04/10/2002 Entry:
"Jacob's Ladder - Adrian Lyne (1990)"

A frustrating film. So good and yet at the end so disappointing. First off, I was amazed that this was directed by the same guy who made Indecent Proposal, one of my most despised movies of all times. That was one of the only times I have ever walked out on a movie (well, it was on tape.) This film however captures its subject so well. It is shot and lit gorgeously. It judiciously uses odd camera angles to just the right effect, highlighting Tim Robbins' breaks from reality to just the right effect. Quick cuts and strobe lights highlight the perfectly done dance party seen. Like many of the best horror films, the creatures are more felt than seen. The incedental soundtrack just barely exists, coming in really just for highlights. On the other hand, after capturing a mood so perfectly throughout and really creating a feel that we were building up to something, the whole movie falls flat with an ending that was missing something essential and wraps everything up in a neat little package.

I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong with the ending until I started watching the documentary included on the DVD and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin discussed another scene at the end which got lopped off by Adrian Lyne. After seeing it in the deleted scenes I realized that THAT SCENE was what was missing, the final showdown between Tim Robbins and his demons. God I just got so angry, this is the Adrian Lyne I know and hate. Man this could have been so much better. I've been reading some reviews praising the ambiguity of this movie and how the ending is so open-ended, which just confuses me since in my mind the ending wrapped everything up and explained it perfectly. I have no problem with the ending per se, its a fine way to wrap everything up. It was just missing a climax, it just ended. You don't drag along an audience with a horror show for an hour and 45 minutes and then just drop them off with a kiss.

It was interesting watching how elements of this have turned up in other movies. The dance party sequence heavily reminded me of some of the techniques Aronofsky used in Requiem For A Dream (particularly the quick cuts with weird light, and the use of the strapon facing camera.) This also played a heavy hand in The Sixth Sense, more conceptually than anything. Interestingly enough, Shyamalan tried to do something similar to this ending in Sixth Sense but had the sense to cut it. Its weird to see a film like this, which really has been pretty underrated. Its not like I've ever heard much about it, certainly I was much more familiar with Lyne's other worse films. But its obviously had an influence on a lot of people. The commentary will hopefully be interesting, if I don't kill myself listening to Lyne's lilting British accent for two hours.

Oh there was this one really cool scene where they attached a camera to a shopping cart, and actually put a smaller wheel on it so that the wheel would be spinning around like it was broken. What a genius little move, it added the perfect feel to that scene. The kind of thing that works so well subliminally, and I'm completely unconvinced I would have ever come up with. This guy is obviously a talented and thoughtful director. Why such crap other than this? Maybe its a Fincher thing, another guy I'm completely rapidly becoming convinced only had one great movie in him.

Replies: 4 comments

looking for the review of Tilt. where is it? Posted by rudy @ 04/11/2002 03:38 PM CST

I don't know, when does it get released on DVD? Posted by gdd @ 04/11/2002 04:04 PM CST

i can't agree that any demon confrontation scene was necessary in this film. have you read the screenplay? I suggest giving it a look, the end is tripe. This film is not about jacob's story, it's about finding a way to die in peace after horrendous trauma. that last scene was a mistake, it put too much emphasis on the insanity aspect, which had already been very well addressed. it was time to come down. i also think this is not a horror story but a story of triumph by the soul over a life with a dark end. the difference between jacob's ladder as it was released and in screenplay form is that the released film speaks to real human fears and questions, where the screenplay speaks to little more than the twist-ended horror genre it would have neatly fit into. i think the lack of that scene in the release is what will make this film last in our minds. Posted by sc @ 04/22/2002 11:59 AM CST

I have not read the screenplay, however there was much discussion about the differences in the supplemental material on the DVD. I agreed with the vast majority of these choices - for instance, removing the gothic/traditional demon imagery in favor of more ambiguous and vreepy images. I think I probably mispoke my case above. My point was not to remove the existing ending and add the deleted one. I was thinking that the film needs the deleted ending inserted before the existing one. You are right, the movie is about a man's fight to come to terms with his own death. However, up until the point where you realize that, the movie is about him battling demons of some sort - we never really know until the end whether they are within or without. I felt that after all this time battling these images, trying to makes sense of them, that some closure was needed and that closure is not currently acheived. Additionally, the movie builds and builds and builds the suspense and feeling of unease and then just drops off the face of the Earth. One of the great rules of traditional screenwriting (and this is a very traditionally written movie despite its oddness) is that everything is done in three acts - introduction, conflict, resolution. There is no conclusion here, I felt the pace of the movie is thrown completely off by the current ending. I was actually going to take the deleted ending scene and make a tape with it edited in where I wanted it. Unfortunately the presentation of the scene on the DVD is such that I couldn't really strip it in nicely. Still, I am convinced that an ending like this - Robbins enters his old apartment, confronts the self-demon, breaks down on the couch, goes through the flashbacks, gets taken up the stairs by Gabe - would have been much more appropriate. Plus it would have a nice Prisoner homage, but thats just gravy. Posted by gdd @ 04/22/2002 09:07 PM CST