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Jacob's Ladder

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Film Review: Jacob's Ladder (1990)@drax1378d

(source: tmdb.org)

There is hardly anything more frustrating than a project that had great potential on the account of talents involved, only to be doomed from the start because of misconceived basic concept. Jacob’s Ladder, 1990 horror film directed by Adrian Lyne, is one of such project, one of the most disturbing and, at the same time, most underwhelming examples of the genre.

The plot begins in 1971 during Vietnam War. Protagonist, played by Jacob “Jake” Singer, is US Army soldier stationed in Mekong Delta who gets involved in bizarre, confusing and violent incident that affected most of his unit. Few years later he works in New York City for US Postal Service and lives with his beautiful co-worker Jezebel “Jezzie” Pipkin (played by Elizabeth Peña). Life seems good despite Jake being still traumatised by the tragic loss of young son Gabe (played by Macaulay Culkin), which led to divorce from his wife Sarah (played by Patricia Kalember). One night Jake accidentally sleeps in subway car and ends up at the station where all exits happen to be locked; he is forced to find his way through dark tunnels and begins to see subway cars populated with strange-looking people without faces. Those and other confusing incidents continue and Jake begins to doubt his sanity until accidentally stumbling into his war comrade Paul Gruneger (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince) who claims that he experiences same things and believes that he might be in Hell. When Gruneger dies in mysterious circumstances, Jake begins noticing that he is being followed by mysterious figures and begins to wander whether he was exposed to unknown psychoactive substance by US Army during the war. In the meantime, his attempts to find an answer coincide with his steady loss of grip on reality.

The best thing about Jacob’s Ladder is direction by Adrian Lyne, which is at the same time one of its weaknesses. Lyne had many successes in 1980s, mainly due to his good sense of style and MTV aesthetics characteristic of the era. Here he puts a lot of effort in order to create dark and disturbing atmosphere, and he is much helped by very good cinematography by Jeffrey L. Kimball. The cast is good. Tim Robbins, who would later work mostly as character actor, uses one of the rare opportunity to play a lead, and rather unusual for mainstream Hollywood production. Jake is nerdish, college-educated intellectual who keeps wearing glasses and his inability to grasp what is happening is supposed to be even more frightening for the audience considering that, unlike most horror film protagonists, he has education that would tell him what is going on. Elizabeth Peña also does good job as his girlfriend, although some might consider her role thankless over many scenes that she appear topless. Two of them are aided by supporting cast that include some that might later become big names on film or television – Ving Rhames, Eriq La Salle and Jason Alexander. Young Macaulay Culkin also gives decent performance, which coincided with his more successful performance in megahit Home Alone. Lyne also shows some creativity in portraying Jake’s nightmares and hallucinations, with demons being based on real life victims of Thalidomide poisoning rather than creatures from Christian iconography.

However, all that fine effort is undermined by the script by Bruce Joel Rubin, writer who specialised in films about afterlife and who is best known for Ghost, ultimately more successful exploration of the same themes. Unlike in that script, which was based on a simple idea, Rubin here tries to push in too many different directions at once. Jacob’s Ladder tries to be supernatural horror film, psychological drama, art film and political conspiracy thriller. The balance between those elements is never properly established and the film fails as each of it. Another reason for that is confusion created by non-linear narration and protagonist being existing in different worlds, some of which might be nothing more than product of his imagination. Rubin’s originally idea was probably to make the experience as confusing to viewers as for Jake, but along the way he realised that it would hurt the film. So, some sort of explanation was given through character of Jake’s angelic osteopath, played by Danny Aiello, as well as former hippie chemist, played by Matt Craven, who provides conventional exposition. Today’s viewers might easily recognise Rubin’s tricks, including twists later used in The Sixth Sense and A Beatiful Mind. Even in time of its premiere, some more knowledgeable parts of the audience were likely to see heavy influence of Ambrose Bierce’s short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, as well as 1962 classic horror film Carnival of Souls. Despite such lack of originality, film had decent reviews, but its box office was very disappointing Tim Robbins later attributed commercial failure to American audience not wanting to be reminded of Vietnam War nightmares during jingoistic hysteria at the eve of First Gulf War. Despite that, Jacob’s Ladder gradually developed something of a cult status, resulting in forgettable 2019 remake.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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2 more reviews

›Jacob's Ladder Reviews@kapitanrosomak2200d
Today, after a 10-year break, I decided to look at Jakub's Ladder again and this will be my short review. The film is very interestingly shot. This is our main hero, Jakub, who has back pain and works at the post office, lives next to his lover, although he misses children, he feels pain after the death of his son.

One day, everything does not go his way when they begin to remind themselves of the events of Vietnam, when as a soldier he fought and was severely hit. Dreams often haunt him, perhaps too often, and every dream begins to add a new element. The film is built in a sleepy way, even very calm, in a moment to hit the viewer an extraordinary dose of strange scenes so strong that the nightmares
One of the stronger is the party scene where Jacob is invited to dance, the whole scene shows what Jacob feels and how nightmares come out Jacob's ladder inspired Konami to create Silent Hill, Konami loved the hospital scene so much that since then a sequence has appeared in every Silent Hill in the hospital. the hospital is one of the most terrible that has arisen.
This is a movie that is hard to describe because it works great as a drama as a horror movie will leave you with some scenes in your head so strong that nightmares will be at night.

