‘Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna’: See the trailer
The new Hulu documentary “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna” examines the life and tragic death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
For the public, the tragic debacle of “Rust” − the Western movie set where a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin discharged during rehearsal in 2021 and killed promising cinematographer Halyna Hutchins − is over.
Baldwin, the film’s star and producer, was acquitted of criminal charges on legal technicalities last summer. The movie’s young armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, is serving 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter. And “Rust” was finished and had a quiet debut at a Polish film festival last fall. As yet, there are no U.S. distribution rights.
But for many, “Rust” never sleeps. It haunts Hutchins’ widower, Matt, and their son, Andros, who was 9 when his mother died, as well as Hutchins’ family in Ukraine and her many friends in Hollywood. Which is why filmmaker Rachel Mason, who bonded with Hutchins when the two dropped off their then-3-year-olds at day care, has directed a documentary about her pal, “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna” (streaming now on Hulu).
“I was here to bear witness as her friend, sent by Matt, who wanted this done,” says Mason, whose goal with “Last Take” wasn’t to reinvestigate the case, but rather to “show the overall human toll, from the crew to the people in the courtroom, everyone had their own unique angle on that pain.”
Several questions addressed by Mason’s documentary:
Why did ‘Rust’ resume filming two years after Halyna Hutchins died?
On Oct. 21, 2021, filming halted immediately on the New Mexico set of “Rust” after Baldwin’s gun went off. With the criminal and civil lawsuits that followed, it seemed unlikely “Rust” would ever be completed. And yet that’s what happened in 2023, as Baldwin, his production team and a new cinematographer, Bianca Cline, went to Montana to finish the Western.
But accusations of this decision being callous don’t resonate with Mason. Hutchins, 42, would have wanted as much. “If Halyna chose a film to work on, it’s because she was committed to it,” Mason says. “Looking at it from the victim’s perspective, she wanted to make it, and she died making it. If you knew Halyna, it’s impossible not to think she would want it completed.”
Mason’s documentary shows Cline avidly studying the voluminous notes Hutchins kept while working on “Rust,” details covering everything from lighting ideas to lens possibilities. “When you see her images from ‘Rust’ coupled with what people say about her vision for this movie, it hits home why it had to be made,” Mason says.
Is Alec Baldwin in ‘Last Take,’ the new documentary about Halyna Hutchins?
Mason felt comfortable approaching Baldwin for an interview because she knew him from a prior encounter.
“I’d met Alec years before at a film festival and he was a big champion of my 2019 film ‘Circus of Books’ (about a gay bookshop in Los Angeles),” says Mason. When she spoke to him after the shooting, “he was in a state of utter trauma. It was a sad and horrible thing. I did ask him later to be in (‘Last Take’), but he was working on other projects at the time.” The star is currently seen in his family’s TLC reality show “The Baldwins.”
One of the most striking moments in Mason’s film involves Baldwin. Footage shows the actor being interviewed by two Santa Fe law enforcement officials after the shooting. One tells Baldwin that Hutchins has died. He sits frozen for a long time, almost giving the impression that the video has glitched. “You see his total shock in that footage,” Mason says.
Who else from ‘Rust’ is seen in the ‘Last Take’ documentary?
The “Rust” shoot was conducted on a budget and perhaps in a bit of a rush, as evidenced by some crew members quitting just before Hutchins’ accidental shooting to protest working conditions. “Last Take” spotlights camera assistant Lane Luper, who explains the concerns he had about a few accidental firearm discharges, which he shared with producers at the time.
It might be easy to blame negligent producers who didn’t heed such warnings, but Mason she wanted to show that the reality of a movie set is more complex. “Yes, there was a lot of tension on this set and people weren’t listening to each other well, but I don’t think that’s unique to ‘Rust,’” says Mason, adding that complaints about “Rust” set safety often were part of very lengthy emails that included issues related to COVID policies.
“OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) would argue there should always be a ‘stop work order’ option, where any person has the authority to say stop work now, but on a film set, the hierarchy is baked in,” Mason says. “So you have Hannah who is feeling low on the totem pole, while Alec is on the high end, and in between people are saying this and that. Communication (on a set) sadly is not as simple as stop and let’s all halt.”
Who is to blame for the death of Halyna Hutchins, according to the ‘Last Take’ documentary?
Of all the players in the “Rust” tragedy, only Gutierrez-Reed is serving jail time. In “Last Take,” she seems baffled when Santa Fe authorities tell her that multiple live rounds were found floating around the set.
And yet “Last Take” also features a telling text exchange in which Gutierrez-Reed asks for more time to secure the weapons and is told she needs to tackle her various chores with the time she has. “Where this all lands for me and for the film is where it lands for most people: We don’t have more answers to truly how that gun came to be loaded with that live bullet,” Mason says. “I really wish we did.”
Regret seems to be the most common sentiment in “First Take.” Veteran actress and “Rust” cast member Frances Fisher recounts how disorganized Guitierrez-Reed was upon their first meeting. It was an omen she ignored.
“I wish I had said something to her, and I wish I had said something to Alec,” she says. “And would my alerting somebody, would that have changed anything? That’s what gnaws at me.”
