Hartley had an early interest in painting and attended the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston where he studied art and developed an interest in filmmaking.
In 1980, he was accepted to the filmmaking program at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase in Harrison, New York.
This was where he met a core group of technicians and actors who would go on to work with him on his feature films. This included American cinematographer and television director Michael Spiller, his regular.
Afterwards, Hartley shot his first feature film, as well as being the first film of which he is best known for writing, co-producing and directing. This was the 1989 American drama/comedy-drama film 'The Unbelievable Truth'.
The film tells of a handsome, ex-convict named Josh (Robert John Burke) of whom works for Long Island garage owner Vic Hugo (Christopher Cooke).
Hugo has a restless suburban teenage daughter named Audrey (Adrienne Shelly), of whom is bound for Harvard University.
The screenplay featured what would become Hartley's trademarks – deadpan humor, offbeat, stilted, pause-filled dialogue, and characters posing philosophical questions about the meaning of life, combined with a degree of stylization in acting, choreography and camera movement.
Made on a shoestring budget of an estimated $75,000, 'The Unbelievable Truth' was shot in Hartley's native Long Island. Overall, the film grossed $546,000 at the box office.
The following year, 'The Unbelievable Truth' received positive reviews and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 12th Sundance Film Festival in January 1990.
Despite this, 'The Unbelievable Truth' established Hartley as a distinctive new talent in the burgeoning independent filmmaking movement.
Later that same year, Hartley wrote, co-produced, and directed the second film of which he is best known. This was the 1990 American rom-com/dark comedy film 'Trust'.
The film follows high school dropout Maria Coughlin (Adrienne Shelly), of whom is having a rough time of it on Long Island. Her father recently died of a heart attack, her boyfriend has left her and she's pregnant.
To make matters even worse, her mother has now kicked her out of the house. But when the highly educated and extremely moody electronics genius Matthew Slaughter (Martin Donovan) comes into her life, things start to brighten up for Maria.
Sure, he's unemployed and a little unhinged, but together they just might have a chance.
One year later 'Trust' won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 13th Sundance Film Festival in January 1991.
In addition to his feature work, Hartley has made a number of short films, many of which have been collected and re-released in DVD anthologies.
From 2001 through 2004, Hartley was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. This was while simultaneously editing, shooting, and writing three films.
In the late 2000s, Shelly was found dead at approximately 5:45 p.m on November 1, 2006.
Her husband, American chairman and CEO of the marketing firm Belardi/Ostroy Andy Ostroy, discovered her body in the Abingdon Square apartment in Manhattan's West Village that she used as an office.
Ostroy had dropped her off at 9:30 a.m. He had become concerned because Shelly had not been in contact that day and went to the building, asking the doorman to accompany him to the apartment.
They had both found her body hanging from a shower rod in the bathtub with a bedsheet around her neck. Shelly was 40.
Despite the door not having been locked and money reportedly missing from her wallet, the New York City Police Department apparently believed that Shelly had taken her own life.
However, an autopsy found that she had passed as a result of neck compression.
Ostroy insisted that his wife was happy in her personal and professional life, and in any case would never have committed suicide and leaving her then-two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sophie, motherless.
Ostroy's protests over the following days caused a more careful re-examination of the bathroom, which revealed that there was a sneaker print in gypsum dust on the toilet beside where Shelly's body had been found.
The suspect print was matched to a set of other shoe prints in the building, where construction work had been done the day of her death.
On November 6, 2006, the press reported the arrest of a nineteen-year-old construction worker, Diego Pillco who, according to police had confessed on tape to attacking Shelly, and then staging the fake suicide by hanging her.
Pillco's original version of what happened was that when Shelly asked him if the noise could be kept down, he threw a hammer at her.
Afraid she would make a complaint that might result in his deportation, Pilco followed her back to her apartment, where the five foot, one inch woman hit him, and was then killed by a fall during a struggle.
Subsequently, Pillco gave a completely different account in which he said while on a break, he had noticed that Shelly was returning to her apartment and followed her.
After assaulting her and rendering her unconscious, Pillco killed her by staging the fake suicide.
The second version was consistent with the lack of dust on Shelly's shoes (of which she was not wearing when found).
This seemed to be a confession to murder, but prosecutors reportedly thought if charged with murder, Pillco might return to his original account and a jury trial could find him guilty of a lesser charge.
The medical examiner eventually determined that Shelly was still alive when hanged. Pillco pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison without parole.
At Pillco's sentencing on March 13, 2008, Ostroy, along with family members, said that they would never forgive him.
Ostroy said of Pillco "...you are nothing more than a coldblooded killer" and that he hoped that he would "rot in jail".
In remembering Shelly, Ostroy said that "Adrienne was the kindest, warmest, most loving, generous person I knew.
She was incredibly smart, funny and talented, a bright light with an infectious laugh and huge smile that radiated inner and outer beauty... she was my best friend, and the person with whom I was supposed to grow old". In life, Shelly had described herself as an "optimistic agnostic."
Initially supported by a recurring ensemble of actors, including Shelly, Burke, Donovan, and American stage and film actress Karen Sillas, Hartley had established a uniquely self-referential vision.
This went along with a sense of rhythm, atmosphere, and mise-en-scéne all its own, adhering so strictly to the auteur theory that he even composed his own musical scores under the pseudonym Ned Rifle.
His soundtracks regularly feature music by indie rock acts, including American indie rock band Yo La Tengo and English musician and singer-songwriter Polly Jean "PJ" Harvey.
A leader of the 1990s American independent filmmaking movement, Hartley was one of the most distinctive cinematic talents to emerge at the close of the 20th century.
Combining the deadpan aesthetic of Buster Keaton with the lean economy of Robert Bresson, Hartley's films are arch comic explorations of truth, communication, and desire.
Hartley has been active from 1984–present.
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