Passing Through (1977), recently named to the National Film Registry, is about an angry jazz musician, just released from prison, who toys with revolutionary and Black Nationalist ideas. It was directed by Larry Clark (not to be confused with the Larry Clark of Kids) as part of the L.A. Rebellion independent film-making movement. (Charles Burnett and Julie Dash both get tech credits.)

I managed to watch Passing Through, and I had sort of a middling response to it. I liked the moodiness, expressed through skillful filming, and the music. But the political material, both the inserted footage (civil rights, Attica) and much of the dialogue, was pretty heavy-handed. The Spook Who Sat by the Door seems to me a more compelling piece of work on similar concepts.

The movie is exceptionally choppy, constantly introducing new themes (Tarot cards?) and just as quickly dropping them. Look elsewhere for narrative logic, because a lot of things don’t add up. The released prisoner doesn’t seem to have a probation officer. The main female character has a toddler, but it is unclear who takes care of him or how she will support him once she quits her job in a huff.

The movie is perhaps closer to a dream than reality, and perhaps for that reason I very much did like the grounded guy in a meeting who said, “I’ve got enough problems in my life ALREADY, without creating new ones.” Sensible fellow. I want to see a movie about him.

I was faintly amused by the notion that a white cabal was pocketing the money from avant-garde jazz recording. No one was making money on that stuff! And even for the most Afrocentric jazz, the audience was heavily white. Recording free jazz was a labor of love for any company that did it, big or small, black-owned or white-owned.

The fact is that by 1977, purist jazz was art music with a very small audience, and certainly not the sound of the larger black community, from whom it was increasingly disconnected. Fusion (not featured or mentioned in the movie) had some following, but other forms of black music, pop and R&B, were the ones with true reach into the public.

So the position of Passing Through in relation to its intended black audience is slightly odd, because hardcore jazz was already a matter of little concern to them, and not really an EFFECTIVE vehicle for revolutionary messaging (although that messaging was clearly attractive to some of the jazz musicians).