Bringing Out the Dead

Sometimes you can watch a film and see that all the pieces are there and yet there's still something not quite right about it. 'Bringing Out the Dead' stars Nicholas Cage (while he was still highly-bankable at the Box Office) as a New York ambulance driver who's on the brink of burning out completely. He's seemingly lost the ability to sleep (properly) and turned to various substances to get himself through his - increasingly dangerous - nightshifts.

Now, back in 1999 when this film was released, Cage was pretty much at the top of his game and you could guarantee that he'd put in a good performance, especially under an equally great director. Here we have none other than Martin Scorsese at the helm who is more than capable at keeping hold of Cage's reigns and making sure he doesn't do that 'over the topness' he sometimes slips into. The premise is great and there's plenty of scope for the story and characters to evolve. The films sports an equally impressive supporting cast including Patricia Arquette, Ving Rhames and John Goodman. So, baring all that in mind, it's hard to see that anything could go wrong with it.

I certainly don't hate 'Bringing Out the Dead.' I just feel that with that much talent at its disposal it should be a lot better than it is. The actors and direction are amazing, but where it falls down is a general lack of focus as to where the story is going and what genre the film wants to be. It flips from everything from romantic comedy to gritty drama almost every other scene and even flirts with the possibility of a supernatural element (loosely). There's not an awful lot of motivation for the supporting cast and they just seem to do things to provide Cage with something bad/dramatic to react to. The films plays out like a string of sketches/mini episodes that are loosely strung together by the flimsy of narratives.

If you're a fan of Cage and/or Scorsese, this is a 'must watch.' However, some may get a little tired with waiting for something to happen.

Bringing out the Dead is the most underrated film ever done by Martin Scorsese. It is one of the most well made films I've ever seen and is one of my favorite dramas of all time.

The film focuses on a paramedic called Frank played by Nicolas Cage. The film focuses on 48 hours of Frank's life as a paramedic and all the horrific things he has seen. As well as that Frank is also haunted by spirits of people who he couldn't save, befriends a young women called Mary played by Patricia Arquette and a whole range of strange partners.

The actors that Scorsese has chosen are a weird bunch as they're not really in Scorsese's other films and they're not really big name actors. As well as Nicolas Cage there's also supporting roles from people like John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Siezmore. Everyone does a fantastic jobs even the actors who have much smaller roles than others.

This is much more surreal film than most other Scorsese films as we go into Frank's mind.

The reasons why this films succeeds is just that you really care about this characters and while the film dosen't really have much of a story it grips you the whole way through.

It also has a great soundtrack which includes artists like Van Morrison, R.E.M and the Who.

Overall the film is quite different to what you're usually expecting but it grips who the whole way though and it gets a full 5 star rating form me.

Bringing out the Dead, unfortunately, has fewer fans than it deserves. Why? Because this isn't simply a "New York" movie, or a movie about a paramedic, or about euthenasia, despite the ostensible setting and plot points.

Instead, Scorsese has created a cinematic myth about how haunted modern existence can be, and what it takes to be "saved" and find grace in a seemingly godless world. His vision of New York is all literate existential comedy, not a window into the rotten Big Apple. Mere satiric commentary on the tragedy of life in New York is for journeyman directors; Scorsese is doing something else entirely here.

In other words, this is that really rare beast--a literate film that is, first and foremost, still a great movie. In the plot and its implications, there's more here of Flannery O Conner or Virginia Woolf than there is here of, say, Tom Wolf. More pariticularly, Bringing out the Dead does with masterful filmmaking what Joyce's The Dead did in prose. This film is a truly eye-opening investigation into how the living exist in the shadow of the dead and dying.

The film accomplishes this incredibly difficult task on many levels--the cinematography alone should give you a clue that this is definitely not Taxi Driver or Goodfellas--there's something more sublime here (the beauty that American Beauty explains wonderfully is shown everywhere in this film, but Bringing out the Dead is less mundane, simple and "character" oriented). Every shot is right, and the numerous computer effects here--on display almost for their own sake in The Matrix--are here poetically put together by a master director.

So, just for it's approach to a subject that few movies or directors would even attempt, this film will be a classic. Oddly enough, one of the few movies it can be compared with is Hitchcock's Vertigo, which confronts the same issues in a different way. Scotty's (Jimmy Stewart) desire to "raise" the dead is as strong as Frank's, and audiences didn't much like Vertigo when it was released either.

The acting, the music, the incredible photography--they're all great, if you realize you are watching a literate, funny, well-plotted (as opposed to simply plotted) meditation on the ghosts that increasingly inhabit our technocratic dwellings.

Too good for a grade: see it on the biggest, best screen you can while you can. BTW--it's better the second time.

