Jacob's Ladder (1990)

[00:00:20] Speaker A: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the final Girl on 6th Avenue podcast. [00:00:25] Speaker B: My name is. My name is Carolyn Smith Hillmer, and I am 6th Avenue's very own final girl. [00:00:30] Speaker A: And today we're going to be talking about perhaps the most upsetting, I would say, in terms of emotion movie that. [00:00:43] Speaker B: I've covered so far. [00:00:45] Speaker A: So for that, I'm very sorry. But as per usual, you can always just turn it off if it doesn't meet your fancy. So today we're going to be talking about 1990 film Jacob's ladder. Jacob's ladder is rated r with a 1 hour, 53 minutes runtime. Yes, it's a little lengthy. Directed by Adrian Lynn, written by Bruce Joel Rubin, starring Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello, and many, many other talented people. Looking at IMDb, our Bible, right. We're going to read here the perhaps the most revealing description that might have ever been posted on here. Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam war veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death. And the tagline of the film is, the most frightening thing about Jacob Singer's nightmare is that he isn't dreaming. So that's that. There's really not a nice way to start this off. But one fun fact for you, Adrian Lin might be a familiar sounding director's name because it's the same director as fatal attraction. So if you're a fatal attraction fan, then that might be a familiar name to you, and you might quite like the cinematography style. So let's jump right in. The title screen is immediately presented, which is great because Adrienne Lynn's not afraid and she is bold, or they're bold, and they are going to have the title screen immediately. We don't need to wait. Our film opens with wartime footage of Vietnam helicopters roaring in the orange sky, a military camp with Americans trying to, like, lift their spirits or joking around, when out of nowhere, it seems this american military unit is under attack. Such is war, I suppose. Jacob's fellow men are killed, wounded. They have kind of abnormal behaviors that they're exhibiting. And Jacob tries to flee to safety through the jungle, which I don't know that that would have been my course of action, but that is the course that Jacob took. Unfortunately, he is met with another human in the jungle and is stabbed with a bayonet. When Jacob comes to, though, he's on a subway, which, like, I would like to make a perhaps poorly and rather off color joke here about how the subway is a war in and of itself, but I don't know that that would land. So we're going to keep it at that. The subway can be a very dangerous place as well. He's fallen asleep on the subway, which I always find it incredibly. You know, you have to be a good sleeper to, like, be able to fall asleep on the subway. That's only happened to me, like, maybe once. And I think I was asleep for three minutes total, and I was with another person, and they woke me up. So he's on the train, and he's trying to ask this woman that he finds on the train as well if they've already passed his stop on Bergen street. But instead of answering him, she just stares at him with, like, her eyes super, super wide open and doesn't even blink or anything. So he sits down, and there's a homeless man sleeping on the train car. And Jacob sees a tentacle like protrusion coming from this man's body. And he exits the train at the next stop very quickly, which, thankfully for him, is the stop that he wanted. It's Bergen street. But as he tries to exit the subway station on the same side that he got off at, he notices that the exit is locked and he can't leave. So he tries to walk across the train tracks or the subway tracks to get to the other side to attempt to use that exit. But when he is on the train tracks, which is. Folks, this is never a good idea. Like, I know this is a movie, but, like, people actually go out and try this shit. Like, just don't. Like, it's not worth it. It doesn't make sense. Like, nothing good can possibly come from you walking across train tracks of any kind, ever. So anyways, he's walking across the train tracks. Well, lo and behold, a subway comes because, you know, they run every, like, 30 fucking seconds. So a subway comes in, and he narrowly escapes. And while he's on the ground on the side of the track between the platform and the actual track, he looks up. And in the windows of the train, the passengers have their hands and their faces pressed against the glass of the windows. Like, almost like they're taunting him. But they also look like gray, and they don't look real. Like, real people. They are just moving, um, like, along with the train. Jacob, soon after, thankfully, arrives home at his apartment in Brooklyn, which is a slightly rundown apartment. But, hey, I don't see anything wrong with it. It's clean. It has everything he needs. He lives with his girlfriend, whose name is Jezebel. I gonna talk about that later, but, like. [00:06:52] Speaker B: What a. [00:06:53] Speaker A: What an odd name. [00:06:54] Speaker B: Like, I understand the context of why. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Excuse me, why that decision was made. [00:07:00] Speaker B: But, like, it's just an odd name. [00:07:04] Speaker A: For movie character, so I'm gonna shorten. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Her name to Jez. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Anyhow, Jez starts peppering him, like, immediately. He walks to the door. She's, like, all over him with questions. And he explains that he was gone for so long because his, like, person who was supposed to help him at work or was supposed to take the next shift called out sick. And so he decided to keep working and get some overtime. He's a postal worker. We get a flashback of him while he's in the shower, rolling around in the jungle after being stabbed. He's then awoken by the sun coming in through the windows of his bedroom. And Jez throws a brown paper bag at him and says that it's from the kids, one of the kids, but she can never remember their names because they're all biblical names. So they finally land on the name Eli. So they know this Eli. She explains that Jacob's wife was going to toss them out, and so he opens the paper bag, and it is just a bunch of photos. And instead of throwing them out, they were brought to Jacob by Eli, which is one of his sons that he had with his ex wife. So they find a photo of Jacob. They're sifting through all the pictures. They find a photo