What's one of your favourite lines from film... past or present? "If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth." ~ Danny Aiello, from Jacob's Ladder, 1990.

I'd seen this film when I was 13, I think, and it was one of the first films to fuck me up. This film, and maybe The Exorcist. Shit, I couldn't sleep for a week after watching those two, and now, I can't quite recall why it was the case with Jacob's Ladder?

What was it about the movie that had me so enthralled. Was it the fact that Tim Robbins would have this body in the back of his mail van when he'd go to work, that had a large tail hanging out of its coat, that it'd hide when Tim would look back; or maybe it was the fact that there seemed to be someone grinding with Elizabeth Pena, his wife, on the dance floor, as they're shaking to the music, and then all of a sudden--this large tail comes out and wraps itself around her, while a white horn suddenly appears, piercing through her mouth...

Or maybe it was the fact that Jacob/Tim has these flash backs to the war that he and his army friends had been fighting in Vietnam, and how they'd been poisoned by what the american military had been spraying on the inhabitants of the country; and there also was this small man who they show at the end of the film, with stubs for legs, crawling over a cage, above Tim while he's being rolled into the ER.

But that line, it didn't really have that much of a meaning for me back then, almost three decades ago, but now--having lived a bit, you understand that the more you let people take up space in your head, the harder it gets to live without having to suffer the consequences--and the sooner you let go of that animosity, the better off you’ll be.

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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ouyagl/whats_one_of_your_favourite_lines_from_film_past/

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