NYFF 63: "Peter Hujar's Day" ponders portraiture

by Cláudio Alves

The subject of many recent retrospectives, republishing projects, biographical and speculative analyses, Peter Hujar was among the queer creatives who, in the second half of the 20th century, helped define what we understand as the New York art scene. A portrait photographer, his oeuvre can be considered in dialogue with that of Mapplethorpe and Wojnarowicz, among others. And like those men, he died young, a victim of the AIDS crisis. Almost thirteen years before that end, Hujar sat down with his friend, Linda Rosenkrantz, and recalled the previous day in detail, allowing himself to be recorded for a work she was developing. Her book was never realized, but in 2019, a typewritten record of Hujar's testimony showed up in the Morgan Library archives.

Director Ira Sachs read the published transcripts while filming Passages, getting the idea to dramatize the material. The result is Peter Hujar's Day, a conversation piece where Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall breathe life into what remains of that long afternoon shared between two portraitists…

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Contemporary Costume Watch: "Passages"

by Cláudio Alves

Like it happens every year, as the awards season dawns, I complain that voters should pay more attention to contemporary narratives when recognizing design achievements. In 2023, their reluctance will be especially aggravating since there's such a deep well of costuming excellence within modern contexts. Take Khadija Zeggaï in Passages, for example. 

Ira Sachs' latest feature finds Franz Rogowski playing a Paris-based German director entangled in a bisexual love triangle of his own making. As Tomas, the actor is a sartorial tease whether he's in mesh or ratty green knits, while Ben Whishaw is more modest as his artist husband, Martin. Finally, Adèle Exarchopoulos is Agathe, a teacher who dresses like a young Bardot at the height of the Nouvelle Vague - all tight fits, high hems, and lingerie as outerwear. Across the board, fashion defies heteronormative tenets, everything is unisex and sexy to the nth degree. Clothes articulate tricky character dynamics while offering editorial-worthy queer spectacle…

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Sundance: An Entertaining Love Triangle in ‘Passages’

By Abe Friedtanzer

What happens when you put Franz Rogowski (Great Freedom), Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color), and Ben Whishaw together in a film directed by Ira Sachs (Married Life)? The result is Passages, a love triangle drama layered with humor about a filmmaker who finds himself simultaneously drawn to two different people…

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Doc Corner: Lynne Sachs' 'Film About a Father Who'

By Glenn Dunks

You can keep your MCU. You can have your… whatever DC’s is. For me, the only cinematic universe that matters right now is the Sachs and Johnson Cinematic Universe. What’s that you ask? Well, it’s the films of brother and sister pair Ira and Lynne Sachs as well as Kristen Johnson with whom the brother Sachs has children, all of whom seem to make movies about and/or featuring one another. I feel like I know these people in very intimate ways because of the way their works reflects each other’s. It’s a curious little enclave of filmmaking that only enriches each additional film that I see.

I lead off with this somewhat facetious observation because the latest film, Lynne Sachs’ Film About a Father Who is about her father, which only seeks to expand and enlighten the story of this fascinating bunch of New York filmmakers...

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"Make Way for Tomorrow" across film history

by Cláudio Alves

"Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." 

Those were Leo McCarey's words upon winning the Best Director Oscar of 1937. His victory was for the screwball classic The Awful Truth, though the filmmaker would have preferred if the honor had been bestowed upon another of his films. In 1937, McCarey not only directed one of Old Hollywood's most beloved comedies, but he also helmed one of its most devastating tearjerkers. According to Orson Welles, Make Way for Tomorrow could make a stone cry…

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