On the Waterfront: Peter B. Hutton

Subjected to limitations, the master becomes apparent. Within the context of this programme, that mainly applies to the limitations that Peter Hutton imposed on himself: he resolved to make his film on one location, namely the River Hudson, the famous river that meets the sea in New York Harbour. Time and Tide is a contemplative observation of this river and life and work beside it, just as Hutton’s widely praised Portrait of a River was too, but in a different way. The major difference between the two films – colour versus black-and-white – brings to the fore another consciously chosen limitation of the master Hutton: the choice of only filming on a specific 16mm film material. For years Hutton was the contemporary master of classic black-and-white and Portrait of a River is also one of the most beautiful black-and-white films ever made. You could also regard his latest film as a study of colour. After first etching the Hudson in in our minds, as it were, the river landscape is now finely watercoloured.A third older film by Hutton in this programme is Images of Asian Music, that he shot in Thailand when he lived there in the Seventies as a sailor. Not the Hudson, but still the rhythmic
movement of water. Mark McElhatten called Hutton ‘one of the greatest visual poets of the portraiture of place’. Whether Hutton, with his landscapes slipping permanently passing by, is a poet of place, of motion, of space or of time, we can leave up to the theoreticians. It’s masterful in any way. (GjZ)Peter B. Hutton studied painting, sculpture and film at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has made more than 15 films, most of which have been portraits of cities throughout the world. His work is screened in important galleries and festivals at home and abroad. In 1984, Hutton won the critics’ prize in Holland for a series of short films.