SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 109: Jacob's Ladder

[europe1]

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Here's a quick list of all movies watched by the SMC.


Not exactly a stairway to heaven but close enough I suppose...

Our Director

Adrian Lyne

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Adrian Lyne (Director/Writer/Producer) is the creative force behind some of the most talked-about movies of our time, among them, "Fatal Attraction", "9 1/2 Weeks", "Flashdance", "Indecent Proposal", "Jacob's Ladder" and "Unfaithful".

Born in Peterborough, England and raised in London, Lyne attended the Highgate school, where his father was a teacher. In his twenties, he played trumpet with the jazz group, The Colin Kellard Band. An avid moviegoer during his school days, he was inspired to make his own films by the work of French New Wave directors like Godard, Truffaut and Chabrol. Two of his early short films, "The Table" and "Mr. Smith," were official entries in the London Film Festival.

Our Star

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Born in West Covina, California, but raised in New York City, Tim Robbins is the son of former The Highwaymen singer Gil Robbins and actress Mary Robbins (née Bledsoe). Robbins studied drama at UCLA, where he graduated with honors in 1981. That same year, he formed the Actors' Gang theater group, an experimental ensemble that expressed radical political observations through the European avant-garde form of theater. He started film work in television movies in 1983, but hit the big time in 1988 with his portrayal of dimwitted fastball pitcher "Nuke" Laloosh in Bull Durham (1988). Tall with baby-faced looks, he has the ability to play naive and obtuse (Cadillac Man (1990) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)) or slick and shrewd (The Player (1992) and Bob Roberts (1992)).




Film Overview

Premise: Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death.



Budget: $25 million
Box Office: $26.1 million

Trivia
(courtesy of IMDB)
​

* All SFX were filmed live, with no post-production. For example, to achieve the famous 'shaking head' effect, director Adrian Lyne simply filmed the actor waving his head around (and keeping his shoulders and the rest of his body completely still) at 4fps, resulting in an incredibly fast and deeply disturbing motion when played back at the normal frame-rate of 24fps.


* Certain imagery was inspired by the photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin. Most recognizably, the image of the hooded, legless man shaking his head is inspired by Witkin's 1976 photograph "Man With No Legs".


* In Bruce Joel Rubin's original screenplay, all of the demons who appear throughout the film were typical biblical demons with horns, wings, cloven hooves etc. Director Adrian Lyne felt that this kind of imagery could very easily come across as comic, which would destroy the film. He felt that the fact that the imagery was so far from human lessened its impact, and as such, he decided he wanted the demons to be humanesque, but not quite human. During his research into this (which was when he discovered the photography of Joel-Peter Witkin), Lyne came across the Thalidomide scandal. Thalidomide was a drug made available for purchase from 1957 to 1961. Ostensibly, it was designed to treat pregnant women; primarily as an antiemetic to combat morning sickness, and secondarily as a sleeping aid. However, prior to its release, inadequate clinical tests were carried out, leading to roughly 10,000 children in Africa and Europe being born with severe physical deformities because their mothers had taken thalidomide during their pregnancy. The most common defects were phocomelia, dysmelia, amelia and polymelia; all conditions which affect the appearance of the limbs. During his research, Lyne studied the Thalidomide case, and came to feel that the birth defects caused by the drug represented the perfect starting place for his redesign of Rubin's demons. The Thalidomide scandal was also the inspiration for David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981).


* Adrian Lyne turned down directorial duties on The Bondfire of the Vanities (1990) so he could direct Jacob's Ladder. His first choice for the role of Jacob Singer was Tom Hanks, but, by coincidence, Hanks turned down the film so he could make The Bonfire of the Vanities.



* According to director Adrian Lyne, the drug aspect of the story was inspired by the Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain book, "Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and Sixties Rebellion".


* According to director Adrian Lyne, most of the dialogue in the opening scene between the soldiers was improvised on set by the actors themselves, especially the conversation between George (Ving Rhames) and Jacob (Tim Robbins) about masturbation.


* The Bergen Street station in the film was actually an abandoned, lower level portion of the station, which had to be re-tiled and fixed to look as if it was still in working condition.





Members: @europe1 @MusterX @Scott Parker 27 @the muntjac @Cubo de Sangre @sickc0d3r @chickenluver @FrontNakedChoke @AndersonsFoot @Tufts @Coolthulu

 

[europe1]

I took an unofficial vacation from the Club last week due to work-stress, back again this week though!

I thought that this was a film with a fair share of hiccups but was pretty darn great when it decided to play its A-game.

What was it's A-game? The mindfuck hell-imagery. That shit was ghastly. Really striking stuff on display here. Like when Jacob is getting wheeled through the insane asylum, with the insane invalids teeming and crawling on the metal pathway above his head, and the gurney being driven over severed chunks of human viscera. Real horrorshow I say!

