New ‘Rust’ Doc Doesn’t Even Pretend To Care About Halyna Hutchins

Ukrainian cinematographer Halyna Hutchins worked on over thirty feature-length films, short films, and TV miniseries, but a new documentary based on the “Rust” tragedy acts like her death is the most interesting thing about her.

At only 42 years old, Hutchins passed away in a hospital in Albuquerque, leaving behind a husband and a young son.

Everyone wants to know what actually happened to Halyna Hutchins, and unfortunately, that is a question that might never get answered. Santa Fe officials seemed more interested in getting a guilty verdict out of Baldwin than actually investigating how live ammunition ended up on a movie set.

No matter where you stand on Alec Baldwin’s involvement, it seems pretty clear that he was a producer only in a creative capacity and had no idea that a gun he was holding on set would be filled with live ammunition instead of dummy rounds. Regardless, the gun he was holding went off – he still maintains he never pulled the trigger – and a bullet tore through Hutchins, ending her life.

The bullet also entered Joel Souza and was retrieved from his shoulder after he was rushed to the hospital. While he recovered enough to finish the film (which moved production from New Mexico to Montana), the mental toll that the shooting had on the cast and crew members who were also in that church cannot be overstated.

Halyna Hutchins’ name has virtually disappeared from headlines, except for when one of her family members wants to make a statement to remind the public that they are still very much involved in a civil lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and other “Rust” producers.

But the media spectacle has largely erased her from the “Rust” narrative, which focused on armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who went to trial first. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence.

Baldwin’s trial, which commanded media attention, got a lot more attention, especially when the judge dismissed the trial with prejudice on the third day of witness testimony. The previous day, a crime scene tech had testified to the existence of evidence that had never been turned over to the defense, also known as a Brady violation.

The judge decided that the violation was so severe that she completely dismissed the charges against Baldwin, so he will never be held criminally responsible for Hutchins’ death. Although lead prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey tried several times to drag Baldwin back to court, she ultimately dropped the appeal just ahead of Christmas.

Without fear of heading to jail, Baldwin turned around and decided to file a lawsuit against Santa Fe officials, accusing Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and special prosecutor Kari Morrissey of “manipulating evidence” and “eliciting false testimony.”

With his TLC reality show “The Baldwins” reliving the key moments leading up to his trial and the impact that her death had his mental health, it’s easy to see how the media narrative can focus solely on the “30 Rock” actor while placing the real victim of this story, Halyna Hutchins, on the sidelines.

Unfortunately, Hulu’s “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna Hutchins” does just that. The documentary, which will become available to stream on March 11, seems to be more about the story of “Rust” and less about the legacy that Hutchins left behind.

The doc features footage from the original Santa Fe set, as well as shots from the Montana set that wrapped production in the spring of 2023. The film’s new cinematographer, Bianca Cline, participated in interviews for the film, as well as director Joel Souza, camera assistant Lane Luper, and costume designer Terese Davis.

It seems that I’m not the only one who feels that Halyna Hutchins was sidelined in her own documentary. On March 4, “Rust” director Joel Souza, director Rachel Mason, and producer Julee Metz, took part in a Q&A after the screening at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. As per The Hollywood Reporter, after taking a question from moderator Steve Chiotakis of KCRW, Souza said it was “a very moving film” but felt that it needed to have a larger focus on the late cinematographer.

“I hoped it might have a little more Halyna in it or been a little more about Halyna,” Souza said before addressing Mason and Mets. “I know that was your original intention when you talked to me about it. And I could tell when we would talk over the years in the intervening time that you were under some pressure.”

“I think we all know, anyone in this room who is a creative, what it’s like when the suits are swooping in to put their hands all over your movie,” Souza added. “And I’m just curious to know with the partners that you guys had, and maybe I’ll ask you this, Julee, did they try to protect Rachel’s vision?”

Metz answered first, praising Mason’s vision for telling Hutchins’s story. “Rachel had a very clear vision in the beginning to tell Halyna’s story of her life and her work and some of her death, of course, because that’s where the story began,” she explained. “But over time, and as we gained new partners on this project, it became clear that there was a commercial value to the story of Rust. And that needed to be part of the story that we had to tell.”

“So it became less about Halyna’s life and more about her death, but that’s what we ended up having to do,” she added.

Rachel Mason, who first met Halyna Hutchins when their sons went to preschool together, indicated that there was a “shift” in the focus of the movie, adding, “A film has these evolutions, it starts with the thing you imagine you can do and then you start working on it and you can’t really do that thing anymore. You shift.”

Things became even more uncomfortable that night when Mason was asked about how difficult it was to make the film while the event crew was trying to resolve an issue with the sound. Instead of answering the question, Mason directed it back to the crowd: “Maybe if anyone out here knew Halyna and would have anything to say. It would just be awesome to hear a story about Halyna.”

That’s what I was hoping to hear, too.

Hutchins was a woman who was born and raised on a Soviet military base and later worked as an investigative journalist in Eastern Europe. She was one of the first eight female cinematographers participating in the Fox DP Lab Program in 2018 and was named as one of the “10 up-and-coming directors of photography who are making their mark” by American Cinematographer the following year.

Even after her death, her family, friends, and colleagues at the American Film Institute established the Halyna Hutchins Memorial Scholarship Fund in order to support the education of female cinematographers. The American Society of Cinematographers also posthumously honored her with an honorary membership after her death.

Her death also inspired calls for gun safety reform on film and movie sets, with “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke vowing to ban blanks and guns on his show following her death. Many other showrunners also made similar pledges to increase safety on set. Ending her documentary with a call to action to prevent similar accidents might have seemed like a movement befitting her legacy.

However, Hulu’s “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna Hutchins” seems to imply that Hutchins’ death hindered the creation of an independent Western film, and in true the-little-engine-that-could style, they managed to band together despite her tragic loss and get the movie done.

It’s a shame, then, that despite its November 2024 premiere at the Camerimage Film Festival in Poland, the movie might not ever be seen. Although some international buyers have acquired distribution rights to the film, producers have yet to secure a domestic partner.

So with “Rust” shelved (for now) and the new Hulu doc telling a behind-the-scenes story of the making of “Rust,” it remains to be seen whether or not we will actually ever be able to know the late cinematographer who lost her life in a tragic film accident that we hope will never be repeated.