Letter to Ken Jacobs

Abstract In this 1969 letter, Annette Michelson writes to Ken Jacobs following a screening of his films Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son and Soft Rain. Focusing primarily on Tom, Tom, Michelson describes it as visually sumptuous, formally lucid, and historically significant—a “privileged moment in film history.” She underscores her surprise that some audience members did not share her enthusiasm, emphasizing the film's aesthetic richness and conceptual rigor. Michelson reflects in particular on Jacobs's complex manipulation of cinematic illusion. She analyzes a moment near the end of the film in which a farmhouse appears masked in such a way that the screen seems spatially displaced, generating a layered “illusionary illusionism.” This perceptual disturbance prompts her to reconsider the film's broader structure and its play with depth, framing, and projection. She also comments on the reappearance of the original footage at the film's conclusion, noting how this repetition creates a retroactive tension—like the enclosing panels of a triptych—reshaping the viewer's memory of the initial viewing.