New York Portrait Chapter I (1979)

Huttons most impressive work the filmmakers style takes on an assertive edge that marks his maturity The landscape has a majesty that serves to reflect the meditative interiority of the artist independent of any human presence New York is framed in the dark nights of a lonely winter The pulse of street life finds no role in NEW YORK PORTRAIT the dense metropolitan population and imposing urban locale disappear before Huttons concern for the primal force of a universal presence With an eye for the ordinary Hutton can point his camera toward the clouds finding flocks of birds or turn back to the simple objects around his apartment struggling to elicit a personal intuition from their presence Hutton finds a harmonious if at times melancholy rapport with the natural elements that retain their grace in spite of the citys artificial environment The city becomes a ghost town that the filmmaker transforms into a vehicle reflecting his personal mood