in his perspective on trying to make a living as an artist, his career ambitions, and the more laborious, but still potentially satisfying, aspects of his work, like the retouching of images.
This is a film that relishes the small details, devoting time to Linda pouring tea or Peter smoking one of many cigarettes (56 cents a pack, apparently), or him moving the candles on the table to take in how the reflection of the light changes on Linda’s face. Moments that allow the film to breathe and for us to relax with and feel connected to these two figures. Hujar reveals himself as someone who is always paying attention to his surroundings. Apparent in the way he recalls a stranger at a Chinese restaurant waiting for his takeout or what he notices about the sex workers on the street outside his window that woke him up with their “shop talk”, as one of them applies makeup using a truck wing mirror. They are sometimes brief, but nevertheless vivid descriptions that further open up the film, introducing us to additional characters and taking us to other locations. Like his walk from his apartment on Second Avenue and 12th Street to Ginsberg’s apartment on the Lower East Side, “where it really gets to looking dismal”, a neighbourhood that is “so rundown and dreary” that Hujar says he “almost felt fancy down there”. While Eli Cohn’s evocative sound design immerses us in a Manhattan soundscape of drilling, sirens, and the occasional helicopter overhead.
Hujar is a gay man in the company of a straight women whom he feels completely at ease with, with humour and goissp arising naturally as it does between friends. When queerness and sex are discussed it is in an open and casual way. Like the mention of a lover who calls Peter to say that he is feeling “hot” and wants to hookup with him. It is typical of a conversation that feels unfiltered and unguarded, like Linda saying of Allen Ginsberg, “he’s always been very ugly”, perhaps partly out of solidarity for Peter whom she feels the writer was difficult with.
Early on in the film, as Peter is getting into his stride—describing a morning visit from an Elle magazine editor to collect some photographs, the phone calls he received (including one from Susan Sontag), getting up then going back to bed for a snooze—he stops to wonder whether he is giving Linda too much detail and if what he is saying is “boring”. She reassures him that it is not, to her at least, adding, “It’s like a whole novel already”. Sachs’ film reinforces that Rosenkrantz was on to something with her concept. As James Joyce explored with Ulysses, or Virgina Woolf in her response with Mrs Dalloway, a single day can reveal much about a life, and encapsulate something meaningful about it in microcosm. Now that five decades have passed, Hujar’s description of his day takes on another layer of significance in its resurrection of a bygone era in New York and those who inhabited it.
“I often have a feeling that in my day nothing much happens. That I’ve wasted another day”, admits Hujar, as Rosenkrantz concurs. Yet those apparently uneventful days can add up to something extraordinary. As Sachs’ film gently prompts us to reflect upon how we spend our own days, there is an unforced profundity that lingers in the film’s poignant ending.
By James Kleinmann
Peter Hujar’s Day opens in theaters on Friday, November 7th, 2025 from Janus Films. Read our exclusive interview with Ira Sachs.
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