of Jacob and Sarah together. Sarah is Jacob's ex wife. And Jez says, no wonder why he left, because she looks like a real bitch, which is just exactly what you want to tell yourself, your partner, about their. [00:08:44] Speaker B: Their ex. [00:08:44] Speaker A: That's always a good idea. So eventually, after sifting through some photos for some time, Jacob finds a photo of his son Gabe, and he begins to cry. So Gabe died before Jacob went to Vietnam in an accident. And Joe's manages to grab all of the photos except for the one of Gabe and throws them into the incinerator. But Gabe, that photo of him lands safely in Jacob's wallet so that he can carry it around with him. Apparently, Jez and Jacob work together because at the post office, he tells her that he's gonna leave. He's at work, they're both working, but he's gonna leave because his back hurts. And he's gonna go see his chiropractor named Louie. Louis tells Jacob that he saw Sarah recently and that, yes, her knee is still bothering her. He tells Jacob that Sarah never stops talking about him. And we find out throughout this conversation that Jacob actually went on to get a PhD, but decided to work in the post office instead because he's tired of using his brain, tired of thinking he doesn't want to use his brain to work. He has a flashback of Vietnam again after the chiropractor makes his last adjustment. And Louis says it was a deep adjustment. He really had to get in there. Jacob tells Louis that he looks like an angel or like an overgrown cherub. Jacob leaves, and he's walking along when a group of teenagers start to sing to him. They're basically teasing him about being a postman, which is fine. He thinks it's all in good spirits. He laughs like he's not upset by this at all. He turns a corner to go down an alleyway, and when he does this, a car starts chasing him, aggressively trying to hit him, but he escapes. And as the car goes by, he sees, like, these people that are in the car, but they're twitching, like vibrating almost. And they're like they don't have a face, like, they don't have eyes or a nose. They don't really have facial features. So he decides that he needs to go see his doctor at the VA hospital. So he arrives. The nurse doesn't seem to know who this doctor is number one, and tells Jacob that there's no record of him ever being a patient at that hospital. So Jacob does what any rational person would do and starts to scream at the nurse and knock things off of her table and her desk. And when she bends down to pick them up because, like, why the fuck are you doing that? Her hat comes off. And he sees that she has something that looks like a, like the growth of a horn coming out of the top of her head. So Jacob decides he's going to run through the facility to find his doctor's office. When he arrives in the room that used to be occupied by his doctor's office, he finds a large group of people in there instead. And a staff member in that room takes Jacob out in the hallway and explains to him that the doctor he came to see died in a car accident in which the car exploded. Isn't that nice? That's a nice mental image you want of the doctor that you're trying to go see. So later, Jacob attends a party thrown by some friends. He goes to grab a beer from the fridge and notices a sheep head, raw, wrapped in, you know, plastic wrap on a plate, just hanging out in the fridge next to the beer. That's enough to freak me the fuck out. I don't know about you guys. There's a psychic at the party, though, who starts to read Jacob's palms on the stairs. And they go through a couple things, like, oh, like, this line means that you're married. Oh, but this line means that you're divorced. I like that. So she starts to, like, flirt with him, and then one of the lines in his palm reveals that he's already dead. He laughs it off like it's some kind of joke and goes to find Jez on the dance floor because she asked him to come dance. And he says he doesn't really want to, but he still gives it his best effort, which we can always respect. A man who tries. And he walks away from her, leaves her in this crowd. As she starts to, like, dance with other people. He looks across the room and he sees a man watching the party, like, just hanging out from across the room, who starts to move erratically, like, same vibrating and, like, jump emotions that he saw of the people in the car. So he gets startled, as you would, and he goes to walk back through the party, and he has his glasses knocked off, so he's on the floor trying to find them. And when he does, the strobe lights that are at the party start to get, like, really intense. And he sees some type of rather large tentacle like thing penetrating Jez on the dance floor, and he. He collapses. So back at home, Jez starts to scold him for his screaming and abnormal behavior at the party, which is, I mean, just primo girlfriend material. That's exactly what you want. [00:14:40] Speaker B: So she goes to take his temperature. [00:14:42] Speaker A: And he has an extraordinarily high fever. Like, he asks her what number is his temperature, and she says, I don't know, it's all the way at the top. So, like, 106. She calls a doctor, and then she does what no one should ever do. I wanted to again. Same as the walking across the subway tracks. Put this in here as like, a cautionary do not ever fucking do this, or let me find out that you do this, especially to one of your. A child. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Okay? [00:15:16] Speaker A: Don't ever do this. She decides that the best way to bring the fever down is to put him in a bathtub with ice and cold water. I want to be making this up so badly. I promise it has significance later, but, like, don't ever do that. She said that the doctor said he would die on the way to the hospital if they tried to transport him. So he keeps telling her he's freezing, like, he doesn't want to get in the bathtub because he's so cold, he doesn't want to get out of bed. And so Jez decides to go to the neighbors to get more ice. All of the neighbors on their floor give ice, and they come into the apartment to get him in the tub, and they essentially pick him up and hold him there in the bathtub as people start to pour ice cubes all over him. And he's obviously screaming. He's like, you guys are killing me. Like, I'm going to die because you're killing me. He then, from what I can only assume, goes unconscious. And he has a vision of a life in which he still lives with Sarah. So like his old life, he wakes up in bed next to Sarah to shut the window to their