Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

this is some kind of experimental film I don't like. allow me to write why.

Jacobs uses DW Griffith's Tom Tom the Piper's Son in such a bad way we all want to get away after the first two minutes. why? because Jacobs uses every images several times, he rewinds them, cuts them, manipulates them and disfigures them completely.

sound interesting... not. Stan Brakhage is the only master in doing this kind of stuff, but even he never messed with an already existing kind of movie. instead, Jacobs uses the classic Griffith work to make his own. that's like taking Beethoven, cut the best parts of it away and call it your own. that's not only stupid, but theft.

but it must be cool, I guess, if you know nothing about masters like Brakhage. on the other hand, if you don't know anything about Griffith, this picture might bore you so much, you want to destroy the tape.

I don't know if this is the creme de la creme of the avant garde movie stuff, but using mirroring, speeding up and ssslllooowwwiiinnnggg dddooowwwnnn and zooming in to get "into the amoebic grain pattern itself" is nice for 30 minutes, but for the other 60 (90?) minutes it's too much of the same.

(no, it's different! each frame _seems_ to be the fame, but if you look at the details for about 10 minutes you'll see they're different)

Yawn. The 1905 version was quite a laugh though.