In this regard, that abandoned train-station was just a perfect set-piece to begin a movie like this. Creepy old women. Demon tails jutting from the homeless. Mud-splurged water-holes. Train-wagons thronging with white-faced apparitions. Really effective stuff. That scenario actually reminded me of a horror story I was told as a kid, that there was a ghostly train-station on the local line which people who fell asleep on the midnight ride would end up in. Needless to say, I spent most of my youth trying to in vain locate said demonic train-station.

• This movie actually reminded me of a lot of other movies. You have the experience of being unstuck in time, which was very reminiscent of the sci-fi flick Slaughterhouse-Five, but instead of mischevious aliens, it's a moribund people processing his traumas and memories before death. Honestly, Jacob's Ladder is about 100 times better than Slaughterhouse-Five though. Then you have the horror movie House from 1986. Both movies deal with a Vietnam veteran processing his lifetime traumas, and them becoming manifest as demons which haunt him. The scenarios are actually quite startlingly similar, but Jacob's Ladder is clearly the superior film and lacks House's comedy. The last film I was thinking about was actually the movie club's own Cemetary Man, in that both movies draw the inspirations for their grotesques from the world of art and therefore manage to be very evocative.

• Another thing, the Swedish title for this film is actually Jacob's Inferno. Which, honestly, I think is a better movie. Yeah, I get the biblical illusion towards Jacob seeing a ladder to heaven. However, Jacob's journey actually more closely resembles that of the Inferno, in that he travels through a demon-infested hell-world only to arrive at some sort of purgatory and at the gates of heaven near the end. The story of Jacob's Ladder doesn't really contain those hell-elements.

• I also think that you can notice at times, that a lot of scenes where cut. For example, when Jacob arrives home near the end, he has this familiar conversation with a gatekeeper whom we've never seen before. Probably one of those characters that got removed in the editing room.

• On a note of criticism... I did not like how the mixed Jacob's demonic pursuers with a more government-conspiracy type ordeal mid-way through. We're going through this story of the inferno and suddenly government agents are pulling Jacob into a car and telling him to shut up? The two types of pursuers don't really jive, and jarringly clash with each other. Focusing more singularly on one of them would have improved the atmosphere and focus of the film. Now you have disparate elements, I feel. On one hand you have a story about a guy on his deathbed having an Inferno-esque vision so to purge his soul of its traumatic emotions -- while on the other you have this government conspiracy about the use of drugs on soldiers during the Vietnam war.

• Though, as to whatever the Inferno-esque visions are actually happening or merely a figment of his imagination. I suppose the fact that Jacob gains knowledge about the drug-induction he was subjected to in his vision, confirms that they are actually "true", a metaphysical vision of the afterlife. Otherwise, how would he ever have gotten that knowlage? He couldn't exactly have figured it out on his own while he was lying on his deathbed. So it must be a divinely-imparted piece of wisdom. The epilogue-text pretty much confirms that it was drugs we we're dealing with anyways. Had the visions not been true signals from the afterlife, he would never have discovered the toxins (unless it was some sort of one-in-a-bilion piece of luck that he just so happened to hallucinate about that excactly, which is extremely unlikely).

 

[Scott Parker 27]

This movie was awesome, I wish Hollywood still made films like this. The whole time it kept me of guard, not knowing what reality was. Today it seems that the movie studios think we are too dumb to figure out what is happening in a movie and show us every piece to the puzzle and backstory. I like films like this where the ending is kind of up to your interpretation of what happened. I think e lived lives in his head while he was dying in Vietnam, like most people probably will, but who the hell knows, it's all in your interpretation.

 

[Cherry Brigand]

Saw this in the theater with my older brother and hated it. Watched as an adult and was blown away by it. Great film.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

* Certain imagery was inspired by the photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin. Most recognizably, the image of the hooded, legless man shaking his head is inspired by Witkin's 1976 photograph "Man With No Legs".

Haven't heard that name in years. Crazy stuff.

Then you have the horror movie House from 1986.

Loved that movie. Can't imagine it holds up too well now though.

This movie was awesome, I wish Hollywood still made films like this. The whole time it kept me of guard, not knowing what reality was. Today it seems that the movie studios think we are too dumb to figure out what is happening in a movie and show us every piece to the puzzle and backstory. I like films like this where the ending is kind of up to your interpretation of what happened. I think e lived lives in his head while he was dying in Vietnam, like most people probably will, but who the hell knows, it's all in your interpretation.

Not sure it's all up to interpretation. Jacob died in Nam and everything we saw was him struggling to find the path to Heaven. Don't see how to view it any other way.

 

[Scott Parker 27]

Haven't heard that name in years. Crazy stuff.

Loved that movie. Can't imagine it holds up too well now though.




