Time and Tide

A meditation on the Hudson River, combining the luminescence and formal contemplation of the Hudson Valley painters with documentary and ecological concerns. The first section of the film is a reprint of a reel shot by Billy Bitzer in 1903 titled "Down the Hudson" for Biograph. It chronicles in single frame time lapse a section of the river between Newburgh, NY and Yonkers. The second section of the film was shot by filmmaker Peter Hutton (1998-99) and records fragments of several trips up and down the Hudson River between Bayonne, New Jersey and Albany, New York. The filmmaker was traveling on the tugboat "Gotham" as it pushed (up river) and pulled (down river) the Noel Cutler, a barge filled with 35,000 barrels of unleaded gasoline.