Ira Sachs’ latest film delivers a perfectly imagined time capsule of a memorable 1974 interview between friends. Rebecca Hall embodies writer Linda Rosenkranz, as she embarks on a project in which she asks fellow artists to note their activities—both significant and mundane—during a particular time period, followed by a conversation about those tasks. On this December day, Rosencranz records gay photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) as he discusses calls from “Sontag,” a shoot with “Ginsberg,” delivering photos of Lauren Hutton, and more. Sachs pays precise cinematic detail to shadows and light as time passes, as well as the playful camaraderie between subject and interviewer. Whishaw, working from a book-length transcription of the encounter, channels Hujar’s New Jersey accent and his oscillation between confidence and insecurity while Hall, with warm eyes and active listening, elicits plangent details from a day that may seem “wasted” to Hujar, but is actually rather momentous. —Rod Armstrong
Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs was born in 1965 in Memphis, Tennessee. His feature films include Passages, Frankie(Cannes Competition, 2019), Little Men(Grand Prix, 2016 Deauville American Film Festival), Love Iis Strange (2010), Keep the Lights On (Teddy Award, 2012 Berlinale), Forty Shades of Blue (Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, 2005 Sundance), and his first feature,The Delta (1996). His short, Last Address(2010), honoring a group of NYC artists who died of AIDS, is in the Whitney Museum and MoMA’s permanent collections. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Sachs is also the Founding Director of[ Queer|Art](https://www.queer-art.org/), a nonprofit that provides support for LGBTQ+ artists.