Passing – Black and White Snapshots
Much can be done with the dead spirit of the twenties. At least in theory. In cinema, Francis Ford Coppola attempted to resurrect it in 1974, in The Godfather: Part II, and the formula he used back then – a slightly desaturated, yellowish cinematography + the swinging, operatic music of Nino Toate + the ubiquitous, worn-out trench coats – quickly tired into an universal recipe. It's ingredients may vary: Woody Allen added some jazz to it, Baz Luhrmann sprinkled some glitter and extravaganza on top, Tom Twyker recently amplified its socio-political background. The result has the familiar atmosphere of a museum – pleasant to those that enjoy museums, obsolete to all others. Maybe the biggest problem about films that regard the twenties, a subspecies of costume dramas (or period films, as they're called in Romania), oftentimes have the air of good intentions and nostalgic treatment of culture (or the other way around), and, especially, of money. Just like museums. When it comes to both costume dramas and museums, there are two extant versions nowadays: dusty and predictable, or shiny and fully transparent with regards to the pile of money that enables its existence. You can rarely find a middle ground. In the case of costume dramas, a recent such example, to me, is Rebecca Hall's Passing.
Radu Toderici is a film critic and researcher. Lately he’s interested in the history of the Romanian cinema during socialism. He writes for Steaua literary magazine and is also a professor at the University of Theatre & Film Babes-Bolyai, from Cluj. He believes the recipe for a good life includes at least one and a half film a day.