bedroom and complains about how cold he is. He tells her that the window must remain closed and if she really wants some fresh air, she can sleep on the fire escape. That's nice. He tells her that he had a dream where he was living with another woman. And Sarah says she doesn't want to know who it is, but he tells her anyway. It's Jez from the post office, the one that she met at the Christmas party. He goes on to say that it was a nightmare that he was having and that there were demons and that he was burning and was burning from ice. This happy mental image, of course, includes his deceased son Gabe, where he tucks his son into bed at night and he gets to spend some time with him and XYZ. But nevertheless, it's going to be interrupted because good morning from Vietnam. That's where he is again now in his mind. And we get the first person perspective of Jacob after he has been stabbed with a bayonet. He is eventually discovered by fellow american men and evacuated via helicopter that is also under attack. The next morning, Jacob wakes up. I guess his fever has gone down appropriately after his ice bath experience. And Jez tells him that he was kicking and screaming and kept saying Sarah closed the window and was talking to each of his kids. She says that they went through 50 pounds of ice and that the doctor says that he has a virus and that he's lucky that his brains didn't boil. At the dining room table, Jacob looks through a sort of like, demonology book or book about hell, perhaps an illustrated copy of the divine comedy. I'm not entirely, entirely sure. But anyway, it has graphic images of hell. So Jez tries to get him out of the apartment. She's in the kitchen. She's telling him to go to a movie or take a walk or just do anything to enjoy himself because someone should be enjoying themselves in their household. And he doesn't answer because he's kind of, you know, deep in thought over this book he's looking at. So she gets in his face and screams at him, and he pushes her away. So she's like, you know what? This has been going on for two weeks. And if you don't want to do anything, you can just rot. If you want to, you can just rot here. After she leaves her work, Jacob gets a call from an old friend named Paul who tells Jacob that he needs to see him. So they meet up at a local dive bar, and Paul tells Jacob that he's suffering from basically similar symptoms and experiences as Jacob. And he didn't know who else to talk to. He explains that there are people and things coming after him, and he doesn't know who to trust anymore. He says he has nowhere to go. And Jacob tells Paul that he knows what he's talking about because he's seen them, too. Paul reveals that he's been carrying around a small Bible and a rosary, but he says that it doesn't help because nothing helps. Paul asks why they won't like the government, I guess, won't tell their platoon what happened that night of the Vietnam incident in which Jacob was stabbed. As they exit the bar, Paul gets into his car, turns the key, and the car explodes. There's a lot of exploding cars. Flashback again to the helicopter transport in Vietnam. Back in real time, a man from inside the bar comes out to check on Jacob and pull him away from the fire, but then runs off. After Paul's funeral, other members from Paul and Jacob's platoon commiserate and confess to one another that they're all suffering essentially from hallucinations, except for one guy, but he doesn't really matter. They decide that they're going to hire an attorney after they all decide that they're suffering from being test subjects of a secret military experiment, obviously without their knowledge and consent. Unfortunately for our comrades here, their attorney drops the case after uncovering that these men never participated in combat. They never saw it. And in fact, they were all discharged from military service. They were honorably discharged for psychological reasons. And this all comes from the, you know, documentation from the military that their lawyer obtains. And it's really difficult to take this attorney seriously because it is literally the same actor that plays George Costanza in Seinfeld. And that, to me, makes it difficult to take him with any seriousness at all. I digress. All of Jacob's fellow comrades drop the case as well. They no longer want to pursue it. And so Jacob thinks that the government has been contacting the members of his unit to silence them. Jacob confronts his now former attorney at the New York Supreme Court building and is then kidnapped by two men in suits and thrown into a car. These kidnappers are trying to intimidate him by telling him that they've been following him for quite some time. And they basically say, we know that what you've been saying. We know that you're going around spreading rumors about the military and the army, and hopefully this will teach you not to do that anymore. The military, for you, was part of another life. They beat him up some more while they're in the car, and he starts to fight back, which results in a lot of property damage as the driver of the car starts swerving and veering off into other cars. And, yeah, that would be a mighty insurance claim. He finally makes his way out of the open door of the moving car and lands next to a Salvation Army Santa Claus that steals his wallet and leaves him virtually unassisted completely. Jacob then arrives at the hospital stating that he cannot move, but he needs his chiropractor. There's some discussion amongst hospital personnel that, you know, he slipped on the pavement and might have hit his head. He tells the doctor he has no id because Santa Claus stole it. That obviously is not a helpful sentence in any shape or form. And that he needs to get it back because there's a photo of his son inside the wallet, so he doesn't even care if he gets anything else back. He would simply like the photo of his son back. Jacob continuously asks for his chiropractor, but to no avail. There is no chiropractor showing up. Also, this is the most jank looking hospital I've ever seen in my life. And so things are about to get real. He passes out, and the doctor's like, okay, take him to x ray, whatever we need to make sure nothing is broken. Being taken to x ray must be a fucking code for something else, because then he's being escorted, like, outside in through an alleyway that's full of puddles of water. I mean, all while he's still on his gurney. And then through a filthy, disgusting facility. [00:24:50] Speaker B: And its. [00:24:54] Speaker A: Intention is to appear as a hospital. Like