In 1977, Larry Clark embarked to create his feature-film-length thesis project “Passing Through,” armed only with scholarship money and a vision of a political film set to jazz.
The last thing Clark expected was for his thesis film to garner international critical praise, including winning the special jury prize at the Locarno International Film Festival and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame’s Oscar Micheaux Award for best use of music in film, nor did he expect it would still be showing in theaters more than 30 years later.
“”˜Passing Through’ is hugely influential,” said Hadrian Belove, director of the Silent Movie Theatre’s “Capturing Creation” program, which will be screening Clark’s film this Thursday as part of its Jazz on Film series.
“Passing Through” revolves around the relationship between a promising young black musician who was just released from jail, and his grandfather, an old jazz musician who has weathered the changing political times.
“It’s actually kind of a film made for the black power movement, a record made for the revolution,” Belove said. “It really connects a lot of important ideas about the importance of jazz to black people in general.”
The film explores the political struggle of blacks in America and how it has changed through the decades.
Through the eyes of the two musicians ““ one who is just starting out and another who is nearing his end ““ Clark utilizes jazz music’s ability to adapt to the situation and shows how blacks have had to change with the times.
Due to the fact that both jazz and film initially evolved at around the same time, the two forms of expression share an interesting connection. The first feature-length film with sound was “The Jazz Singer,” released in 1927 ““ around the time jazz was emerging in mainstream music.
“The industry of jazz history is relatively close to the industry of film ““ it’s very much a 20th-century medium,” Belove said. “You have pretty much the modern history of jazz recorded on film alongside the history of film.”
Clark, who earned his master’s degree in film from UCLA in 1977, embraced this concept in “Passing Through,” using the musical style of jazz to mirror the changing political times of the 1970s.
Clark’s use of jazz’s musical structure to tell the story of “Passing Through” has become its defining feature. Rather than use a typical film narrative structure, “Passing Through” mimics the improvisational qualities of the music, telling its story in a stream-of-consciousness style.
“Within the film, certain points have flashbacks and flash-forwards,” Clark said. “It’s a linear story in the sense you can follow it, but it’s not linear in structure. … In a lot of the ways, it tells the story the same way you would compose music. The idea of jazz presents itself as a new way of expressing cinema.”
Soon after its initial screening, “Passing Through” grew through word of mouth, starting in small venues and ending up on the largest screens for international audiences.
What started out as a school project culminated as a special event at the renowned Cannes Film Festival, hailed as one of the first and foremost black independent films.
“(“˜Passing Through’) was supposed to be shown non-theatrically,” Clark said. “It was specifically meant for smaller audiences. It passed from hand to hand; it was shown in churches. Then it was shown to raise money for the anti-apartheid movement; it was shown in museums. And then it was shown in international film festivals.”
Though he is proud of his film, Clark is still somewhat overwhelmed and amazed by its success.
“My $13,000 film is still out there ““ a 1970s film from back in the day.”