Not sure it's all up to interpretation. Jacob died in Nam and everything we saw was him struggling to find the path to Heaven. Don't see how to view it any other way.

Do you at least agree with me that Hollywood does not leave enough open to interpretation now? Think to the god damn avengers movie, and the last jedi. Its all laid out in plain sight for the audience and doesnt cause you to use your imagination or creative thinking at all. It's like the difference between a piece of steak and a veggie pattie. One is inferior IMO.

 

[europe1]

, I wish Hollywood still made films like this.

It's interesting though. This movie barely made back its budget (and considering advertisement costs, it definitively lost a lot of money). However, today, cheap horror shlock is practically printing money. Look at all the movies Blumhouse let's out. They keep the budget at 5-10 million and make back 100 mill quite regularly.

It seems to me, that especially in the horror genre, people just really want shlock. People's standards are so low and conventional that studios see little incentive to make their movies smarter or more challenging. It Follows and The Witch both made money, but where big financial disappointments. I guess Get Out would be the exception, making 225 million on a 2.5 million budget.

Today it seems that the movie studios think we are too dumb to figure out what is happening in a movie and show us every piece to the puzzle and backstory.

Yeah, this movie was really good at hinting at the meta-stuff going on without actually telling us (until the very end I suppose).

* Jacob is referred to as dead several times. Like with the hand-reader or the temperature.

* The title itself, Jacob's Ladder, a ladder to heaven.

* Him being unstuck in time, shifting between memories and realities at a whim, as if experiencing some sort of fever dream (which you often have in a near-death situation).

Loved that movie. Can't imagine it holds up too well now though.

I saw it as an adult. Found it fairly mediocre.

Not sure it's all up to interpretation. Jacob died in Nam and everything we saw was him struggling to find the path to Heaven. Don't see how to view it any other way.

I guess the question is...

Was his vision actually something divinely inspired. That is to say, was he undergoing an actual inferno, meeting his demons and purging them before ascending to heaven?

Or was all the supernatural stuff merely a fever dream -- traumatic memories flooding through his brain as he lay dying, what he saw merely a hallucination that people experiences when their brain is malfunctioning.

I already gave my thoughts on the question in my post.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Do you at least agree with me that Hollywood does not leave enough open to interpretation now? Think to the god damn avengers movie, and the last jedi. Its all laid out in plain sight for the audience and doesnt cause you to use your imagination or creative thinking at all. It's like the difference between a piece of steak and a veggie pattie. One is inferior IMO.

I don't see enough contemporary stuff to know, but I imagine you're right. If I want something creative or imaginative (other than special effects) I turn to foreign films.

I guess the question is...

Was his vision actually something divinely inspired. That is to say, was he undergoing an actual inferno, meeting his demons and purging them before ascending to heaven?

Or was all the supernatural stuff merely a fever dream -- traumatic memories flooding through his brain as he lay dying, what he saw merely a hallucination that people experiences when their brain is malfunctioning.

I already gave my thoughts on the question in my post.

I take the religious stuff at face value (i.e. not just his imagination). If it's all just in his head then we can't take the drug experiment stuff as fact. In my book the dude goes to Heaven with his kid.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I watched this when it first hit video and didn't care for it much. Tim's kind of a limp noodle and the cinematography is too dark for my liking. Never wanted to watch it again. This time around was alright. When you know the twist it sure makes the clues less subtle. Danny Aiello might be the best part.

 

[europe1]

and the cinematography is too dark for my liking.

Really? Personally I really dig the look of this film. 80s New York was a real dingy and grimy place. Like an urban hellscape. I thought it quite fitting.

 

[europe1]

Danny Aiello might be the best part.

Getting called a fat cherub might be the best backhanded compliment out there.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Really? Personally I really dig the look of this film. 80s New York was a real dingy and grimy place. Like an urban hellscape. I thought it quite fitting.

Might be appropriate. Just something I always disliked. Maybe I wasn't watching the best quality print either.

 

[FrontNakedChoke]

This movie was awesome, I wish Hollywood still made films like this. The whole time it kept me of guard, not knowing what reality was.

Aside from the subject matter, that's what makes this movie so terrifying for me. It's hard to be sure of what's really going on. Constantly blurring the lines of reality and delusion. Is he just experiencing PTSD? Did his own government experiment on him with drugs during the war? Is he actually being pursued by demons and taken to hell? Is he already dead? Did he really just hurt his back? Regardless, it makes the moving very gripping. I genuinely cared about the character Jacob Singer, and watching him try to get grip on reality makes you feel helpless.

I enjoyed it even more re-watching it this time. I especially love the transitions when they cut to his Vietnam flashbacks. The chiropractic adjustment one was my favourite. I liked the way it was filmed in general. There's something particularly haunting about this film to me. I'll definitely re-watch it again in the future.

