MovieChat Forums > Jacob's Ladder (1990) Discussion > Spoilers for sure (don't read if you hav...

Spoilers for sure (don't read if you haven't seen the film)

posted 10 years ago by MelancholyPonyAndTheCircusBoy
3 replies | jump to latest

I didn't like the reference to military testing of BZ, because it introduces a big flaw in the the story. The fact is he could never have known he was actually drugged, if in deed he ever was, since everything we see in this film is purely the product of his mind (except presumably the scenes in Asia and those scenes with his son Gabe that may be flashbacks). He is bayonetted and dying, sensing the existential threat, his mind wanders through a maze of paranoid delusion. He does the human thing, which is to recognise patterns in what is essentially just random noise, and invents conspiracy and persecution both very material straws at which his mind grasps desperately trying to make sense of what is senseless - his pointless death due to mistaken identity. Then again maybe he didn't die at all, at least not literally. Maybe the film is about a man on the verge of complete mental collapse after suffering prolonged post-traumatic stress disorder who can no longer separate past from present and develops extreme paranoia. In both case, the BZ reference just annoys me.

some other thoughts:

In the Bible, Jacob's Ladder exists only within a dream. It is seen as a metaphor for the human soul, which is a conduit for angels: here Jacob's ladder is his schizophrenic and/or imaginary post 'Nam life populated by demons. The drug and the chemist are figments of his imagination.

[–] KenMishima 10 years ago

The point of the BZ drug was to provide a backdrop for what "really" caused his death -- not being killed by a Vietcong or NVA soldier but being wasted by one of his own guys under the influence of the drug. The drug had little to do with what he saw/experienced as part of his dying hallucinations. And yes, he did quite literally die, hence him being shown being reunited with his deceased son, Gabriel (his name yet another allusion to the biblical character of the same name.)

The film takes some obvious liberties with the actual effects of the BZ drug, but the film was mainly conceived around ideas spawned from knowledge of the leaked reports about the government experimenting with on-field soldiers at the time.

[–] normkerr123 10 years ago

x2

plus, including that part of the story, actually ALL of the post war parts of the story, are a really interesting way to misguide us viewers about what is going on (the presence of the World Trade Center Towers in the opening shot, the mid '70s music in the soundtrack, and cars). Intriguing mis-direction.

Was it real? Did his soul, his life, proceed beyond that point, on a sort of borrowed time, as he fought against the angels come to lead him to his afterlife, for his personal timeline to sort of "snap back" to that moment when he "should have died", or was it all just a feverish dream while laying, dying, during the war?

The doctor's presence in the story provides a great way to add to the misdirection.

[–] spookyrat1 9 years ago

... because it introduces a big flaw in the the story. The fact is he could never have known he was actually drugged, if in deed he ever was, ...

It's not a flaw. There may well have been rumours about the possible effects of certain drugs, which he may have incorporated into his dreams, besides the distinct possibility that he was accidentally mortally wounded by an experimental subject.🐭