Le film est classé dans la liste des 10 films les plus effrayants de tous les temps(quelle expression à la con!) par de nombreux sites web, il figure aussi dans la liste des meilleurs thrillers  de tous les temps.Il a inspiré toute la saga Silent Hill. En particulier la station de métro de Silent Hill 3, qui a exactement la même architecture et porte le même nom que dans le film, à savoir Bergen Street.

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La critique de James Berardinelli

Warning: Spoilers ahead! After the first paragraph, I begin giving away things, and I talk freely about the ending. If that's not the kind of review you want to read at this point, I suggest you go elsewhere…

Jacob's Ladder belongs to a genre of movies glibly referred to as "mind fucks." That is to say, the movie enjoys toying with the viewer's perceptions and expectations. Anyone approaching this film without preconceived notions of what they're in for is likely to take a wild trip that offers dozens of possible explanations for what's transpiring - a journey into the Twilight Zone. It's weird and surreal, but it ends with most of the holes plugged and all but a few of the loose ends tied into a tidy package. Some argue this is a cheat and the film should have been more open ended. That's a personal choice; I like it the way it is.

The movie opens with a brief sequence in Vietnam. Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) and his compatriots are whiling away the boredom of waiting by smoking a little weed. He and Paul (Pruitt Taylor Vince), Frank (Eriq La Salle), and George (Ving Rhames) are under the influence when the attack comes and things start to go wrong. In the heat of the battle, Jacob takes a bayonet to the abdomen.

Flash-forward several years. Jacob is a mailman living with his beautiful, wild girlfriend, Jezebel (Elizabeth Peña). But he's haunted by nightmares and strange events, such as getting off a train at a station where all the exits are closed off. But is his life with Jezebel real, or is it a dream? Perhaps, as other scenes suggest, he is living the life of a dutiful husband to his wife, Sarah (Patricia Kalember), and a loving father to three boys. Or maybe the truth is something deeper and darker. Frequent flashbacks to the bayonet attack and its aftermath, in which he is rescued by a helicopter, hint at an unrevealed secret.

The inspiration for Jacob's Ladder is a 1891 short story by Ambrose Bierce called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." It takes literally the idea that a man's entire life might flash before him in the instant before death. Bierce's work has been used as a frequent inspiration for television and movies. An episode of The Twilight Zone was based on it, and it formed the basis for Jacob's Ladder, Stay, and other films. Jacob's Ladder plays with reality in a way that would become commonplace in the next decade-or-so, especially with the films of David Lynch. However, compared to the likes of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Mulholland Drive, Jacob's Ladder is almost straightforward.

The film suggests many possible explanations. Is Jacob's life with Jezebel his "reality," but twisted because of mental and physical illness? Did he ever leave his wife? Have mind-altering drugs administered to him in Vietnam destroyed his grip on reality? Is he really haunted by demons? Or did he perish as a result of the bayonet stab, and everything else shown in the movie is the imagination of a man's dying brain? The film's third-person final scene argues strongly for the final interpretation. One can look for clues to support the alternatives, but director Adrian Lyne and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin make it clear what their belief is.

Jacob's Ladder invites participation and is an intellectually stimulating experience. Even for those who know the ending, there's still pleasure to be had in piecing together the puzzle and figuring out how everything fits together. Without the final piece - that is provided in the last scene - it can be a frustrating experience, but there are those who will figure out the truth before it is explicitly revealed. The film's tone, with its gothic settings, demonic images, and affinity for darkness and shadows, is more reminiscent of horror than anything else, although some would argue that Jacob's Ladder should be seen as science fiction or even a war movie.

At the time when he made Jacob's Ladder, Tim Robbins was already a known quantity, having rocketed to visibility in 1988's Bull Durham. Robbins isn't an actor with great range, but he can be effective if he's cast properly, and the role of Jacob is within his narrow scope. Robbins pulls off a low-key, haunted performance, allowing us to sense there's something not right about the character, even if it takes us the entire movie to figure out what that "not right" is. As Robbins' leading lady, Elizabeth Peña is incredibly sexy, as might be expected from a woman with the name of Jezebel. The rest of the troupe is comprised primarily of character actors, and none of them have more than a few minutes of screen time. Macaulay Culkin has a small role as one of Jacob's children; this movie was released into theaters a mere two weeks before Home Alone debuted.

With its limited sexuality, Jacob's Ladder is a square peg in a round hole for director Adrian Lyne, who is know for pushing erotic boundaries. While some of Peña's topless scenes are sexy, this is mostly a tale of psychological horror, not what would be expected from the director of Flashdance, Nine 1/2 Weeks, and Fatal Attraction. Lyne followed up Jacob's Ladder with Indecent Proposal, Lolita, and Unfaithful, making Jacob's Ladder a very odd entry on his resume. It is arguably the best movie he has made.

