Jacob's Ladder and An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge

Cafe Society
1

TLDR: Please people, saying that these two works are anything more than superficially related.

There are going to be open spoilers.

I’ve heard, a number of times, that Jacob’s Ladder is a redo of An Occurrence… I even used to be one who trotted this out sometimes. Having thought about it I fail to see the rehash aspect.

In An Occurrence the protagonist is caught committing an act of sabotage and is subsequently taken to a railroad bridge to be hanged.

During the interval between being pushed from the bridge and having his neck snapped he imagines that he has managed a miraculous escape and, after much hardship, he finds himself at home, rushing toward his loving wife and smiling child.

Then his neck snaps.

The narrative only reveals the hallucinatory aspect of it at the very end and does so implicitly rather than explicitly.

Great story!

In Jacob’s Ladder the protagonist is an American soldier in Vietnam who is dosed with a secret drug that induces rage and paranoid hallucinations in it’s victims.
The drug causes him and his platoon to gleefully eviscerate one another.

At the end of the film we see that the protagonist is in fact mortally wounded and the entirety of the movie has taken place in his head while he is actively dying.

Great movie!

I grant that they share the following elements:

  • They each take place inside the character’s mind in the last seconds before death
  • Both fantasies involve a return - more or less - to pastoral bliss and familial joy before the inevitable rug-pull.

There is the end of the similarity.

In An Occurrence… the hallucination takes place while the protagonist is alive and uninjured. It is an escapist fantasy conjured up as he is falling.

It was nothing more, really, than a brilliant writer saying, “What if?” and going with it. The story itself doesn’t bear much delving into because it is a straight forward narrative.

I’ll happily concede to its worth as an example of fine craftsmanship and a wonderful read.

Jacob’s Ladder features a protagonist who is actively dying and is hallucinating because: a) the drug b) his is brain shutting down c) the fear of what comes after.

There is inherent to the movie a hallucinogenic quality and a sense of torment and resultant transition as he - metaphorically - comes to terms with his imminent death.

The movie is primarily concerned with the question of whether there is an afterlife and, if so, what determines the afterlife you get to experience.

In a sense it is much more closely, albeit superficially, modelled on the Divine Comedy than it is An Occurrence….

So please people, stop claiming that there is anything more than the most tissue-thin of connections between these two incredible works.

Thank-you for your time.

Zeke

2

I agree. It’s a wonderful story and Jacob’s Ladder is a superb movie. The same idea - SPOILERS AHEAD - is utilized in the film Stay with Ryan Gosling, Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. I love that film too, not least because of the weird clues scattered throughout the movie that point to the truth of what’s going on.

It’s always interesting to see the same theme approached by different artists.

3

I’ll keep an eye out for that! Thanks

4

American Dad! parodied it with “An Incident at Owl Creek.” Instead, it takes place on a diving board while he is experiencing serious stomach problems.

Spike Lee’s 25th Hour has a similar segment where the protagonist flees his prison term and makes a new life, only to be shown heading to prison.

5

Humans make categories in all kinds of ways. Some ways make more sense than others.

For example, IMDb was notorious for suggesting “similar” movies based only on the movies’ settings: those who sought movies similar to 2001’s “The Hole”–a twist-filled tale of psychological horror–were advised to watch the 1981 sex comedy “Porky’s.” Most people who have seen both movies would not consider them to be the same sort of thing at all. But because they were both set (in part) in a high school, IMDb recommended them as being “similar.”

In the case of any two movies or works of fiction in general, it would be possible to come up with some elements they have in common and many elements that they do not have in common. The danger here is “not seeing the forest (the true commonalities) for the trees” (the meaningless differences).

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Jacob’s Ladder” are not the same thing. There are many differences between the two works. But for those who care about the development of fiction over the centuries, the one element they have in common–the fact that the main body of the story is actually an illusion experienced only in the brain of a dying character–is important and useful to note.

By the way, I believe you are incorrect in claiming that a crucial difference between the two is that in Owl Creek the protagonist is perfectly healthy, though dropping through the air, at the time of his hallucination (in contrast to Jacob’s Ladder, in which the protagonist is “actively dying”). In Owl Creek, the protagonist is “actively dying,” too. In the midst of his hallucination of escape and homecoming, we find this:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/375/375-h/375-h.htm

Plainly, his hallucination occurred during the moments in which his brain was shutting down as a result of his neck breaking (when he was hanged).

6

I’m sorry - but you are plainly wrong about the actively dying part.

Everything after “The sergeant stepped aside” is either historical (how to came to be in this position) or hallucination. It is not the final spasms of a dying mind,

"As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!

"Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge. "

Please note the “blow upon the back of the neck… his body, with a broken neck…” Clearly he did not strangle and therefore could not have raised his hands to his throat.

The physical description makes plain that he fell and, when the slack was gone, had his neck broken and died immediately (or nearly) “a blinding white light blazes… then all is darkness and silence.”

Regarding the not seeing the forest “commonalities” for the trees “meaningless differences” is sort of what I’m talking abut except that the commonalities are the trees and the meaningFUL differences would be the forest.