the worst hospital you could ever imagine. Like hospital from hell. Think like Silent Hill, you know, esque. Or, I don't even fucking know, like a saw movie. I mean, it's horrible. And so they're wheeling him through, and there's people everywhere, and, like, it's like, as they continue to wheel him throughout the hospital to get to their final destination, the things that he sees become more and more grotesque and more and more just horrific. So, like, it starts with, like, this little girl, and she's, like, laying on the floor, and that's kind of, like, whatever. And then it continues to, you know, someone actually multiple people who are, like, crawling on their hands and knees and screaming and acting erratically. There's somebody in a straitjacket. There's a woman nursing a baby somehow, and then the floor starts to have more and more blood on it, like, pools of it, and it's kind of dripping like it's fresh. And then they continue to roll him, and then there's just body parts, loose organs bloody on the floor. There's cut off arms and cut off hands and limbs, and just, like, everything, it's disgusting. And then he passes through, like, one final thing, which appears to be a man with no arms and no legs whose face is being covered by a mask. And he's, like, being stabilized on some sort of, like, podium like contraption, keeping him upright. And he's, like, shaking a lot and vibrating like the other people he's been seeing. And so they get him to his final destination, which is basically, it's an operating theater, more or less. So he's strapped down completely to the bed. And Jez is one of his nurses, I mean, girlfriend of the fucking years. She not only works at the post office, but she's also a nurse. And there's tons of, like, hospital personnel in this room, and they are preparing to basically do surgery. Jacob says he's alive. And the doctor says, if you're alive, then why are you here? Jacob says, I gotta get out of here. And the doctor says, there is no out of here. You're already dead. A faceless doctor then puts a giant needle through Jacob's. I'm pretty sure he's meaning to put it through his amygdala. So he wakes up in a normal hospital room. Sarah and his other children are around, and they come to say hi and check on their, you know, their former patriarch of their family. And he tells Sarah that he's not dead. He's alive. He's expected to make a recovery in roughly a month. And it appears that, you know, his back was not the only thing injured, because his legs are also in casts and everything. And he hears a deep voice from another end of the room, and that voice says, dream on. Louis shortly thereafter arrives at the hospital and stirs up an absolute craze, threatening hospital staff and telling them that the treatment of Jacob is so barbaric that they should just tie him at the stake and burn him alive. He wheels Jacob out of the hospital and takes him to his office. Louie starts to prepare to make chiropractic adjustments, and Louie tells him that he has a slipped disc and that if he were to die from that, he would be the first person ever to die from having a slipped disc in the back. Jacob tells him that he was in hell and that he doesn't want to die. So Louis asks Jacob if he ever read Meister Eckhart. And when Jacob says no, louis questions how he was even able to get a PhD without reading it. Those of you that have a PhD out there, could you let me know if that's a requirement for all PhDs to read? Does every PhD student or candidate have to read the same thing? I don't think so. I think this Louis guy is full of shit. So he begins to quote Eckhart. Louie does, and says that Eckhart saw hell too, and said, the only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of life. Your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they're not punishing you. They're freeing you of your soul. So if you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you've made your peace. Then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth. Louis apparently is like God or Jesus Christ incarnate because he somehow went from having, like, two broken legs and, like, his whole body in a cast to being able to just walk again with no issues. And Louie makes sure to make it a point to say hallelujah. Back at home, Jacob finds a box that says golden eagle on it, and he opens it up to find photos from his military service, his military paperwork, including his honorable discharge, his degrees, and some bullets, and his dog tags. He finds a. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Sorry. [00:30:53] Speaker A: He finds two dog tags. He finds a written note from Gabe and has flashbacks of teaching Gabe how to ride a bike. And then one day, Gabe is on the street and dismounts from his bike to pick up some baseball cards that he dropped. It is at this point that he is hit by a car and killed. Jacob looks up and sees a vision of Gabe running in the apartment in the mirror. But when he goes to touch the mirror, he's interrupted by a vibrating man with no face, screaming. Jez comes home and scares the shit out of him. And she's like, where have you been? It's been two days. I didn't know where you were. And he's like, oh, I was in the hospital. And she's like, okay, which fucking hospital were you at? Because I called every hospital in the city, and I couldn't find you. Then the phone starts to ring, and Jez answers the phone, even though Jacob tells her not to. And the man on the other end of the phone says that he was part of a chemical warfare experiment in Saigon in 1968. So Jacob takes the phone, he repeats this information to Jacob, and they set up a meeting place. And Jacob's like, well, how will I know who you are? And the man says, you already know me. So Jez begs him not to go meet this man, but he gives her a hug and tells her that he's very sorry. At the meeting place, Jacob meets a man named Michael Newman. Michael tells Jacob that he's been following him from a distance because Jacob is one of the survivors. Michael has been following him and is the same man that pulled him away from Paul's burning car. They go on a walk, and Michael tells him that essentially he was just some hippie guy who was making LSD and got caught by the feds, and he went to Rikers island. But he was released to work with the military to design a mind altering drug in Saigon. He was supposed to design a drug that increased aggression and anger because the army felt like the men that they employed essentially were too soft. This drug is called the latter. It taps into primal fear and the very