ABSTRACT
A filmmaker who wants to wrestle with the “non-obvious” has several different genres within which to work. One can choose simply to select an actor who seems in the context to be a useful if inadequate metaphor for God—Audrey Hepburn, Jessica Lange, George Burns, Lionel Barrymore. One can use a parable in Magical Realism to suggest how God responds to the problem of why bad things happen to good people. Jacob’s Ladder is a story about a Vietnam veteran, (perhaps) returned from the war but still haunted by demons, sometimes quite literally. The God of Mr. Destiny is, like Michael Caine, a God who knows what he’s doing, a God who can insist that one should trust him. It is a light touch response to nightmare and horror, but it is the same touch which glows through the dark mirror of the guilt of Flatliners and the paralyzing terror of Jacob’s Ladder.
