New York Portrait, Chapter III

A continuous dissolve of 87 male and female nudes. "The film's fascination lies with the suspense of that magic moment, halfway between two persons, when the dissolve technique produces composite figures, oftentimes hermaphroditic, that inspires awe for the mystery of the human form." - B. Ruby Rich, Chicago Art Institute

“When I was shooting the material that ended up in "Looking at the Sea", I was standing on these cliffs on the west coast of Ireland, looking west into the sun and thinking about the immigrants who wanted to leave Ireland because of the famines and were confronted with that same perspective. They must have seen the sea as this huge complicated obstacle. I was struck by how alluring, how seductive the light on the sea was, and also how, when you’re standing on the shore, there’s something utterly incomprehensible about the sea. I remember being reminded of a piece written by Henry David Thoreau in "Cape Cod", about a ship that crashed at Cohasset, an amazing meditation on the aftermath of the ill-fated St. John, which had come from Galway.” –Peter Hutton

Chapter Two represents a continuation of daily observations from the environment of Manhattan compiled over a period from 1980-1981. This is the second part of an extended life's portrait of New York.

"IN MARIN COUNTY approaches the subject of America's ecological disaster as a comic yet bizarre vision. The tradition of Old MacDonald's farm has long since disappeared and in its place are bulldozer and insect sprays. Our fascination with these mechanized wonders of civilization may well prove to be more lethal than we would have imagined. Peter Hutton has succeeded in making an important statement on ecology and the strange delight Americans take in destroying things." - Whitney Museum of American Art

The history of the sport of baseball in America, told through archival photos, film footage, and the words of those who contributed to the game in each era. Writers, historians, players, baseball personnel, and fans review key events and the significance of the game in America's history.

Hutton's most impressive work ... the filmmaker's 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 Hutton's 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 city's artificial environment. The city becomes a ghost town that the filmmaker transforms into a vehicle reflecting his personal mood.

Three segments depicting the life cycle of a freighter boat.

Peter Hutton’s meditation on the Hudson River.

Shot on 16mm, this wondrous silent film study from avant-garde master Peter Hutton (At Sea) observes human movement across three distinct landscapes: Detroit, along the Hudson River Valley and in the Dallol Depression in Ethiopia.

In Titan's Goblet refers to a landscape painting by Thomas Cole circa 1833. The film is intended as a homage to Cole, who is regarded as the father of the Hudson River School of painting.

For more than 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In this lyrical, compelling and provocative portrait of the statue, Ken Burns explores both the history of America’s premier symbol and the meaning of liberty itself. Featuring rare archival photographs, paintings and drawings, readings from actual diaries, letters and newspapers of the day, the fascinating story of this universally admired monument is told. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, The Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life. Nominated for both the Academy Award ® and the Emmy Award ®, The Statue of Liberty received the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle, the Christopher Award and the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.

Down-and-out jukebox operator Macabee Cohn wanders the cheap tenements, dive bars, and derelict streets of the East Village in search of a mysterious woman in a striped dress.

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture, revealing a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.

A film documenting the landscapes of northern Iceland.

The first part (winter) of a seasonal study of the Hudson river in New York.

Real-life kung fu master Nathan Ingram stars in this gritty, low-budget martial arts epic as a local karate school owner who clashes with a gang of drug traffickers posing as the owners of a rival dojo. Director Charlie Ahearn (who helmed the landmark hip-hop film Wild Style) used the housing projects next to his New York Lower East Side apartment as his central location in this 1979 classic, shot on a vintage Super 8 camera.