base of anger. And they did experiments on it with jungle monkeys and then later on, prisoners of war. And Michael recounts the horrific experiences of what these monkeys and what these men, or prisoners, excuse me, did during their time on the drug. So then Jacob's unit was given a dose of the latter in secret before their last offensive that was supposed to be conducted. However, this sent them into a homicidal rage, which led to them turning on one another. The attack that Jacob remembers was not actually inflicted on them by their opponent, but rather their own men. Jacob has a flashback of his stabbing again, in which he finally sees that he was stabbed by one of his own men. Jacob gets into a taxi and gives the man all of the money he has left to take him to Brooklyn, and he goes home. And when I say home, I say home. Home, meaning to the place that he used to share with Sarah, where he finds his son Gabe. And hand in hand, they walk up a staircase into a bright light. And this gorgeous sight turns into yet another horrific flashback of Jacob in a triage tent on base where military doctors declare that he is dead. The doctors remove one of his dog tags and note that he put up a good fight, but that this was it. He looked peaceful in his death. And there is a note at the end of the film that references the drug Bz, which was reportedly used in some sort of experiment that I will touch on later to incapacitate people during wartime. And that is the film Jacob's ladder. [00:35:20] Speaker B: Uplifting story. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Right. So now let's get into the portion where we ask ourselves, what does it all mean? [00:35:31] Speaker B: Okay, so, frankly, there's a lot at play here. So I think I'm going to try to keep this brief, and I'm not going to touch on everything. Like, I can't because this would be like a 17 Hours podcast if I did that. And I'm sorry, but I just don't think that that's worth anybody's time, unless I became some sort of theologician or someone who earns a PhD in religious studies. But starting with the obvious. Let's do that. The title, right, which is Jacob's ladder. It's a very obvious reference. Jacob's ladder is referencing an event in the Book of Genesis, in the Bible, in which a ladder that connected heaven and earth was, you know, was dreamt of by Jacob. And Jacob, who was later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in abrahamic religions. Jacob first appears in the Book of Genesis, originating from the hebrew tradition in the Torah. So that gives us the metaphor through which the film is based. Right. The allegory. We have Jacob, our main character, who is not. He's just simply not able to come to terms with the fact that he is dead. Right. And it's almost like I don't really feel like the director or the writer did a, you know, intentional job at letting us know that Jacob was dead throughout the film. I think it was, like, intentionally meant to be kind of ambiguous because, like, we see that he gets stabbed in Vietnam at the beginning, but then he ends up in subway station. So, like, we can kind of conceive that potentially he. He lived through that unfortunate event. So that's where I think it's easiest to start. Now, we can also look at the fact that his girlfriend's name is Jezebel and in the dream that he has that whenever he's laying in bed next to Sarah and his fever vision that. [00:38:14] Speaker A: He'S having in the bathtub. He's talking about how it was such. [00:38:18] Speaker B: A nightmare, how this Jezebel woman was a nightmare to him. Well, given that we know that Jacob, the character is a metaphor for Jacob from the Bible, being in a romantic relationship with Jezebel would. Would actually be a true nightmare. So Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, who ruled the kingdom of Israel. And essentially, she. She fucked some things up for a long time. Okay? She essentially interfered with the exclusive worship of the hebrew God and did so by defying prophets and disregarding rights of the common people, and has since become the archetype of a wicked woman. And, you know, you can kind of see as such, whenever she almost reminds me of, like, a Lilith like character as well. I'll just throw that out there. But whenever Jacob receives the photos in the brown paper bag of his former family, she immediately throws them out, because he is, like, reminiscing and, like, holding these really tight emotions towards these photos. And rather than focusing on her and worshiping her, he's showing some sort of love and adornment for other people, and this pisses her off. So she throws the photos in the incinerator. Okay. Like, that's a pretty. Pretty blatant example of the types of, I assume, actions of Jezebel, as she was known as the queen of Israel. Now, when we're thinking about Lilith, I don't mean that she reminds me of Lilith in the sense that she, you know, wanted to be seen as an equal to her partner, Adam, and therefore became angry. I'm only talking about the fact that she's also a stereotype or an archetype of the scorned, evil woman. That's all I mean by that. So don't read too deep into that. And then I was kind of thinking, like, okay, now we're talking about, you know, this man. [00:40:55] Speaker A: He went to war. [00:40:56] Speaker B: He came home. Obviously, all of this must be related to him having PTSD, right? He saw horrific things. He suffered a great injury of his own. [00:41:11] Speaker A: You know, these are all things that I don't feel like are out of. [00:41:14] Speaker B: The ordinary for someone in this. In this capacity, in this service. And so, just to give you an idea, the VA actually has, regardless of. We're not talking about what our opinions are of the VA and how it can be better right now. We're only talking about the resources that they have published online. So I will say this. The VA has great published resources online, taken directly from the VA website. You can look up symptoms and development cases of PTSD. It shows here that there are four types of distinct PTSD symptoms, and to be diagnosed, you need to have each type. That said, everyone experiences these symptoms in their own way, and I will relay these to you now. Number one, reliving the event, also called re experiencing symptoms. You may have nightmares. You may feel like you're going through the event again, which is called a flashback. You may see, hear, or smell something that causes you to relive the event. This is called a trauma reminder cue or trigger. News reports seeing an accident or hearing