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A film that sports technicality, a fresh plot, incredible editing and immersive characters

© DR -Carolco Pictures

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Trivia
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-All SFX were filmed live, with no post-production. For example, to achieve the famous 'shaking head' effect, director Adrian Lyne simply filmed the actor waving his head around (and keeping his shoulders and the rest of his body completely still) at 4fps, resulting in an incredibly fast and deeply disturbing motion when played back at the normal frame-rate of 24fps.

-The Bergen Street station in the film was actually an abandoned, lower level portion of the station, which had to be re-tiled and fixed to look as if it was still in working condition.

-All ads in the subway and Bergen Street station are anti-drug ads.

-According to the original script, the subway station Jacob arrives at in the beginning of the movie was supposed to be Nostrand Avenue - not Bergen Street.

-According to the original script, after Jacob is nearly run over by the subway train, a sequence involving a man being raped in the subway station mens bathroom was supposed to happen

-Writer Bruce Joel Rubin wrote the script for Jacob's Ladder in the early 1980's after he had a dream of being trapped in a subway. He spent several years trying to get it produced, but the script remained languishing in developmental limbo. During this period, Rubin's agent told him that the film would never be made as "Hollywood doesn't make ghost movies".

-After the Rubin scripted Ghost became a smash hit, coupled with the success of Alan Parker's Angel Heart - Aux portes de l'enfer, studios became more open to the possibilities of Rubin's script. After taking on the role of director, Adrian Lyne spent over a year refining the script with writer Rubin.

-Adrian Lyne made sure Jacob and his visions never appear together in the same shot.

-The hospital gurney that carries Jacob was deliberately unbalanced by Adrian Lyne. He raised one wheel slightly off the floor, causing it to rattle and spin.

-The confrontation between Jacob and Geary originally takes place in a courtroom corridor. Lyne moved them to the stairs in order to downplay the height difference between Tim Robbins (who is 65) and Jason Alexander (who is 55).

-Some additional scenes from the original script which were changed or removed by director Adrian Lyne:
-During the dance scene, ALL the dancers turn into demons.
-During one of his Vietnam flashbacks, Jacob has a vision of a "celestial staircase" accompanied by heavenly music.
-Jacob watches a reverend on TV who rants about the world coming to an end.
-Jacob sees an image of a demon on the wall of his living room, which, when he looks closely at it, becomes a portal to Hell.
-A scene following the "antidote" sequence in which the ceiling explodes and Jacob is surrounded by a vision of Heaven.
-A different ending, where Jezzie turns herself inside-out and transforms into a huge demon, which Jacob has to fight before ascending to heaven.

-For all of the chiropractor scenes, director Adrian Lyne ensured there was a real chiropractor on-set, who would work with actor Danny Aiello so as to ensure authenticity. According to Lyne, chiropractors often approach him and thank him for going to the trouble of getting what they do exactly right.

-According to director Adrian Lyne, most of the dialogue in the opening scene between the soldiers was improvised on set by the actors themselves, especially the conversation between George (Ving Rhames) and Jacob (Tim Robbins) about masturbation.

-Prior to the commencement of filming, former US marine Dale Dye took actors Tim Robbins, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Eriq La Salle, Ving Rhames, Brian Tarantina, Brent Hinkley and Anthony Alessandro to a 5-day military boot camp.

-Adrian Lyne also heavily rewrote the scene involving the biblical Jacob's ladder at the end of the film. Writer Bruce Joel Rubin had written the scene to involve a massive staircase ascending into the clouds, with crowds of people lining it, towering columns, and huge gates at the summit. Again however, Lyne felt that such an image could come across as preposterous (he refers to Rubin's original conception as the Liberace scene' on the DVD commentary track). As such, Lyne rewrote the scene to involve simply the staircase in Jacob's house, basing this on the principal that heaven is wherever you were happiest.

-In the original screenplay, writer Bruce Joel Rubin had created a typical Biblical hell, complete with winged demons, cloven hoofed devils with horns, people with beaks and strange objects lying randomly around (director Adrian Lyne likens Rubin's vision to the work of Hieronymus Bosch). As with Rubin's general depiction of demons however, Lyne felt that such scenes could very easily make an audience laugh. As such, he decided to rewrite the scene of Jacob's descent into hell; ultimately coming up with the hospital sequence where Jacob is wheeled on a gurney into a metaphorical hell which becomes more and more grotesque as he moves.

-According to director Adrian Lyne, the drug aspect of the story was inspired by the Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain book, "Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and Sixties Rebellion".

-Director Adrian Lyne used the art of painters William Blake, H.R. Giger, and Francis Bacon and photographers Diane Arbus and Joel-Peter Witkin as his primary influences for the visual style of the film.