In Bringing Out the Dead, Nicolas Cage plays Frank, a graveyard shift EMT technician in New York City in the early 1990s. In classic Scorsese style, the themes of masculinity, subcultural underground interaction, and fast paced film editing combine to form the frenetic basis of Frank's neo-noir lifestyle. The film is dark, urban, and also blackly comic, relying on strong masculine characters to provide energy and humor.

Overall, Bringing Out the Dead appears to be heavily influenced by film noir. Frank, the protagonist, is at the end of his rope in a rather solitary and stressful job and he often finds escape from the ghosts of his failures through alcohol. Patricia Arquette plays Mary, the femme fatale character and woman in distress Frank seeks to save. The film is uber-urban, set mainly in the nighttime ghettos and hustling districts of New York City, and the major events center around various city dwellers. Frank's adventures in life saving are highlighted by the colorful characters of City life, including prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless persons, insane persons, goth-punk death rockers and the ubiquitous 'Mr. O.,' the smelliest destitute to plague Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy Hospital. Frank is led by Mary into the narcotic underworld, and meets the proprietor of 'The Oasis,' a charismatic dealer with a passion for tropical fish and silk robes.

Many of the lighting techniques also serve to emphasize the urbanality of the surroundings, often combining music and fast paced editing. The darkness of the City night is contrasted with the searing halogen of the hospital, and the sunlight that creeps through the window at dawn mocks Frank's insomnia. Indeed, the movie ends at dawn, with Frank nodding off to sleep. This is very similar to the traditional horror movie ending at dawn when the nighttime monsters are relegated to their nocturnal lairs. Editing techniques are feverish and accelerate in pace as the movie progresses and Frank's hysteria mounts. Many of these sequences involve a montage of the flashing ambulance lights, 360-degree camera rotation, blurred traffic lights and shots of the crazed driver behind the wheel. My personal favorite scene is when Frank is going to answer a call, and the montage is set to R.E.M.'s What's the Frequency Kenneth.

Overall, most of the main characters are the male ambulance drivers/EMTs. These characters, Frank, Tom, Marcus and Larry, exude a kind of unquestioned masculinity, which they prove through various means such as violence, excessive flirting, and alcohol consumption. Tom is a violent, hair trigger macho who enjoys pummeling transients and minorities. Marcus is a smooth talking black man who chain smokes stogies and praises Jesus. Larry is an overweight everyman, wanting to start his own paramedic business. Frank is a Marlboro smoking altruistic cowboy with a drinking problem and insomnia. At some point, most of the characters engage in drinking (liquor) while on duty or at least in the ambulance. The characters names are also quite masculine, especially in contrast to Noel, a man who is a drug addict of ethnic descent that is never arguably fully a man.

Inherently, Scorsese's New York City is an urban jungle that will break any man who is not strong or tough enough.

Martin Scorsese is rightfully lauded for many fine films, but still doesn't seem to get quite enough credit for this NYC-set character study. Paul Schrader adapts the novel by former EMS worker Joe Connelly, in which paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) has become seriously burnt out. He's spent long years on the mean streets of The City, working hard to save lives. But he is now haunted by the thoughts of those people he could not save, one girl (Cynthia Roman) in particular. Although he makes a connection with Mary (Patricia Arquette), daughter of one of his patients, it remains to be seen just how much this relationship will do for his fragile mind.

The role of a mentally unbalanced individual tormented by what he's seen and done is a natural for the talented Cage. Here Cage shows just how good he can be when working with strong material. (Although that's not to say that he doesn't have some VERY intense moments.) Scorsese is to be commended for his impressive use of surrealism, and the grim, seedy aesthetic he often applies to the film. It has great atmosphere, and equally fine use of locations.

The story is episodic in nature, as we see Frank work with a succession of partners: the amiable John Goodman (as Larry), an upbeat and energetic Ving Rhames (as Marcus), and a lively Tom Sizemore (as Tom Wolls). The whole cast does creditable work, and there are a pleasing number of familiar faces and reliable character actors and actresses in supporting roles: Marc Anthony, Mary Beth Hurt, Cliff Curtis, Nestor Serrano, Aida Turturro, Sonja Sohn, Afemo Omilami, Arthur J. Nascarella. Scorsese can be heard as a male dispatcher, Queen Latifah is the voice of a female dispatcher, and that's independent filmmaker Larry Fessenden in a cameo as a cokehead.

With a very eclectic soundtrack as accompaniment, striking cinematography by Robert Richardson, and some dizzying camera angles, "Bringing Out the Dead" proves to be an interesting, provocative, and heartfelt depiction - albeit with memorable comedic elements - of the grim side of life in NYC. Ultimately, it's a long, hard road to finding the strength and faith that Frank needs to carry on.

Eight out of 10.