fireworks are examples of trauma reminders. Yes, I will go ahead and throw it out there. Jacob certainly has these things. He has flashbacks out the ass throughout the whole movie. You never, ever can fucking get through anything without him having a flashback. And when he sees the accident, the car accident of Paul, where the car explodes, there again, he has a flashback. So that was a very obvious trauma reminder. Number two, avoiding things that remind you of the event. You may avoid crowds because they feel dangerous. You may avoid driving if you were in a car accident or if your military convoy was bombed if you were in an earthquake. You may avoid watching movies about earthquakes. You may keep very busy or avoiding getting help so you don't have to think or talk about the event. I don't know, other than I did see him avoid crowds. Whenever he was at the party that was thrown by his mutual friends that he and Jez were at, he could tell he very much did not want to be in that crowd. There was flashing lights. There was a lot going on, and for him, that likely felt slightly claustrophobic, which triggered him to pass out. Number three, having more negative thoughts and feelings than before the event. You may feel numb, unable to have positive or loving feelings toward other people, and lose interest in things you used to enjoy. You may forget about parts of the traumatic event or not even be able to talk about them at all. You may think the world is completely dangerous and no one can be trusted. You may feel guilt or shame about the event, wishing you had done more to keep it from happening. I think that there's. This is twofold. He feels very guilty and shameful about the death of his son. He struggles with the death of his son, Gabe, throughout the entire film. That's something that cannot be denied if you watch the same film that I did. Additionally, the numbness, I kind of see him exhibiting that in such a way. I mean, he doesn't show a lot of emotions, and the ones that he does show do seem very genuine. However, he doesn't seem to be able to have these types of loving, romantic feelings for Jezebel, his partner. And, you know, he would rather be home, sit around. He would rather do that than go see a movie or take a walk, as Jez had said. So Nott kindly suggested that he do number four, feeling on edge or keyed up, which is also referred to as hyperarousal. You may be jittery or always on alert and on the lookout for danger. You might suddenly become angry or irritable. This includes having a hard time sleeping, difficulty concentrating, startled by loud noises or surprises. And you may act in unhealthy ways, like smoking, abusing drugs or alcohol, or driving aggressively. Well, he certainly doesn't seem to make sleep a priority by working, you know, all night. And he doesn't seem to be one to concentrate on many things at a time, if anything at all. And he is often startled by loud noises or surprises. And, you know, these can also cause trauma cues or triggers again for him as well. I do think it's safe to say that we can armchair diagnose our tv actor with having PTSD. But then when you think more about the film, right, it's not simply PTSD that's at play here. It's just not. There's so many other things that are haunting him. He thinks that these assassins are hunting him and that he's part of a government cover up. And so that likely stretches a little bit beyond what a PTSD diagnosis or initial diagnosis might include. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:00] Speaker B: And so I started to think more deeply about this, and one thing that came to mind for me, and that I started to look into a little bit more, is this thing called walking corpse syndrome. You might be familiar with it. You may not. I will, of course, happily, everything I talk about always has a reference link or more information. So of course you will have this. But walking corpse syndrome is a mental disorder. It's incredibly rare. And the affected person either holds the belief they can have all of these or not, or only a couple of these, but they hold the belief that is delusional, that they are dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. Statistical analysis of a 100 patient cohort indicated that denial of self existence and is present in 45% of cases. The other 55% of patients presented delusions of immortality. So this is really interesting to think about. Does Jacob have this syndrome? I don't know. [00:48:25] Speaker A: This one is one that is incredibly. [00:48:28] Speaker B: Difficult to diagnosed, number one. Number two, it's so incredibly rare. [00:48:38] Speaker A: I don't know that we would even be able to. [00:48:40] Speaker B: And number three, it's not even in the DSM. So, like, it's, you know, something that, I mean, how the fuck are we supposed to know? Like, if you have this and you're struggling with this, please, please, please do go see a doctor. But it almost appears that, like, even doctors may not know how to handle this at this current time. [00:49:03] Speaker A: But you kind of see Jacob throughout. [00:49:04] Speaker B: The film walking around and he's like. [00:49:09] Speaker A: He'S not really. [00:49:13] Speaker B: He's just kind of numb. He's just kind of there. It almost appears that at some points he walks around without anyone noticing him at all. And then other times he walks around with too many people noticing him. And so it's kind of difficult to say whether or not he exhibits any of these traits. But that's just kind of what came to mind for me. And the concept of immortality, though, struck me as the component of walking corpse syndrome. And so it's kind of difficult for me to make this jump because I'm sure you're out there listening, thinking, what the fuck is she talking about? And, like, I know my brain does weird things, but essentially gods, right? Ancient Mesopotamians had a conviction that gods may be physically immortal and that this is a state that gods can at times offer to humans. So you can also see this in Christianity with the resurrection of the flesh. You know, this would be like an unending human life or an immaterial soul or something that cannot die or will not die. And, I don't know, it also seems kind of like that, right? Like so many bad things are happening to this man, to Jacob in the film. Like, he is simply not able to die even though everyone around him is telling him that he's already dead. He's already dead, but he doesn't seem to believe it. So it's almost like the inverse of walking corpse syndrome where, you know, and if you have walking corpse syndrome, you think you're already dead, whereas he is dead. And he can't accept the fact that he's dead dead. And I know as soon as I. [00:51:17] Speaker A: Said that, you're gonna say, oh, well. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Isn'T that the same premise as the 6th sense? [00:51:21] Speaker A: Not really. [00:51:23] Speaker B: Okay, not really. But it's not that far fetched, right? Bruce Willis's character in that film cannot accept that he's dead. In fact, he doesn't even know it for half the time. And our character, Jacob here has no fucking idea that he's dead half the time. So then when you start thinking more deeply about that, doesn't that just mean that this film is entirely revolving around the acceptance and mediation that we have with ourselves after we are dead? So I found this article that I, of course, will link for you. It is from samwolf.com, and it was actually just published in 2023, which is interesting. It's titled Jacob's a Meditation on making peace with Death. So it was summarized here that there was an interview that took place in which Bruce Joel Rubin, excuse me, who is the writer of Jacob's ladder, had a life changing LSD experience that acted as inspiration for the film. And I will read you his what he described in this interview. Now, I guess the seed formed for most of my writing during an LSD trip in 1965. My roommate at the time was a very good friend of Timothy Leary, an american psychologist and writer known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. And he gave me a tablet of LSD. He said it was strong and that I should take it whenever I felt it was right. So I kept it in my wallet for about six months. The day that I decided to take it, a man arrived at our apartment. He was bringing a jar of lysergic acid, pure liquid LSD, with him from some laboratory in Switzerland. He asked if he could leave it in our refrigerator before going to Melbrook, New York, which is where Leary and his guys were all devoting their time to quote unquote, experimentation. The night that I took my tablet had that had been sitting in my wallet and nothing happened. My roommate said, well, we have this pure lysergic acid sitting in the refrigerator. Why don't I get an eyedropper and I'll give you a drop? So I said, okay. So he went to give me a drop from the eyedropper and by mistake squeezed thousands of micrograms of LSD down my throat. What came out of that was a mystical experience so profound, but I could find nothing in western teaching that talked about it. But I did find teachings in eastern religions like Tibetan Buddhism. I decided that I needed to go places like India and Nepal and meet with teachers to get an understanding of what it was that happened. Because I entered a world so much bigger than the world we know experientially, so much more vast and internal, if you will. And I needed some direction. Wow, that sounds absolutely terrifying. He proceeds to say that further inspiration came from I had a dream where I got off the train and end up trapped in a subway station with no exits. I realized that the only way out is down through the dark tunnel of the subway into some kind of awful hell, but I have to make that journey because ultimately, it's the journey to my own liberation. Yeah, that sounds absolutely horrific, if you ask me. So, thinking about this Tibetan Buddhism, I present to you now where I believe the ultimate. The ultimate. What is the word I'm looking for, meaning potentially, or the ultimate thing that should be guiding us through the film comes from. Right? So we've already confirmed 100% Jacob has PTSD. [00:55:33] Speaker A: We're not even gonna. [00:55:34] Speaker B: We're not gonna argue about it whenever we look at the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a book that was supposedly written and then hidden because the information in it was, like, so valuable or so unbelievable that one truly seeking it out would find it, is my understanding. So it's supposed to be the picture, if you will, or what you will experience after death. It is about the timeless final passage that we will all make. And, you know, essentially, the one true hell that we're in is the one that we're in when we're alive. Realistically, when you think about it, and Shakespeare said so as much himself, he said, hell is empty and all the devils are here, which is likely why we're seeing Jacob in the world as we know it and not in a true stereotypical depiction of hell, because that would just give it away too much and make it not as frightening, in my opinion, and obviously to the opinion of many, many others. So let's talk about deeper the Book of the Dead, right? There's certain key things in the Book of the Dead that are important to understand. One, there's actually a lot of stuff in this book, okay, but we're. Again, I don't have. I'm not getting paid, you know, to give you a 17 hours seminar. So let's talk about the bardo. The bardot is like a series of realms that you, you know, go through and, you know, different spaces that you will transcend that are from, you know, the time of your physical death onward. So in Tibetan Buddhism, excuse me, there are six bardos. So there are six traditional states that one will encounter throughout their life. The bardo is, again, like the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It's a. It's a guide for the recently deceased person through the death bardo. And this guide will, in turn, help them have a better rebirth, and it also is supposed to be a guide to their loved ones to help with the grieving process. So bardo is defined as the state of existence, intermediate between two lives on earth, and according to tibetan tradition, after death and before rebirth, there is a time when one's consciousness is not connected with a particular physical body, and there are a wide variety of experiences or phenomena that can occur. And typically this follows the particular sequence of degeneration from just after death, in which the clearest of experiences of reality are spiritually capable, are being, are occurring, and then it moves on to terrifying hallucinations that arrive from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions. Essentially, this is to, there's a little bit of karma here, right? Like, you got to relive the bad shit, but also you get the good. [00:59:56] Speaker A: So you get to see sort of. [00:59:56] Speaker B: The duality of life. So let's talk about the six bardos. I'm not going to pronounce the name of each of them because I would do