An integral part of a horror-art film cycle that stretches back to the 1930s (VAMPYR) and extends to the present day (SKINAMARINK). Such films emphasize mood above all else, a tendency this 45 minute 1967 example, created by underground film legend Larry Jordan, took to an extreme by omitting direct sound and linear storytelling.
Larry Jordan is best known for making animated collage shorts (including OUR LADY OF THE SPHERE, THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER and SOPHIE’S PLACE). THE OLD HOUSE, PASSING is one of his few live action narratives, which include HILDUR AND THE MAGICIAN (1971) and THE APPARITION (1976)—films that, in Jordan’s own words, “don’t show very much. The animation is what everyone wants to see.”
Conceiving THE OLD HOUSE, PASSING involved Jordan and some friends immersing themselves in classical supernatural literature, with their subsequent discussions used in place of a script. The film, which initially contained a straightforward narrative, was lensed on “out-dated stock” that left Jordan dissatisfied with the quality of the imagery. He let the footage sit for over a year, after which he drew up “a stream of consciousness list of images from memory” and assembled the footage accordingly.
Full film available: https://boxd.it/6gyE
Viewed in hazy black and white, and set to oddly placid 1960s lounge muzak, an old house is shown, nestled amid overgrown vegetation. Orbiting it are several characters (one or more of whom may be ghosts): a young man (John Graham), his wife (Patricia Jordan) and his or her mother (Sydney Drosihn), as well as a suit-wearing suitor or realator (Larry Jordan). The “story” is related via a succession of disconnected images with no dialogue or evident sequential order.
We see husband and wife driving (presumably on their way to the accursed house), the wife exploring a dark corridor, a door opening by itself, an unidentified shadow on a bed, the husband and wife finding their young daughter unconscious, a perilous climb to the roof of the house and the discovery of a skeleton in the attic. It concludes on a whimsical note with, in the film’s most famous image, the principals blowing bubbles in a cemetery.
As Jordan lamented, the photography is extremely dark and murky, with many obvious day-for-night shots and an overabundance of soft focus. Those things, however, only enhance the sense of otherworldly mystery. It’s probably a good thing that Jordan jumbled up the narrative and omitted direct sound, because in conventional form I doubt this material would stand up. As a “surreal game of free association,” however, THE OLD HOUSE, PASSING is rather remarkable.
Vital Statistics
THE OLD HOUSE, PASSING
Canyon Cinema
Director/Producer/Screenplay/Cinematography/Editing: Larry Jordan
Cast: Sydney Drosihn, John Graham, Patricia Jordan, Larry Jordan