Tom, Tom, the Pipers Son (film)

Tom, Tom, the Pipers Son is a 1969 experimental film made by Ken Jacobs. The film is considered a landmark in avant-garde and structural filmmaking, and remains Jacobs best-known work. It was admitted to the National Film Registry in 2007, and is part of Anthology Film Archives "Essential Cinema" repertory.

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 probably directed by G.W. ‘Billy’ Bitzer, rescued via a paper print filed for copyright purposes with the Library of Congress," according to Jacobs. 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."