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

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

Summary
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), "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."

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