-The film was green-lit by Paramount Pictures (with whom Adrian Lyne had made both Flashdance and Liaison fatale, and with whom writer Bruce Joel Rubin had made Ghost), but there was a change of leadership in the studio and the new executives were unsure of the film. They demanded that the end of the movie be changed, but both Lyne and Rubin refused, and so Paramount pulled the plug on the film. It appeared as if the project was going to have to be completely abandoned until Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna of Carolco Pictures saved it with a budget of $25 million. They also gave Lyne complete creative control as well as final cut of the film.

-In an ironic reversal, Adrian Lyne turned down directorial duties on Le bûcher des vanités so he could direct Jacob's Ladder. His first choice for the role of Jacob Singer was Tom Hanks, but Hanks turned down the film so he could make Le bûcher des vanités.

-According to writer Bruce Joel Rubin, the script was heavily inspired by the Bardo Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead), the biblical story of Jacob's ladder and Robert Enrico's Oscar-winning short film La rivière du hibou, based on the 1890 Ambrose Bierce short story 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' dealing with a man's experience of his life from a traumatic experience until his death.

-Actors who were allegedly interested in playing the leading role of Jacob Singer included Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Richard Gere. For the role of Jezzie, director Adrian Lyne auditioned roughly 300 women, including Julia Roberts, Andie MacDowell, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez. The role eventually went to the very first person who auditioned - Elizabeth Peña.

-Sidney Lumet, Michael Apted and Ridley Scott all tried to get the project green-lit during its several year period of non-production.

-Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke both turned down the lead role.

-The opening combat scene takes place on October 6th, 1971 - five years to the day after LSD was declared to be illegal in the United States (10/6/1966).

-In the film, when Jacob Singer unfolds an old Army discharge certificate, the service number "US 21 719 365" can briefly be seen. This would correspond to a National Guard service number with a prefix indicating follow-on conscription into the Army of the United States. According to U.S Army records, the service number seen in the film was assigned to a soldier named Thomas K. Wright, who served from 1959 to 1961 with discharge as a Specialist Fourth Class. Thomas Wright would later become the property master for the film

-Jacob's Ladder, using his own service number for the scene where the discharge certificate is briefly visible on camera.

-Demi Moore auditioned for the role of Jezzie.

-The James Brown funk song "My Thang", heard during the raucous party scene, appeared on a double album of Brown's from 1974 called "Hell".

Bande originale

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More to be felt through than thought through.

The extra scenes on the DVD range from average to terrifying, including the omitted "antidote" scene, something I'm glad I didn't see when I was younger because it might have scarred me for life :). Also there is a perplexing and scary scene omitted at the end where Jacob confronts Jezebel. There is alot of digital grain in some of the shots. I would like to see a better quality DVD put out for this one, but I'll take what I can get with the added scenes.

See this movie then see it again and then see it three years later. Don't over-analyze and worry if some of it doesn't make sense, after all it's not all supposed to.

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73 out of 92 people found the following review useful:

A visual masterpiece of horror and conspiracy.

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45 out of 47 people found the following review useful:

a creepy and unnerving psychological thriller.

Author: cygnus x-1 from roanoke, va
2 February 2000

I've always felt that this film has never gotten the credit or attention it deserves. Along with the similary underappreciated Angel Heart, this film creates a sense of dread and foreboding atmosphere that never lets up and comes close to overwhelming the viewer at times.

Tim Robbins deliver possibly one of the best performances of his career and all of the other cast is fantastic as well. The editing and especially the cinematography are top notch and contribute greatly to the overall feel of the film.i won't go into any plot details since any revelations could ruin the film for someone who hasn't seen it. but if you want to see a movie that will genuinely freak you out and have you sleeping with the lights on, you can't go wrong with this great film.rating:9

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57 out of 72 people found the following review useful:

Brilliant! On par with Kubrick!

It is so few films that leaves room for independent thoughts. Jacob's Ladder tumbles your mind the same way a dream of your own does. I have never felt this effect in a film so strong before. The images comes pouring in and your brain tries to make sense of it. Whenever you think you have a grasp it slides away again.The brilliance of the progression of the story, twists and turns, and the final explanation, so obvious but elusive as real dreams are, makes it on par with the best of Kubrick.

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50 out of 61 people found the following review useful:

I enjoyed it much more after a second viewing

Anyway, this is a highly fascinating and entertaining thriller about a Vietnam veteran who always feels like there is somebody or something "out to get him". He feels this way because he keeps seeing strange images and many people in which he comes in contact with appear to have horns growing out of their heads and whatnot. Him and his war buddies believe that these strange occurrences are the result of something that happened during the war. The best element of this film is its atmosphere and paranormal feel which will really give you the creeps as well as have you guessing what the cause of the strange occurrences that are affecting Jacob really are. Well worth viewing, and if it doesn't grab you on the first viewing, don't hesitate to try it again, you may enjoy it more. 8/10.

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51 out of 64 people found the following review useful:

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38 out of 53 people found the following review useful:

Anguishing, Intriguing, Original, Unique

Note: On 19 May 2009, I saw this movie again, now on DVD.