Jacob's Ladder (movie) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 film with Tim Robbins as a postal worker who fought in Vietnam and who 15 years later is haunted by horrifying visions. The film has a surprise ending and, in concept, could be considered a predecessor of such films as The Sixth Sense and The Others. It has also inspired certain concepts in the survival horror series Silent Hill.
As the film opens, Jacob Singer is serving in Vietnam; his unit comes under attack and Jacob is stabbed in the stomach with a bayonet.
The remainder of the film cycles Jacob through a series of disorienting and occasionally phantasmagorical experiences in such a way that it is hard to tell which, if any, are veridical. In one 'stream' of experiences, he is separated from his wife Sarah (Patricia Kalember) and in a relationship with a woman named Jezebel (Elizabeth Peņa); in another, he is still married to Sarah. He also faces several apparent threats to his life, and it is gradually revealed that his young son Gabriel died (hit by an automobile) before Jacob went to Vietnam.
As the oneiric/hallucinatory experiences become more and more bizarre, in one stream of experiences Jacob learns about some chemical experiments performed on U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. It finally emerges that, according to one character who claims to have been a chemist working on the project in question, Jacob's unit was exposed to a small amount of a chemical (the 'Ladder') designed to turn them into maniacal killers; the chemical apparently sent them all into a murderous frenzy and they killed each other.
In the final scene, however, we appear to learn that Jacob never in fact made it out of Vietnam; the entire series of experiences turns out to have been a dying hallucination (in the manner of Ambrose Bierce's short story 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge').
His experiences are apparently not merely hallucinatory, though, since some of his 'flashforwards' incorporate elements from the actual future (the LaBelle song 'Lady Marmalade', for example). So perhaps we are to conclude that some of Jacob's 'hallucinations' -- among them, perhaps, those involving the secret chemical project -- were veridical experiences of the actual future (or at least of the 'actual' future Jacob would have experienced had he lived).
However this may be, Jacob's friend and chiropractor Louis (played by 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'. Whether veridical or otherwise, Jacob's experiences thus appear to be 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.
It is suggested occasionally that Louis may actually be an angel; if so, it is ironic (and probably deliberate) that he is the only central character who does not have a Biblical name. This is an Article on Jacob's Ladder (movie). Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Jacob's Ladder (movie) Plot summary