The film describes the struggle of the hero who thinks he is going crazy, although he hopes that the demons around him really exist. Despite the attempts that demons make, they are getting stronger and the hero ceases to distinguish between what is real and what is just a product. A well-realized scene is a scene in the subway where the hero is alone and all exits are closed as if they gave him signs that he would not free himself from this nightmare so easily.

Vietnam and war diseases in general play a key role here, because the hero thinks and is even sure that the government manipulated him through the mission.

However, nothing is so perfect and everything starts to play when it seems to Jacob that he can beat all this. The ladder itself can be interpreted as the hero's fall somewhere in the subconscious mind by a drug and it even has an explanation in the film but also a slow descent level by level of life somewhere at the last breath of life. The film lasts nearly two hours and they are well done two hours we do not have teams, each scene has a hidden symbol that we discover at the end and it is interesting, although the very end leaves a bit to be desired, but the whole production is cinema without a doubt one of the best you'll see. Despite the fact that Tim Robins played the role of life, his beautiful falling insane to mastery, on the one hand he is like a dead veteran with the other a living man who wants to live among people.

This time I will not discuss the minutes after the end of the film, you need to watch yourself, if you played Silent Hill here you can feel at home, the style of narrative and generally ubiquitous fog here can also be used, it is not used so often and densely hehe. The film also had a remake from 2019 and what better, let's pass it over, the film turned out to be tragic, critics and users' reviews did not leave a dry thread on this work. If you like a good drama, but you also like fear and want to go to sleep with beauty and watch a great cinema before sleep at ten movies will be for you, it is worth reaching for the Jacob's Ladder from 1990.

photo https://lwlies.com/articles/jacobs-ladder-tim-robbins-psychological-horror/ https://writeyourselfsane.com/2019/10/26/day-26-of-31-jacobs-ladder-1990/ https://oneperfectshot.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/jacobs-ladder-1990-2/ https://falconmovies.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/31-days-of-halloween-2016-7-jacobs-ladder-an-analysis/

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›Jacob Never Worked for the Post Office: Keys to Understanding 'Jacob's Ladder' (1990)@janenightshade2668d

Adrian Lyne's film Jacob's Ladder can be difficult to understand without knowing a bit about the Bible. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

#film #movies #horror #writing #cinema #bible

Caution: Spoilers Galore!

Adrian Lyne's tragic masterpiece, Jacob's Ladder, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. It's a thinking man's horror movie, but it's also one of the best films ever made about the Vietnam War and its after effects on the American psyche. After rewatching it for the first time in almost 30 years, I'm happy to report that it still holds up. The special effects of Jacob's nightmarish world weren't created with modern CGI, but it doesn't matter, because there's nothing cheesy about them.

Jacob's Ladder is a story about a young academic from New York named Jacob (played by Tim Robbins from The Shawshank Redemption (1994)), whose career is interrupted when he's drafted to serve in Vietnam. Jacob is also a father of three sons--all of whom have Biblical names--and the husband of Sarah, played by Patricia Kalember from the then-hit show, thirtysomething.

The film begins with a surreal Vietnam battle sequence in 1971, in which Jacob’s unit is attacked by an unseen enemy. Before and during the attack, Jacob sees many of his fellow soldiers exhibiting odd, terrifying behavior, such as rapid jerking and seizures, and unexplained bleeding. Frightened, he runs into the jungle and is bayoneted by an off-camera enemy we never see. We hear the noise of helicopter blades overhead as Jacob falls into unconsciousness.

The next time we see Jacob, the war is over and he’s sitting on a grimy subway train in New York, wearing the uniform of a US postman. He has a bizarre and disturbing experience in the train station, but eventually arrives home to the grimy Brooklyn apartment he shares with his girlfriend, Jezzy (short for Jezabelle, played by sexy Elizabeth Pena)— a character with another Biblical name that is symbolic of what is to come. Jacob is a man torn between his current life with Jezzy, and his former life with his ex-wife Sarah and their children. He also continues to suffer terrible grief from the death of one of his sons, Gabriel, just before he shipped out to war.

The Ladder

Jacob suffers nightmarish incidents and visions, and eventually seeks help from a VA psychiatrist who knows him well, Dr. Carlson. Unfortunately, Dr. Carlson is recently deceased in an explosive car accident. Later on, Jacob is contacted by an old Army buddy, Paul, who is experiencing the same nightmarish visions as Jacob. Paul also dies in a car explosion.

Other men from Jacob's old unit contact him and say they’ve been experiencing the same nightmarish visions. They believe that the Army exposed them to an experimental drug that causes their hallucinations, and they agree to hire a lawyer to sue for damages (somewhat amusingly, the lawyer is played by Jason Alexander, looking and acting not much different from his Seinfeld character, George Costanza.)

