New York portrait. Part 3

Duration: 16

Year Published: 1990

Creator: P. Hutton

Format: 16mm

Color: B&W

Description: In the third chapter of his metropolitan diary, Hutton imbues the cityscape with wistful nostalgia and an elegiac regard for its inhabitants. A flag waves through an open window, clouds pass over a faded building and a fireworks celebration is seen from afar. A dog and passersby trudge through snow in an anonymous procession; an elderly bearded man avoids the camera's gaze, and another is filmed as he sleeps on a couch in the street. From a vantage point above a sidewalk, the director lingers on a metropolitan drama. A man lying on the ground is observed by police, aided by emergency medical personnel and removed via ambulance. The precarious position of the urban dweller is underscored by a tiny figure seen in the scaffolding of a skyscraper.