A Second Rung on the Ladder:Appraising the Jacob’s Ladder 2019 Remake

摘要

This paper compares the original 1990 cult film,Jacob’s Ladder,directed by Adrian Lyne,to the 2019 remake,directed by David Rosenthal.In 2015 we published an article using The Tibetan Book of the Dead as a mechanism for interpreting the original 1990 film.We believed then and do now that The Tibetan Book of the Dead provides the most comprehensive and interesting interpretation of the original film.We were anxious,then,to see how the 2019 remake dealt with concepts like enlightenment,attachment,the bardo,and other ideas from The Tibetan Book of the Dead.In the end,we decided that while the remake has many similarities with the original,the 2019 version of the film does not lend itself to interpretation using The Tibetan Book of the Dead.