It is relevant that one of them was a saboteur and the other a soldier. One was acting of his own volition and knew the consequences of failure. The other was doing his job and was died despite having done nothing to warrant it except wrong place wrong time.

One died as a result of his own actions and the other died as the result of being victimized by the military. Big and important (ie meaningful) difference.

One takes place is an escapist fantasy and the other is a dying brain in it’s last few seconds. Big and important (meaningful) difference.

One has at it’s core little but an exercise is good writing and story-telling. The other concerns itself with significantly more important subject matter. Big and important (meaningful) detail.

Both deal with someone for whom death is an immediate and real concern in the last few moments of their lives. A superficially similar jumping off point (heh) but really inconsequential in a comparison of the two.

To deny this is to essentially argue that Batman and Wonder Woman are essentially the same character being as how they both wear capes.

Zeke

7

Nothing wrong with that. The idea is strong enough to carry a couple of films.

I once heard someone complain that “Brazil” was just a remake of “1984”. I’m like WTF? A *really good, really strong * remake of “1984”.

8

Wasn’t a good part of “Sucker Punch” supposed to be the viewpoint character’s fantasies of escape as she was being lobotomized?

9

Nothing at all wrong with remakes or redos.

My complaint is that the stories are not similar in any meaningful way. The one apparent similarity ceases to seem so with a little bit of reflection.

Stranger in a Strange Land is a modern(ish) retelling of the New Testament. The parallels are striking and direct. I don’t think Stranger… is weaker for it or anything of the sort.

But Jacob’s Ladder and An Occurrence… are such fundamentally different works that it picks my ass when people suggest that they are meaningfully connected.

10

*An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge *was written by Ambrose Bierce in 1890, about 100 years before the film Jacobs Ladder. *Of course *the original story had an influence on the much, much later film.

Ambrose’s short story has had an influence on many later works both in film, literature and music. Even the writer of Jacob’s Ladder admits this.

Doesn’t matter if it picks your ass, it is the truth.

11

I don’t deny that there may have been some influence. Being “influenced by” is a completely different animal than “is basically the same.”

Given your quote it would seem that the script writer was also influenced by the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the story of Jacob’s Ladder. He says he was influenced by the French short film “la riviere du hibou” (apologies for my French) which a direct adaptation of the original story. You will please note that the writer does NOT say the story itself was an influence, rather the film.

I have pointed out some of the major important differences (there are certainly others)
in order to substantiate my claim.

If you want to make an argument that the two are substantially similar you can do so - just point out any important similarities beyond both protagonists being moments away from death.

Until someone does so it will continue to pick my ass as it is demonstrably untrue.

Zeke

12

Zeke, you seem to feel that a movie that’s meaningful to you (Jacob’s Ladder) is being denigrated or damaged in reputation, when observers mention its obvious debt to the 1890 short story (a debt that is shared by many, many works, as others in the thread have pointed out).

You appear to believe that a work is respectable only when its story is completely original.

This is not the case. To cite some familiar examples of works that are openly acknowledged to be unoriginal in plot—and yet are held in high regard:

[ul]
[li]Shakespeare: Shakespeare did not invent the plots of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, or All’s Well that Ends Well. In fact, most of his plays contain major elements and plots and characters that can be found in earlier works by other authors (Boccacio, Arthur Brooke, Ovid, Chaucer, etc.). And yet in spite of this, Shakespeare’s work is held in the highest of critical esteem.[/li][li]Lewis Carroll: The plot of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is basically that of the ‘traveler’s tale’ that was a staple of publishing almost since Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type. In these stories, a protagonist goes to an exotic place in which strange sights and unusual characters provide both adventure and danger; after some time, the protagonist returns home. That’s the basic plot. Is Carroll’s book held in contempt because he didn’t make use of an original plot? No; the work is a classic of English literature. Its virtues are extolled because of what Carroll did with that plot; the fact that he was influenced by other works is immaterial to the critical acclaim his work enjoys.[/li][li]Star Wars: George Lucas isn’t in quite the same class as Shakespeare and the Reverend Mr. Dodgson so far as English Literature canon status is concerned, but he certainly ranks up there with the greatest story-tellers in popularity. And his plot for the 1977 movie was frankly and openly derived from the 1958 Kurosawa movie The Hidden Fortress, as well as from legends (King Arthur, Beowulf, etc.) discussed in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.[/li][/ul]

When observers note that a work has been influenced by another work, or has plot elements derived from another work, that does not mean that the work is being insulted or demeaned.

13

I never once said that a work being a remake, a redo, an re-interpretation is any way “demeaning” or anything like that.

In fact I have said precisely the opposite.

Please, feel free to read what I have said regarding my thoughts before you tell me what I appear to think.

So I’ll go 'round the mulberry bush one more time - with feeling.

Let’s use *Romeo and Juliet * as an example.

