Peter Hutton

(August 24, 1944 – June 25, 2016)

FOR HORATIO ALGER (1970)
16mm, bw, sound, 5m
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Eastman bw reversal stock.

IN MARIN COUNTY (1970)
16mm, color, sound, 10m
Film stock notes: This film was shot on 7258 Ektachrome ER, 7255 Ektachrome Commercial, and 7242 Ektachrome EF. Titles are on Agfa-Gevaert bw negative.

JULY 1971 – IN SAN FRANCISCO, LIVING AT BEACH STREET, WORKING AT CANYON CINEMA, SWIMMING IN THE VALLEY OF THE MOON (1971)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 33m
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

NEW YORK NEAR SLEEP FOR SASKIA (1972)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 8m
This film is sometimes referred to as simply NEW YORK NEAR SLEEP, although the complete title does appear on prints.
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

IMAGES OF ASIAN MUSIC (A DIARY FROM LIFE 1973-74) (1974)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 27m
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

FLORENCE (1975)
16mm, bw, silent 16/18/24fps, 7m
Older prints of this film are labeled as 16/18fps, but later on it was shown most commonly as 24fps.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Eastman Plus-X and Tri-X reversal stocks.

BOSTON FIRE (1975)
16mm, bw, silent 18fps, 8m
Prints are sometimes labeled by Hutton as “18fps if possible”, suggesting that 24fps is an acceptable (if less desirable) option if 18fps is not available.
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

NEW YORK PORTRAIT, CHAPTER I (1979)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 16m
Hutton did at one point include a titlecard on this film reading “New York Portrait Part I“, but ultimately decided to remove titles from the film entirely and adopt the “Chapter” wording instead. Due to the eventual lack of titles on the film, different forms of the title can be found in print over the years, including the use of colons vs commas, Roman numerals vs spelled out numbers, etc. I’ve used Roman numerals here because it conforms to the original titlecards present on the film when Hutton first made them (as well as the title he provided to Canyon Cinema for their catalog), but it shouldn’t be taken as utterly definitive.
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

NEW YORK PORTRAIT, CHAPTER II (1981)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 11.5m
Hutton did at one point include a titlecard on this film reading “New York Portrait Part II“, but ultimately decided to remove titles from the film entirely and adopt the “Chapter” wording instead. Due to the eventual lack of titles on the film, different forms of the title can be found in print over the years, including the use of colons vs commas, Roman numerals vs spelled out numbers, etc. I’ve used Roman numerals here because it conforms to the original titlecards present on the film when Hutton first made them (as well as the title he provided to Canyon Cinema for their catalog), but it shouldn’t be taken as utterly definitive.
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

AT SEA, IN BERLIN, LENIN PORTRAIT (1981-82)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, ca.45m
Although this grouping of three works shot during Peter Hutton’s yearlong stay in West Berlin seems to have been screened at least a few times, it was never placed in distribution and it seems that Hutton shelved it after these few screenings. I’m not certain how much this piece relates to the early 2010s Berlin 1980 film Hutton was working on when he returned to his 1980 Berlin-era footage. Also, the third part of this piece, Lenin Portrait, seems to have also been shown as its own work, hence its inclusion in the filmography here as a separate entry.

LENIN PORTRAIT (1982)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 15m
This film was shown at least a few times in various screenings by Peter Hutton, but does not seem to have ended up in regular distribution. See also At Sea, In Berlin, Lenin Portrait.

EMLÉKEK EGY VÁROSBÓL / MEMORIES OF A CITY (aka BUDAPEST PORTRAIT) (1984) (w/ András Monory Mész)
16mm, bw, sound/silent 24fps, 30m
There are at least a few extant prints with an optical soundtrack, and it seems that this film was initially completed as a sound film, although Peter seems to have preferred to show it as a silent film. The copy digitized by the Hungarian National Film Archive has sound. On the extant print I have access to, which has a soundtrack, Peter labeled the can “no sound” and “play silent”, confirming this preference.
Film stock notes: I have not had access to the original for this film, but based on print-through markings on a print, it seems to have been shot on ORWO bw negative stock.

LANDSCAPE (FOR MANON) (1987)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 12.5m
There are no onscreen titles in this film, and in print, the title sometimes appears with parentheses, sometimes without. I have chosen parentheses, as this is how Hutton provided the title to Canyon Cinema for their catalog.
Film stock notes: This film was shot on Eastman Plus-X and Tri-X reversal stocks.

NEW YORK PORTRAIT, CHAPTER III (1990)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 16m
Hutton did at one point include a titlecard on this film reading “New York Portrait Part III“, but ultimately decided to remove titles from the film entirely and adopt the “Chapter” wording instead. Due to the eventual lack of titles on the film, different forms of the title can be found in print over the years, including the use of colons vs commas, Roman numerals vs spelled out numbers, etc. I’ve used Roman numerals here because it conforms to the original titlecards present on the film when Hutton first made them (as well as the title he provided to Canyon Cinema for their catalog), but it shouldn’t be taken as utterly definitive.
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

IN TITAN’S GOBLET (1991)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 10m
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

ŁÓDŹ SYMPHONY (1993)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 20m

STUDY OF A RIVER (1997)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 16m
Film stock notes: I have not yet had access to the original for this film, but it was likely shot on Eastman bw reversal stocks.

TIME AND TIDE (2000)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 35m
This is Hutton’s first released film using color negative stock.

LOOKING AT THE SEA (2001)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 15m

TWO RIVERS (2003)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 47m
The year for this film is often cited in print as 2001-02, but this is the filming timespan.

SKAGAFJÖRDUR (2004)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 33m

AT SEA (2007)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 60m

THREE LANDSCAPES (2013)
16mm/digital, bw & color, silent, 47m
Although shot on 16mm, this film was finished and released digitally only.

UNFINISHED WORKS

GRANADA (1990)
This is a black and white film which seems to have been edited and even leadered and printed at a lab, but never ultimately released.

BERLIN 1980 (1980/2010s)
In 1980, Peter Hutton spent a year living in West Berlin as a guest of the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst), with the resources and support to make a portrait film of Berlin at that time. Over the year, he shot a good amount of footage, including on side trips to Moscow and (then) Leningrad. In the early 2010s, he returned to this footage and began to edit it, but never completed this project. In a letter to Jon Jost in May 2016, he wrote, “I’m trying to finish my Berlin film from 1980, which time has rendered ‘archival’.”
A piece written by Peter Hutton about this project can be found here:
http://www.thislongcentury.com/peter-hutton