Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (film)

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son is a 1969 American experimental film made by Ken Jacobs.^[1]

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son
Directed by	Ken Jacobs
Distributed by	The Film-Makers' Cooperative
Release date	1969 (1969)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States

Summary

The 1969 film uses the 1905 film of the same name as its source material.

In a meticulous experiment in rephotography, Jacobs deconstructs, manipulates, and recontextualizes a small fragment of found footage: a 1905 film showing a group of people chasing a thief through a barn, (shot and directed by G.W. ‘Billy’ Bitzer),^[2] "rescued via a paper print filed for copyright purposes with the Library of Congress," according to Jacobs.^[3] Jacobs' refashioning of the footage is an essayistic meditation on the nature of cinematic representation; in the words of Chicago Reader critic Fred Camper, it is "a film about watching movies."^[4]

Legacy

The film is considered a landmark in avant-garde and structural filmmaking, and remains Jacobs' best-known work.^[4] It was inducted to the National Film Registry in 2007, and is part of Anthology Film Archives' "Essential Cinema" repertory.^[5]

See also

• List of American films of 1969
• 1905 in film
• Metafilm

References

1. Artfourm
2. TCM.com
3. Anthology Film Archives: Film Screenings
4. Chicago Reader
5. Anthology Film Archives: Film Screenings

External links

• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son at the Film-Makers' Cooperative
• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son at IMDb - 1969 film
• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son at IMDb - 1905 film
• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son at Rotten Tomatoes
• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son at the TCM Movie Database
• Jacobs discussing the work in 1969 at St. John's University
• Optic Antics, the first major academic survey of Jacobs' work, including Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son