Romeo and Juliet is a direct remake (for lack of a better word) of the Greek myth Pyramus and Thisbe. Here is why I say so:

  • Both involve lovers who are separated by family
  • Both involve lovers who plan to run away together
  • Both involve the male believing that the female is dead and, as a result, committing suicide
  • Both involve the female discovering the dead male and piecing together what has happened
  • Both involve the female committing suicide as a result of the male being dead

These are direct and clear parallels between the two works. The fact that Shakespeare embellished some details and added others does not change the fact that almost every single important story element is distinctly similar if not the exact same.

An Occurrence… and Jacob’s Ladder do not share any significant story elements - including the most important vis a vis the INTERNAL setting in regards to the protagonist.

Now, as I’ve said, please feel free to list the parallels and similarities as you see them but don’t just keep saying, “But there is influence yada yada yada.”

And, for an absolute certainty, do not tell me what I appear to think when I have explicitly stated what I do think.

If a case can be made for them being largely one in the same (see the example of Romeo… above) then please do so.

Zeke

14

OTOH, after I saw Brazil, I noted that it’s just a more elaborate re-make of Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

15

It’s been a challenge to come up with a reason for the extremely unusual position you’ve adopted (that it’s unreasonable to cite Owl Creek as a precursor or major influence on Jacob’s Ladder). If such citations make you grind your teeth, you are not going to have many teeth left: most people who pay attention to story and narrative will be surprised by your position, and will disagree with it.

In trying to understand why you’ve taken that position, it was important to note that you clearly find Jacob’s Ladder to be an admirable work, and that you find it to be far superior to Owl Creek. This seemed to be a clue to your irritation with the majority position that Owl Creek was an important influence on the plot of JL: it seemed quite possible that you bristle at the comparison because you believe that only works assessed as fully and completely original in plot are respectable.

That is, it seemed that your reasoning might well be along the lines of: these people are claiming that the plot of JL owes something important to Owl Creek, and that is the same thing as saying that JL is an inferior and negligible work; these people are insulting JL!

If, in fact, you do not consider originality of plot to be important (and, concurrently, if you do not consider comparisons of the plot of work A to the plot of some earlier work, to be insulting to work A), then I will have to look for some other explanation for the unusual position you’ve adopted with regard to Owl Creek and Jacob’s Ladder.

It’s clear that you believe this. But that doesn’t make it true.

16

Stay is okay. I think of it as a David Lynch-like film with the answers written in the back of the book–or in this case, the end of the movie.

As to the OP’s description of Jacob’s Ladder (which I haven’t seen), it puts me in mind of a particular David Lynch film in fact–Mulholland Drive.

17

Jesus.

OP is not saying there is no influence. He is saying they’re not basically the same plot. He is not saying there are no similarities. He is saying there are very crucial differences which make it a mistake to think of the latter as a retelling of the same kind of story as the former.

I can’t figure out why the OP thinks this, in light of the text quotation given a few posts up which seems to show that the character’s neck has been broken already during his hallucination. But let’s get it straight what the OP is actually saying in the first place. It’s not hard.

18

Buddha.

No, it isn’t hard. That’s how I was able to get straight what the OP is actually saying, right from the beginning.

In your post (quoted in full, above) you admonish me for making claims I never made. That’s classic straw man argumentation, and I’m mystified as to why you are using it. To be specific:

*** “OP is not saying there is no influence” ----Please quote any sentences from any post of mine in which I state or imply that the OP said there was no influence. What the OP has actually said:

My contention (in the three posts I’ve made in this thread) is that “tissue-thin” and “superficially related” are not useful descriptors for the connection between Owl Creek and Jacob’s Ladder; the influence is stronger than those terms indicate. That is not the same thing as claiming that the OP said there was no influence at all.

*** “He is saying they’re not basically the same plot” ---- Please quote any sentences from any post of mine in which I state or imply that JL and Owl Creek have basically the same plot, or that the OP is incorrect in his view on whether or not they have the same plot. In my first post, I wrote:

Which does not differ substantially from anything the OP has written (and I challenge you to find anything in his posts to the contrary). How you can manage to turn that into a failure on my part to realize that the OP agrees with me (that they’re not the same) is a true mystery.
*** **“He is not saying there are no similarities.” **---- Please quote from any of my posts in which I state or imply that the OP said there are no similarities.

Your “retelling of the same kind of story” is less clear-cut Straw Man as I can’t really figure out what you think I was claiming–that JL is a “retelling of the same kind of story”…? or that the OP claimed that I thought it was a “retelling of the same kind of story”…? or whatever the heck you are saying, here. So we’ll leave that alone.

But please do either support your Straw Man arguments (as listed above), or stop making them.

19

I retract my post and hang my head in abject shame.

20

No, that retraction and head-hanging was merely a hallucination; one that you experienced in a *split second *of time. :o

Amateur Barbarian mentioned Sucker Punch up-thread. That’s got to be part of the list of “protagonist doesn’t die, but DOES ‘live a life’ in an instant, mentally” stories. Another that comes to mind: the 1997 Keanu Reeves/Al Pacino flick The Devil’s Advocate.

It would be fun to make a Story Family Tree for the ideas that Bierce loosed upon the world. Such charts could be made for many 19th century works: Shelley’s Frankenstein, several works of Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, and of course Conan Doyle’s little detective stories.