MovieChat Forums > Jacob's Ladder (1990) Discussion > works equally well without a supernatura...

works equally well without a supernatural interpretation

posted 8 years ago by Edward_de_Vere
6 replies | jump to latest

The screenwriter has said that he meant Jacob's ascent into Heaven and reunion with his son to be literal.

However, just taking what's on screen at face value, the film works equally well without any religious or supernatural interpretation. If we take the entire course of events to be fantasies, memories, and hallucinations in the mind of a dying man, and his final "ascent" to be accepting his own death and being at peace with it (without any afterlife), the movie still makes sense.

[–] SueCue (15) 6 years ago

No it doesn’t because Jacob in his dream knows things that he couldn’t possibly know in 1971 (the date of the battle where he was injured.)

He knows what fashions/music etc would look like in the mid-70s (Lady Marmalade for example, which was a big hit in 1975.)

He also knows about The Ladder— although he couldn’t possibly have known about it before he died.

He was being shown elements of the future by a higher power.

[–] kellycallie (728) 5 years ago

This is why it's difficult to get a full grasp of this movie. There are bits of it that go against the death dream and other moments that support it. I watched the movie about four times. Each time I get a different conclusion. I watched it again online recently and I really think it was a purgatory not only for Jacob but for the other men in his platoon as well. They weren't just characters in his ''dream'' they were genuinely interacting with each other in Purgatory. The guy who ''thought he was going to Hell'' who's car exploded probably did go there. What happened to most of the other men was uncertain. Either they transitioned to Hell, remained in purgatory or managed to go to Heaven like Jacob.

[–] BourbonKing (5777) 5 years ago

There are instances in the movie where the director/writer take a narrative cheat by showing characters outside of Jacob's presence which would imply that the world is literal and real, but as you pointed out it's possible that Jacob and the rest of his men are all in the same fake-life purgatory where they're trying to hold onto their real lives. The fact that we're in the mid 70s well after Jacob's incident in back in Indochina seems contradictory but if we buy into the supernatural idea of purgatory then Jacob could very well be living like a ghost in the purgatory realm.

I don't think any of his fellow veterans went to hell though. The ones who group called him to call off pursuing the lawsuit decided to continue living in their own private Hell so they may have taken longer to let go, unlike Jacob who still had a friend in Louis and a dead son who is trying to guide him home.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

No it doesn’t because Jacob in his dream knows things that he couldn’t possibly know in 1971 (the date of the battle where he was injured.) He knows what fashions/music etc would look like in the mid-70s (Lady Marmalade for example, which was a big hit in 1975.)

Exactly. This is a poorly executed mind bender. The reason why the movie had Jacob living in the 1970s was to fool the audience into thinking that everything he experienced was real. Better screenwriters would've done a more clever job of setting up their twist than just blatantly lying to the audience and saying, "Yes, it's the mid-1970s," and then going, "Oh, wait. It's not. This is before that time."

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I disagree. This is one of the worst mind benders ever created, and doesn't work well at all on any level. In a mind bender, you don't flat out lie or mislead audiences about what's really happening to set up your twist. This movie just lies right up until the "twist" is revealed.

[–] BourbonKing (5777) 5 years ago

Again, you're contradicting yourself. Every story that has a twist is predicated on a narrative deception. You cited Carnival of Souls in another thread but that movie lies to the audience by showing us that the girl survives but then starts to see ghouls and demons. Jacob's Ladder utilizes the same plot devices. You're just pretending to dislike the similarity but in fact stories about people living beyond their mortal bodies because they still think they're alive are as ancient as stories told by old scribes, not just modern literature.