Ep. 359: Ira Sachs on Peter Hujar’s Day

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I spoke with filmmaker Ira Sachs about his latest movie, Peter Hujar’s Day. It’s a fascinating chronicle of a 1974 conversation between New York photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz, whose asks Hujar to recount a day in his life in great detail, including visits by friends, an encounter with Allen Ginsberg (whom The New York Times assigned him to photograph for a portrait), Chinese food orders, and much else. Based on actual transcripts, it’s a beautiful demonstration of craft—the actors’, and the photographer and writer they play. Sachs talked about making the film with Whishaw and Hall, the apartment they shot in, the directors whose work inspired him, and the new movie he has been shooting.

Peter Hujar’s Day is in theaters now.

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Photo by Steve Snodgrass