Their hunch is validated when Jacob is later contacted by a former military chemist named Michael, who says he cooked up a powerful hallucinogen called The Ladder, which the military used on soldiers to make them more aggressive. Michael tells Jacob he thinks The Ladder was secretly given to Jacob's unit before the battle.

Agents or spies of the military kidnap Jacob after his meeting with Michael; he escapes but is injured and taken to a grungy hospital where he experiences a ride on a gurney to the operating room from hell (a disturbing creepfest that’s justifiably famous among serious horror fans.) At the hospital, he is eventually rescued by his only real friend, a chiropractor played by Danny Aiello from Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

By that time a broken man, Jacob hails a cab and asks to be taken “home,” which turns out to be the marital home he shared with Sarah, not his grungy apartment with Jezzy. No one is home except his deceased son Gabe, who leads him upstairs towards a bright light.

The scene switches to Vietnam for the last time, and we see the real story of the battle that injured Jacob; members of his unit attacked their own side, while stoked up on paranoia and aggression caused by unwitting consumption of The Ladder. We then see two army surgeons fighting to save Jacob’s life, but finally losing.

The conclusion: Jacob never left Vietnam; his post-war life was a dream he had during surgery, enhanced by hallucinations caused by The Ladder.

A Vision, not a Dream

That's the conventional interpretation of the film, anyway. But upon closer inspection of what's going on, the trope of "it was all a dream in the end," doesn't hold up. Jacob isn't dreaming his post-war life; he's being given a vision of his future by God--a future in which he's wracked by physical and mental pain, loses his family, and abandons his academic career. God is trying to convince him that it's better to stop struggling to live and just move on up into heaven to be with his beloved son.

Consider the film's title: it's a double entendre. "Jacob's Ladder" not only refers to the hallucinogen cooked up by the military chemist, it also refers to the Biblical story of the prophet Jacob's dream. In the Biblical story, Jacob falls asleep and is shown a vision of angels traveling back and forth between heaven and earth on a long, celestial ladder. The vision is not a dream; it's a communication from God. The staircase that the modern Jacob ascends at the end of the film is a very obvious reference to the Biblical Jacob's angel-transporting "ladder."

Consider, also, that modern Jacob has no way of knowing about The Ladder drug while he's dying on the operating table in Vietnam. Some fans of the conventional theory explain that away by assuming that he could have subconsciously heard the surgeons discussing the drug, which is reasonable, but as we shall soon see, this isn't the only anachronism that appears in Jacob's "dream."

When he wakes up to the post-war world in the subway car, Jacob is living in the mid-70s. The clothes and cars are clearly of 1975-1976, not of the early 70s (i.e. , Jason Alexander's gigantic polyester tie). We also know it's the mid-70s because one of his old Army buddies says they haven't talked in five years. Five years from 1971 is 1976. Yet, how could Jacob have known, dreaming on the operating table in 1971, what cars and clothes would look like five years into the future?

Another anachronism: In the script, Jezzy makes a point of telling Jacob that she's "left a Hungryman in the oven" for his dinner. Not "a TV dinner," but specifically, "a Hungryman." If you look up the history of that brand, it didn't hit the market until 1973. The mention of the Hungryman TV dinner is a deliberate clue that Jacob is receiving a vision of the future.

And still other anachronisms: Jezzy and Jacob go to a party, and Jezzy starts dancing to Lady Marmalade by Patti Labelle. Lady Marmalade was a huge hit in 1975, something that Jacob couldn't possibly have known in 1971. And finally, on Jacob's final cab ride to his old house, the camera pointedly lingers on a political flyer for Richard Nixon that the driver has posted in his cab. The flyer uses a slogan that Nixon used in his second presidential campaign in 1972, not in his first campaign in 1968.

How do we know it's God who's sending Jacob these visions? Aside from the reference to the Biblical story, in one of the film's most important scenes, Jacob is told so--in a roundabout way--by his chiropractor friend, played by Aiello. The chiropractor, who is pointedly lit with a bright white light like an angel, hints to Jacob that his terrifying hallucinations of demons, explosions, and mutilated bodies are possibly just God's way of convincing him to move on in life.

As a film, Jacob's Ladder is rife with symbolism, most of it Biblical in nature, and it can be difficult to absorb on first viewing. Every significant character has a Biblical name, including Jezzy, who in some scenes is portrayed as some kind of demon or fallen angel. Jacob's terrifying gurney trip at the hospital to the nightmare operating room is clearly a reference to Dante's Circles of Hell. As the gurney rounds each hospital corner, the patients lurking in the hallways become successively more mutilated and terrifying after each turn.

However, this film becomes easier to understand when viewed from the standpoint that Jacob's postwar life is a vision of his future, not a dream.

Interestingly, there's a remake of Jacob's Ladder that's scheduled to be released this year, starring Jesse Williams from Grey's Anatomy in the title role. Once again, Hollywood has decided to remake a film that doesn't need one.

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