“JACOB’S LADDER”
Screenplay Written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Directed by Adrian Lyne
This film truly worked me over.
I first saw Director Adrian Lyne’s horrifically disturbing psychological thriller “Jacob’s Ladder” at a special free sneak preview in college during the fall of 1990. While the film confounded me and its conclusion frustrated me, the experience as a whole, while profoundly unpleasant, was thrillingly unique as it altered my senses to such a degree that the real world appeared powerfully fractured afterwards. “Jacob’s Ladder” burrowed itself thoroughly under my skin and its aftertaste lingered for a disturbing lengthy period.
And yet, the film, after all of its power and psychological disorientation, once it reached its conclusion, felt to be oddly anti-climactic. Like the classic song, I also wondered if that was all there was to the film which contained a central mystery element that built upwards throughout the entire film. But over the years, and after re-watching it again days ago, I have realized that for all of its artful, hallucinogenic despair, which still remains highly effective, maybe I had been watching the film for the wrong messages all along.
For me, this cinematic selection for you to watch during the Halloween season is not one that I offer lightly as it is just not the type of film you would place into your DVD player for simple enjoyment. “Jacob’s Ladder” is a difficult film. A confounding film as well as polarizing. A film filled with mounting dread and unease. That said, I offer this to you because I felt this film to be sort of a natural progression from the previous “Savage Cinema Revisits” installment as John Cusack, star of “1408” (2007) has held a long running working relationship and off screen friendship with Tim Robbins, star of “Jacob’s Ladder.” Furthermore, I thought it was time to raise the stakes, so to speak, as the level of intensity contained in “Jacob’s Ladder” is considerably more wrenching than anything in the decidedly more entertaining “1408.” Ultimately, “Jacob’s Ladder” is a terrifying triumph for Lyne, who truly worked well outside of his comfort zone of adult relationship dramas (most notably 1987’s “Fatal Attraction” and 1993’s “Indecent Proposal”) when he took on this project. The artistic stretch served him extremely well as over 20 years later, “Jacob’s Ladder” still packs an undeniably frightening punch.
Set in 1971, Tim Robbins stars as Jacob Singer, a New York mail carrier and honorably discharged Vietnam veteran trapped inside of an increasingly weakening grip upon reality. Without rhyme or reason, Jacob is plagued by mystifying and horrific hallucinations starring all manner of disfigured demons that gruesomely beckon towards him. Worse, are the moments in his life, like when he attempts to visit a doctor in a Veteran’s hospital as well as another sequence when he attends a house party and has his palm read that his entire existence comes into shockingly profound question.
As Jacob’s life becomes more unhinged and threatens to completely unravel, the film shifts rapidly between his battles and injury in Vietnam, his life with his children and ex-wife Sarah (Patricia Kalembar), the tragic loss and mourning of his son Gabe (an unbilled Macauley Culkin) and his new sexually charged romance with postal office employee, Jezebel (Elizabeth Pena), otherwise known as “Jezzy.” His sole solitude and soothing counsel arrives in the form of Louis (Danny Aiello), Jacob’s kindly chiropractor, who may possibly carry all of the answers to which Jacob seeks.
Adrian Lyne’s “Jacob’s Ladder” is a very special film for a few reasons. First of all, like “1408,” it is a film that transcends the horror film genre by having much more on its mind than just providing shocks and scares. The film is also strongly anchored by a sensitive and bravely harrowing leading performance by Robbins. I also enjoyed the interplay between Robbins and Elizabeth Pena, who both carried a completely natural feeling sexual chemistry that gave the film additional depth to its intimacy. Major compliments must be given to Cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball who gives the film an ominous cloudiness yet is also tough and gritty. Additionally, the visual effect Lyne utilizes for certain demons here and there in which their heads whip back and forth in a squeamishly fast vibration is deeply memorable.
Lyne beautifully handles the demanding structure of Bruce Joel Rubin’s screenplay with incredible skill as well. For a film that carries somewhat of a fractured narrative, it does indeed have a definitive beginning, middle and end which is strongly held in place by Tim Robbins. We experience nearly every moment at the point he experiences them, therefore we are just as disoriented as he is. Jacob Singer is often shown falling in and out of consciousness. We experience flashbacks, memories, dreams that may be real, real moments that may be dreams, lives that may even be running concurrently and everything builds to a crescendo that is extremely and appropriately soul stirring.
Yet, as I stated previously, I was…shall we say…under whelmed by the conclusion when I first saw the film. The spiritual element seemed to be harshly tacked onto the psychological thriller element as well as the central conspiracy that Jacob feels that he and his Vietnam comrades have unwittingly been placed into. But as I watch the film now, I realize that the spirituality of the film is not an element but the entirety. In “Jacob’s Ladder” the conspiracy and the thriller aspect serves and augments the soul searching and the conclusion no longer feels like an arbitrary answer to a maddeningly enigmatic puzzle the film had set up for us from the opening moments. And to think, Lyne and Rubin have it all placed in front of us from the start. They even have it set up for us from the film’s title! But, in 1990, I just did not see it that way. Maybe viewing an experience like television’s “Lost” has me better prepared for “Jacob’s Ladder” now. And to that new realization, perhaps “Jacob’s Ladder” was a film daringly ahead of its time.
In short, “Jacob’s Ladder” is a story about death, dying and the intense struggle for the soul to ascend, which would make sense as Rubin has specialized in stories that involve death, grief and what possibly lies beyond this material world. In a career where Rubin has provided the story for Douglas Trumbull’s ambitious 1983 film “Brainstorm” (starring Natalie Wood in her final performance) and wrote the screenplays for Jerry Zucker’s 1990 box office behemoth “Ghost” and 1993’s “My Life” (which Rubin also directed), “Jacob’s Ladder” is his most grueling work by far. Under Lyne’s nightmarishly atmospheric direction, the film works as a spiritual allegory yet it is presented as a horror show.
Biblical references and images are scattered throughout the film. Demons, real, imagined, fantastical and decidedly human, constantly leer and lunge at poor Jacob and I loved how Lyne kept those images decidedly less mythological, briefly depicted and more urban, as if New York itself is a stand in for Hell as no one, not even a street corner Santa Claus, can be trustworthy. The personality of Jezzy shifts and alters from scene to scene and at points, from moment to moment. She is sometimes loving, and she is sometimes wrathful. On the flip side, Jacob even describes Louis as an “angel” at one point.
Yet, since this is a horror show, the film’s most strikingly upsetting sequences are the ones that play up the thriller aspects. One strong section involves Jacob, in the throes of a 106 degree fever yet he feels as if he is freezing, is tossed into an ice bath by Jezzy and their neighbors. Each ice cube that is added to the bath feels as painful as a gunshot. But Lyne saves all of his cinematic gusto for the later jaw dropping section, which has to be Jacob descending to Hell itself. Strapped to a gurney after a back injury, Jacob is helplessly wheeled lower and lower inside of the hospital you hope that you would never be admitted into. The décor is littered with blood splattered walls and floors, filthy padded rooms, discarded severed limbs and for the coup de grace, a hulking, eyeless lobotomist awaits with a syringe. That scene is the film’s showstopper as it still makes me want to curl up into the fetal position and quietly wish for the madness to all go away.
Jacob Singer’s tumultuous journey is an unconventional Halloween film pick as it is more about a soul in anguish and transformation rather than the standard bumps in the night. But, when you think about it, and I mean really think about it, what can potentially be more frightening than leaving all you have ever known to voyage into the unknown?
“Jacob’s Ladder” is one hell of an experience that just may literally shake your soul.
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