Abstract

This paper discusses allegorical procedures in two films by Ken Jacobs - Blonde Cobra and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son. Starting with Craig Owens’ notion of allegorical interpretation as disinterment, this paper proposes that we read Jacobs’ work as an allegorical examination of an exhumed filmic body. This exhumation acts as a double interruption: fragmenting the previous narrative and then stopping up the continuum of perceptual experience through the accumulation of these gathered fragments. Looking at the various interruptions in Jacobs’ films, this paper will focus on those procedures that foreground the allegorical disintegration of the symbol and dwell upon the ruination of representation.