By Peg Aloi

Knowing that artist Peter Hujar died of AIDS in 1987 — one of countless casualties of a devastating epidemic that cut short so many artists’ live s— gives the film a sad, mortal urgency.

Peter Hujar’s Day, directed by Ira Sachs. Currently screening in theaters.

Ben Whishaw in Peter Hujar’s Day. Photo: Janus

Filmmaker Ira Sachs (Passages) wrote and directed this intimate chamber piece of a film, which takes place entirely in a sunny New York loft apartment. Linda Rosenkrantz, a writer and close friend of photographer Peter Hujar, initiated a book project in which she planned to document how her artist friends spent a single day. On December 19, 1974, Rosenkrantz invited Hujar to her apartment and recorded him narrating everything he had done the previous day in detail. This recording was originally meant to be part of a larger project to collect similar recollections from other artists, but the full project was never completed. Sachs has made a straightforward recreation of that daylong conversation between them, offering a glimpse of their friendship, but also invoking an iconic period of innovation, energy, and transition in the artistic landscape of the city.

Peter (Ben Whishaw) arrives at the apartment of his friend Linda (Rebecca Hall). He’s tired, wearing dungarees, and smoking the first of many cigarettes. He’s on board for her request and, after she sets up the tape recorder, proceeds to narrate the activities of his previous day with as much precision and detail as he can. He talks about getting up early then returning to bed, ordering food at a local Chinese restaurant, phone calls made and received to friends and clients, photographs he’s working on, and encounters with assorted denizens in the artistic community, including a memorable description of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

When Peter thinks he has misremembered — or needs to add something he missed — he stops and amends his statements. Linda listens, asks occasional questions, cajoles, commiserates, and expresses concern about his constant smoking. It’s clear she knows him and his body of work very well: they’re easy with each other, respectful and kind. Occasionally, there are subtle signs of love and nurturing between them, silent moments between words. As Linda and Peter, Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw — surely two of the finest actors working today — embody these people with a tender realism, less like specters from a distant era than well-loved photographs kept in an album, newly discovered after a half century languishing on a dark shelf, given light and life on screen.

The day unfolds quietly from early morning through dusk, as Peter describes his day and Linda listens, makes tea, and prepares snacks for them. A couple of times they step outdoors, onto a small balcony — the setting sun illuminates them. Light almost becomes a character here, helping to create a chronicle of time passing that attempts to slow things down so that we notice and experience what is happening between these two people besides the rather pedestrian, descriptive conversations. Linda’s bright, cozy, two-story loft is sparsely but nicely furnished. At the Woodstock Film festival screening I attended, Sachs mentioned that — with the help of an artists’ cooperative — he was given generous access to the space for filming. The sight of this sunlit living space will surely leave some urban denizens weeping for what once was: a time when affordable, spacious living for artists in Manhattan was an accessible reality.

In this pleasant but mundane setting, a home where artists are present but nothing “artistic” is happening, viewers’ minds may wander (despite the nuanced performances, which are somewhat oddly mesmerizing for being so natural and unaffected). The narrative is devoid of traditional action, and that is rather the point. What is an artistic lifestyle? Is it defined by aesthetics, work ethic, drive, luck, chaos, love? In what ways can art be balanced with everything else we need and do to survive? What is it to be creative? Is it solely about making art? What goes through an artist’s mind, heart, and soul? Perhaps it is more about being than doing. The metaphor of a day in the life of an artist has even more resonance placed in the context of the rapid-fire pace of society today. Art now is commodified, increasingly referred to as “content,” and subject to the whims of shallow tastemakers. Was it ever thus, even in the wild, halcyon ’70s? Peter Hujar’s frustration about being paid fairly for his work, his steady optimism that his work will keep getting better despite various struggles, suggests that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The film offers a puzzling fata morgana for viewers to closely observe, to attempt to parse what lies beneath the film’s attractive, calm surface. Amid the clatter of crockery and the veil of cigarette smoke a friendship is taking place, has been taking place for some time. We have been invited in for a momentary taste: it is if we have arrived late to a play, unsure of what has already transpired. This is an ordinary day for two people who may be extraordinary (the essence of drama, it has been said). Peter’s stories propel the passing hours, a sort of freewheeling yet methodical metronome, his anecdotes sometimes banal but often colorful. Despite his easygoing manner and humility, Peter hints at ambition, desire, conflicting philosophical conceptions of art, and messy human entanglements. Knowing that Peter Hujar died of AIDS in 1987 — a casualty of a horrific public health crisis that cut short many artists’ lives — lends this film a sad, mortal urgency. If we knew how many days we have ahead of us, would we spend them differently than we do?

Peg Aloi is a former film critic for the Boston Phoenix and member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Alliance for Women Film Journalists. She taught film studies in Boston for over a decade. She has written on film, TV, and culture for web publications like Time, Vice, Polygon, Bustle, Dread Central, Mic, Orlando Weekly, Refinery29, and Bloody Disgusting. Her blog “The Witching Hour” can be found on substack.