Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son
Ken Jacobs
115 minutes, black and white/color, silent, 16mm
USA 1969 (revised 1971)
Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son “is centered on the projection of a film made in 1905 (possibly by Bitzer, Griffith’s cameraman) on the narrative of the nursery rhyme (‘Tom, Tom, the Piper’s son, stole a pig and away he run’). Jacobs, rescuing the film from the ashcan of history to which it had been consigned, first offers the film in extenso, then proceeds, with the use of an analytic projector, to reshoot the film for one hour […]. Tom, Tom is, in fact, a demonstration of the amorous caress of this early object of desire, the cinema, through the use of close-up, slow motion (combined with panning and changes of angle), masking, and freeze-frame.” (Michelson 2017: 67 and 69)
“After 100 minutes of formal manipulation, the film concludes by showing the complete 1905 film a second time. The effect is remarkable, as the film is transformed – but now, not on screen by Jacobs, but by spectators in their consciousness.” (Zryd 2011: 255)
“Usually, we consume our films too fast. We take them twenty-four frames a second, and go from one to the next. I’m interested in chewing and tasting, really slowing down the process of consuming, so that the experience is actually delectable. I want to see how much flavor is possible.” (Ken Jacobs, Interview with Scott MacDonald 1998: 383)
Ken Jacobs, born 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.
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References
Annette Michelson, On the Eve of the Future. Selected Writings on Film (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 2017).
Michael Zryd, “Professor Ken,” in Optic Antics. The Cinema of Ken Jacobs, eds. Michele Pierson, David E. James, and Paul Arthur (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 249–261.
Scott MacDonald, “Ken and Flo Jacobs,” in Scott MacDonald, A Critical Cinema 3. Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 363–396.