that in a not great way, because I don't know how to say these words. And I think that it would be more offensive for me to try and get it wrong than it would be for not to try at all. So the first one is the bardo of birth and life. This bardo commences from conception until the last breath, when the mind stream withdraws from the body. The second is the dream state. This bardo is a subset of the first. Dream. Yoga develops practices to integrate the dream state into the buddhist sadhana. The third is meditation. This is generally only experienced by meditators, though individuals may have spontaneous experience of it. The fourth is the moment of death. According to tradition, this bardo is held to commence when the outer and inner signs presage that the onset of death is nigh and continues through the dissolution or transmutation until the external and internal breath has been completed. The fifth is that of luminosity, of the true nature, which commences after the final inner breath. It is within this pardo that visions and auditory phenomena occur. These can be known as the spontaneous, manifesting visions. There is a welling of profound peace and pristine awareness. Sentient beings who have not practiced during their lived experience and or who do not see the clear light at the moment of death are usually deluded throughout the fifth bardo of luminosity and last, the 6th of becoming or transmigration. This bardo endures until the inner breath commences in the new transmigrating form determined by the karmic seeds within the storehouse consciousness. So I'm just going to take a. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Stab. [01:02:22] Speaker B: And say that our friend Jacob is somewhere between four, five, and six, right? And maybe we see him through four, five, and six. Maybe actually we see him through all of these, actually, we don't see Jacob at birth, but we do see him during his life. And this vision, this entire film must. [01:02:44] Speaker A: Simply be the vision of him recalling and, you know, going through all of. [01:02:53] Speaker B: The positive things that he saw throughout his life coupled with the horrible things that he experienced throughout his life. And that at the very end is when he finally has his consciousness released, his inner breath is gone. So I found this to be very interesting. And look, I find this film to be incredibly troubling. [01:03:25] Speaker A: It is terrifying. [01:03:30] Speaker B: I hope that when I, you know, when my time comes for me to die, I don't experience anything related to what Jacob experienced throughout his final moments. And it is something that. [01:03:49] Speaker A: You know. [01:03:50] Speaker B: We don't know what happens after we die. I mean, for fuck's sake, maybe whoever wrote this book is right. [01:03:54] Speaker A: Maybe this book is correct and we. [01:03:56] Speaker B: Just have no idea. A sheep on earth have no clue because we haven't yet experienced it. But what Jacob went through with the, you know, the hospital and everything, like, just absolutely terrifying. And one final thing I just want to make a note of, if I may. If I may, which is my show. So I say that I may. The alternative title to this film actually reportedly was supposed to be Dante's Inferno, which I don't know that that would have had the same effect for me had it been named as such. [01:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:38] Speaker B: When we think of the Inferno, we think of, well, obviously the Inferno is divided up. Well, sorry, the divine comedy is divided up into three books, Inferno, Purgatory and heaven. And there's different stages within each of those. And so I think for me, if it had been titled Dante's Inferno, it would have lost a little something for me only because, I mean, we're not getting to see all the stages of everywhere. But one thing I did think was incredibly interesting is that in the divine comedy, in the book of Inferno, Dante actually describes the 9th circle of hell as a frozen lake. And throughout all of this, Jacob is talking. Well, throughout, sorry, not all of it, but a lot of it. He's talking about how cold he is. And I'd like to think that the scene of the ice bath burning Jacob implies that he is in the 9th circle of hell as presented by Dante. It's also worth mentioning that as Jacob rolls through the nightmare hospital, the sights that he sees grow increasingly worse and fucking terrifying, much like Dante's experience with Virgil through the nine circles getting worse and more graphic the deeper that they go. So that is that now, if you want to know anything about the aspect of the film with, you know, all. [01:06:17] Speaker A: These men from the platoon think that. [01:06:19] Speaker B: They'Ve been drugged and they're part of, like, some experiment. Like, yeah, we get that kind of closure at the end from Michael Newman, who explains that, like, yes, he created this drug and it was designed to do this. But if you want to read more, I'll link something for you about MkUltra, which was a military experiment, which was basically the military's. What is the word I'm looking for? I don't know, guys. I keep forgetting words today, their attempt at experimenting with LSD and different drugs. So you may read on that as your own leisure. But being that I try to keep my episodes to roughly an hour, and. [01:07:07] Speaker A: We'Ve already surpassed that, I'm going to tie everything up for you nice and pretty with a bow on top. [01:07:14] Speaker B: I hope you watch this film. I hope it doesn't give you terrible nightmares like it likely will give to. [01:07:22] Speaker A: Me, but it is absolutely something for. [01:07:25] Speaker B: You to spend some time thinking about. Before we go, obviously, I have to. [01:07:30] Speaker A: Remind you that you can check out. [01:07:33] Speaker B: My podcast and many others like [email protected]. [01:07:37] Speaker A: You can find this podcast on Apple. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon music, and Pocketcasts. [01:07:44] Speaker A: If you enjoyed the show, it would mean the world to me if you. [01:07:47] Speaker B: Left me a five star review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. [01:07:52] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening today, guys. [01:07:54] Speaker B: If you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, I don't know. You just want to talk to me. You can send me an [email protected]. and with that, I will talk to you in two more weeks. Never forget that I am 6th Avenue's very own final.