!!!!!!

[spoilers]
Quote:
The ending to the movie The Sixth Sense really seemed to borrow a little bit from Jacob's Ladder.

I'd disagree- it's really an old theme used by lots of movies. Both were movies about what is real and what our perceptions are, but the list of movies that do that is not short (Total Recall, Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, The Matrix, The 13th Floor . . . etc.)

Really though, JL and TSS are two very different movies with different agendas. TSS is all about the shock value of the big reveal at the end. It spends a considerable amount of time setting up the audience to believe the Willis' character is alive so we'll all be blown away when we find out he's really dead.

In JL, on the other hand, we are given several, non-subtle clues throughout the whole movie that he never left the battle. What is presented as "reality" is quickly infiltrated with images of demons and othe wierdness, causing the audience to question what is really going on. The there is clear direction that this is a life and death struggle: "You're already dead," "I'm not dead!". While the audience might not get that, it is clear SOMETHING strange is going on, whether it's a bad trip or what. In the Sixth Sense the clues are there, but the director is doing his best to obscure them and hide them so you'll only see them the second time around and realize you missed them the first time (your "getting" it the first time notwithstanding). In JL, all of the clues were right up front in your face, even if you didn't know what to make of them.

But regardless of all of that, I feel JL is a much more relatable work than TSS- the first deals with the real life struggles of life and death, where the latter seemed mostly just about shocking the audience. I think I enjoyed TSS more, but JL is a more important work.

[/spoilers]


Edited by JeffS (07/03/2005 13:33)
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.