Peter Hutton's "At Sea" October 6, 2007

U.S., 2007; 60m

Part of "Views from the Avant-Garde" from the New York Film Festival

“[The sublime is no more strongly felt than in Peter Hutton’s magisterial At Sea. Put simply, the film tells the story (“the birth, life and death”—in the director’s words) of a container ship—but there are no words to adequately describe the film’s awesome visual expedition. Hutton knows the sea. His experiences as a former merchant seaman have informed his filmmaking practice, known for its rigor and epic beauty. At Sea begins in South Korea with diminutive workers shipbuilding. The colossal vessel is revealed in de Chirico-worthy proportions, its magnitude surreal to the human eye. Off to sea, the splendor and intensity of the water—set against the vibrant colors of the containers—causes us to see the world anew. The film concludes in Bangladesh amidst ship breakers as enthralled by Hutton’s camera as we are by his images.”—Andrea Picard

“Typified by fixed shots of extended duration, his concentrated gaze builds a bridge between early cinema, landscape painting and still photography, evoking Lumière, Turner and Stieglitz.”—Mark Webber

“At Sea, a sweeping meditation on global commerce, labor and geography in the 21st century which chronicles the birth, life and death of a merchant ship…

Landscape and cityscape have always played an important role in both commercial and avant-garde cinema. For Peter Hutton place has always been the crucial subject, and during the more than 30 years he has been making films, he has made memorable film art in San Francisco, New York, and Boston; in Budapest, in Iceland, in the Lodz ghetto, along the Hudson River, in Berlin, in Thailand, along the Yangtze River, and most recently in Korea, Bangladesh, and aboard a container ship crossing the Atlantic in late winter. As a filmmaker of landscape and cityscape, Hutton has few peers (and no superiors).”—Scott MacDonald

Official Website: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/program/avantgarde/peterhutton.html