Country: USA
Year: 2007
Duration: 92'
Almost forty years later Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son (1969), in which he rephotographed a 1903 film as it was projected onto a wall, exploring the individual personalities beneath the characters and the teeming grain of the film emulsion, Ken Jacobs reimagines these effects in a new technical medium: the digital canvas; this experimental narrative opus magnificently displays his newfound mastery of the digital filmmaking domain. With source material comprising turn-of-the-century stereopticon slides and an Edison film from 1903, Jacobs exploits a full repertoire of digital techniques, continuing his lifelong inquiry into the activity that lies latent in the film frame. By manipulating the digital pixels he treats the image as a painterly canvas and exploits the illusion of depth in a way that evokes cubism and abstract expressionism. Figurative images bleed into abstraction with vivid colors that play against frames of black and white and individual frames distorted and rotated to create new configurations.
Biography
film director
Ken Jacobs
Ken Jacobs (New York, 1933) debuted as a director in 1955 and in 1956 studied painting with Hans Hoffmann. Between 1966 and 1968, he directed the Millennium Film Workshop and in 1969 he founded the film faculty at the State University of New York at Binghamton. In 1996 the MoMA of New York dedicated a retrospective to him, and in 2004 he won the award for experimental film from the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Association. Between 2007 and 2009, the Torino Film Festival presented a number of his films, including Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son, Return to the Scene of the Crime and The Scenic Route. This year the festival also presents Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman (Waves).
FILMOGRAFIA
Orchard Street (cm, 1955), Star Spangled to Death (1957-59), Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son (1969), Spaghetti Aza (1976), Jerry Takes a Back Seat, Then Passes Out of the Picture (cm, 1987), The Subcinema (1990), A Tom Tom Chaser (cm, 2002), Capitalism: Slavery (cm, 2006), Razzle Dazzle - The Lost World (2007), The Scenic Route (cm, 2008), Return to the Scene of the Crime (2008), Anaglyph Tom (Tom With Puffy Cheeks) (2008), Blankets for Indians (mm, 2012), Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman (mm, 2012).
Cast
& Credits
regia, soggetto, montaggio/director, story, film editor Ken Jacobs
assistente alla regia/assistant director Erik Nelson, Florence Jacobs
fotografia/director of photography A.C. Abadie
musica/music Mischa Spoliansky
assistente alla regia/assistant director Erik Nelson, Florence Jacobs
fotografia/director of photography A.C. Abadie
musica/music Mischa Spoliansky
