Jacob's Ladder (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jacob's Ladder | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Adrian Lyne |
| Produced by | Alan Marshall Bruce Joel Rubin |
| Written by | Bruce Joel Rubin |
| Starring | Tim Robbins Elizabeth Pena Danny Aiello Jason Alexander |
| Music by | Maurice Jarre |
| Cinematography | Jeffrey L. Kimball |
| Editing by | Tom Rolf |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
| Release date(s) | November 02, 1990 |
| Running time | 115 mins |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25 million[1] |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 psychological thriller directed by Adrian Lyne, based on a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin.
This movie was number 21 on the cable channel Bravo's list of the "100 Scariest Movie Moments".
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Tagline: The most frightening thing about Jacob Singer's nightmare is that he isn't dreaming.
The film opens on 6th October 1971. Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is a U.S. Air Cav soldier in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Helicopters pass overhead, carrying supplies for what appears to be preparation for a big Viet Cong offensive. Without any warning, Jacob's unit is ambushed and the soldiers try to take cover, but the battalion begins to exhibit strange behavior for no apparent reason. Jacob tries to escape the unexplained insanity, only to be bayonetted by an unseen enemy.
The film shifts between Vietnam, to Jacob's memories of his son Gabriel (Macaulay Culkin, uncredited) and former wife Sarah (Patricia Kalember), to his present relationship with a woman named Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña) in New York. During this time, Jacob faces several threats to his life and has several hallucinatory experiences. It is revealed that his son Gabriel was hit by a car and killed before Jacob went to Vietnam.
As the hallucinations become increasingly bizarre, Jacob learns about chemical experiments performed on U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. He is approached by a man named Michael Newman (Matt Craven), who claims to have been a chemist working with the Army's chemical warfare division in Saigon. He worked on creating a drug that increased aggression in soldiers. Tests of the drug (code-named "the ladder" in reference to the effect) were first given to monkeys and then to a group of Viet Cong POWs, with gruesome results. Later the ladder was given to Jacob's unit, through the platoons' C-rations. However, instead of targeting the enemy, the men in Jacob's battalion attacked each other indiscriminately.
Jacob's friend and chiropractor Louis (Danny Aiello) states the main thematic point of the film: in effect, hell is really purgatory, and those who are ready to let go of their lives do not find the experience 'hellish'.
We finally learn that Jacob never made it out of Vietnam; the entire series of experiences turns out to have been a dying hallucination. Jacob's experiences appear to have been a form of purgation in which he releases himself from his earthly attachments, finally joining his dead son Gabriel to ascend a staircase toward a bright light.
Because all of the movie's events are a dying hallucination related by an unreliable narrator, the film's plot is considered a variation on Ambrose Bierce's 1886 short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which was made into a short film in 1961 and later popularized as a 1964 episode of the television show, The Twilight Zone.
At the end of the film, a message states that the U.S. Army allegedly experimented with an hallucinogenic drug called BZ, but the Pentagon denies it.
[edit] Evaluation
[edit] "The Ladder"
Jacob is told that the horrific events he experienced on his final day in Vietnam were the product of an experimental drug called "The Ladder", which was used on troops without their knowledge. This is an ambiguous element in the film, particularly since Jacob is given the information by a character in his own imagination. He is told that the drug was named for its ability to cause "a fast trip straight down the ladder, right to the primal fear, right to the base anger", although the name "The Ladder" also has a metaphorical and religious significance beyond this, which is relevant to Jacob's predicament: it is notable that he ends his hallucination on a staircase. At the end of the film, a message is displayed mentioning the testing of a drug named BZ, Nato code for a potent deliriant and hallucinogen known as 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate that was rumored to have been administered to Vietnam troops by the government in a secret attempt to increase their fighting power. The effects of BZ, however, are different from the effects of the drug depicted in the film.
[edit] Effects
Director Adrian Lyne uses a technique, possibly the first of its kind, in which an actor is recorded waving their head around in fast motion. The scenes were shot at four frames per second and then played back at standard rate, making it look as if the person were experiencing remarkably powerful spasms of the head and neck. With this, Lyne takes advantage of a natural fear of the unknown by creating a disturbing and abnormal depiction of a human being and, in turn, adjusting the speed of the recording to be so fast that the sequence is only seen for a few seconds; therefore, it inspires an almost subliminal sense of fear or panic.
The effect is now more often generated by digitally removing frames from footage shot at a normal rate.
The horror videogame franchise Silent Hill borrows this technique in the third sequel of the game, although it is not seen in the Silent Hill movie. Other films to use the "fast-head" motion include Stir of Echoes, The Ring, Trauma, 1999's House on Haunted Hill, Dead Life, and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery when Austin Powers disables the Fembots.
The effect also shows up in an episode of Supernatural and in the X-Files Episode "Requiem", where it was applied to anyone entering the alien time distortion field in the Oregon woods. The music video for "Stupify" by Disturbed and the Marilyn Manson videos for "The Beautiful People" and "Personal Jesus" also use the technique.
[edit] Trivia
- It is suggested that Louis may actually be an angel; More specifically, Jacob's Guardian Angel. If so, it is ironic (and perhaps deliberate) that he is the only central character who does not have a Biblical name.
- Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin initially wanted the demonic and angelic symbolism to be more representative of popular imagery - devils with pitchforks and angels with feathered wings. However, Adrian Lyne decided it would be far more interesting and frightening with more vague and menacing demonic figures.
- Several scenes that were filmed did not make the final cut of the film. Some of these are included in the DVD special edition. (Two of them being of Jacob taking an antidote for "The Ladder" and the other resulting deleted scene is of a hallucination in the subway. A third one is of Jezebel showing what she truly is to Jacob.)
- When the screenplay was published in book form, Rubin and Lyne had not yet decided on a way to end the film. Each had a different vision of the final denouement, and the original filmed ending is the one included in the published screenplay. A vast portion of the screenplay is not included in the final cut of the film.
- A quote from Meister Eckhart was paraphrased in the denoument of the film: "Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: 'The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.'"
- There are no optical visual effects at all.
- Jacob Singer never appears in any hallucinations -- all of them are from Jacob's point of view.
- Scene in bathroom, in which Jacob screams "Stop it! You're killing me!" is sampled in song "Next In Line" by Seattle Progressive metal band Nevermore.
- The "Vietnam" scenes were actually filmed in Puerto Rico.
- The song is the basis of Iron Maiden's song "The Legacy" where the song intro is a three minute acoustic 'lullaby' which describes what is obviously a similar situation to the opening scene of Jacob's Ladder. The drug BZ is replaced with a 'strange yellow gas' which has 'played with their minds, reddened their eyes, removed all the lies'
- The line "If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on..." is used as the final words of the non-vocal version of the VNV Nation song "Forsaken".
- The band "Sun Caged" has a sample from this movie in the song "Hollow" on their self-titled first album.
- The album Psyence Fiction by the band UNKLE features the track "Rabbit in Your Headlights" (co-written by Radiohead's Thom Yorke), which also samples the aforementioned line.
- The movie is referenced in a song, "The Autumn Effect" by the band 10 Years.
- The movie is referenced in the 2002–2003 revival of The Twilight Zone in the episode, "Night Route". The episode has other similarities to the movie as well.
- For approximately 30 seconds, a boom microphone is visible on screen. This is a technical goof.
- Jacob's youngest son, Gab, is played by then child star Macaulay Culkin. Though Gab's death is integral to the story, Culkin's appearance is uncredited.
[edit] See also
- BZ - a real-life chemical warfare agent causing similar hallucinations; the film is alleged to dramatize military experiments in BZ use.