Side note: I felt extra bad for Jacob when he got cucked by that demon at the party. Yikes.

Anyways, glad you enjoyed it, sorry if you didn't.

 

[MusterX]

At its heart, Jacob's Ladder is a conspiracy movie with the conspiracy being that the government gave soldiers a super drug in Vietnam to access their "most base level of instinct", obviously trying to create some sort of super soldier scenario on the battlefield. Jacob subconsciously wants to expose the governments wrongdoing but as we find out at the end, he will never be able to do so. His death is almost like an indication that the government doesn't let anyone talk.

@europe1 I really felt like, at least looking back after the reveal, that Jacob's "purgatory" was in real time only as much time as he survived after being stabbed but in his mind he lived two different lives with two different women, or maybe 1 woman, 1 succubus, and that his ascension up the stairs with his son was him moving "up the ladder" to heaven after having dealt with his own guilt of the life he led. His guilt being the thing he had to come to acceptance with before he could move on. So we start off with a drug that the government wanted to use to place the soldier at the base level, or lowest rung of the ladder, and then the name of the movie, Jacob's Ladder, is a description of him dealing with his own death and the mistakes of his life as he dies and then tried to ascend the ladder. Which we know seemed as if it were many years to him.

I suppose you or I could be there even now.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

His guilt being the thing he had to come to acceptance with before he could move on.

More Purgatory. lol

What was his guilt?

 

[MusterX]

More Purgatory. lol

What was his guilt?

That he couldn't save his son right? Mostly I think he was holding on to the death of the child.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

That he couldn't save his son right? Mostly I think he was holding on to the death of the child.

Yeah, I don't know. Might have been distracted because I don't remember any of the backstory with that.

 

[MusterX]

Yeah, I don't know. Might have been distracted because I don't remember any of the backstory with that.

I think he was hit by a car. There is the scene where the kid is walking his bike out in the street and he drops his baseball cards on the ground and bends over to pick them up but later in the movie during one of Jacob's "episodes" he sees a crumpled bike on the ground.

 

[MusterX]

@Cubo de Sangre I was looking around and I found this statement in an interview by Rubin who was the writer, he refers to the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

In Eastern religions, it is not the body that dies, but the illusion of the body. One loses the sense of separation between one’s finite self and the larger universe. In Eastern terms, this separation is illusory and death is a disillusioning experience. It is a moment of truth. You become aware of your oneness with all existence, a oneness that has always been there. If you are not prepared to be stripped of your illusions, death will be a painful process. If you have spent a lifetime angrily fighting with the world around you, you may not enjoy discovering that you have, in fact, been doing battle with yourself. You will fight this knowledge. You will see terrifying visions. Hell will become a real place. If, however, you have loved life, if you have learned to remain open to it, then death is a liberation, a moment in which you recognize that there is no end to life. You are one with it in all its finite and infinite manifestations. (pp. 190-191)

So basically Jacob was fighting with himself.

The article continues with....

Rubin also drew on the biblical imagery of Jacob’s ladder. Once again, however, Rubin initially saw this in traditional terms, but Lyne’s visual sense prevailed, as Jacob, acccompanied by his lost son Gabe, ascends a staircase in his former home as he accepts his death. It’s interesting to note that the film shows Jacob consulting traditional images of demons as he tries to make sense of his terrifying visions. He is shown examining Gustave Doré’s illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy.

A film that strongly influenced both Rubin and Lyne was An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962) by French director Robert Enrico, from a short story by Ambrose Bierce written in 1890. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge won the Best Short Subject award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962 and the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 1963. The Twilight Zone showed this film as the final episode of the 1964 season.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is set in the Civil War, and a man is to be hanged for sabotage. A noose is placed around his neck and he is dropped from the the bridge, but he escapes when the rope breaks. He runs away to wife, but just as he is reunited with her, the scene cuts to the bridge where the rope tightens on the man’s neck. The entire film had been in the condemned man’s mind. He had imagined his escape and reunion with his wife during the last seconds of his life. Jacob’s Ladder takes this premise, updates the film to the Vietnam War and expands on the idea, but where the central character in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge alternates between appreciating the beauty around him and the terror of making his escape, Jacob is plagued by demons as he clings to life.
http://turnmeondeadman.com/trippy-films-jacobs-ladder-1990/

So some good stuff in there. Yes his son had been killed by a car hitting him I think and it was one of the major things that Jacob was struggling with. This is probably why at the end he ascends the stairs with his son, who was also dead.

 

[MusterX]

In fact @Cubo de Sangre , that article got me interested enough that I looked for the Twilight Zone episode "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" based on the story by Ambrose Bierce, that Jacob's Ladder was based upon. Here is the episode, I'm going to watch it later, it only runs 23 minutes.