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| Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures |
The working relationship of New York
based director Martin Scorsese and recurring Michigan native screenwriter Paul
Schrader goes back decades, starting with their 1976 collaboration over Taxi
Driver before reuniting twice more for Raging Bull in 1980 and their
controversial 1988 adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ. Typically focused on the troubled psyches of
their protagonists whether it be loner Travis Bickle’s descent into violence,
Jake La Motta’s downward spiral and career obliteration and eventually the Lord
Almighty’s struggles with human fears and doubts, Scorsese and Schrader formed
a formidable filmmaking team that all but went on a permanent hiatus following Last
Temptation. Almost ten years later,
however, the dynamic duo reunited one last time in an adaptation of Joe
Connelly’s Bringing Out the Dead: a dreamy, ethereal character study of forty-eight
hours in the life of a despondent, burnt-out New York based paramedic teetering
on the edge of insanity starring Nicolas Cage in his first and only time
working with the legendary filmmaker.
Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) has seen
his share of too many deaths on the never-ending after-hours routine of being
pushed out into the rough neighborhoods and streets of New York to try and save
lives as a paramedic. Often stationed
with his partner Larry (John Goodman), Frank is plagued with demons pertaining
to insomnia and depression involving a failed attempt to resuscitate a homeless
teenager who reappears to Frank via ghostly apparition and/or sleep deprived hallucination. On a night on the job, Frank and Larry are
called into a cardiac arrest case involving Mr. Burke with his former
drug-addict daughter Mary (Patricia Arquette) keeping close vigil. Befriending her, they encounter Noel (Marc Anthony)
another drug addict who comes in and out of the saga throughout the film. Over the course of the movie, Frank’s odyssey
operating on piss and vinegar and interacting with other paramedics such as
pious Marcus (Ving Rhames) and violent sociopathic Tom (Tom Sizemore) keeps
coming back to Mr. Burke and he begins wondering whether or not keeping the
poor suffering man alive is really what he needs.
Filled with interior monologue from
Nicolas Cage in one of his impassioned yet subtle performances, ghostly overly
brightened vistas contrasting with the nighttime blacks and blues by Casino cinematographer
Robert Richardson, arrestingly squalid sets by Gangs of New York production
designer Dante Ferretti, razor sharp hyperkinetic editing by Thelma Schoonmaker
and a haunted New York quasi-Ghostbusters score by Elmer Bernstein, Bringing
Out the Dead is perhaps the director’s sleepwalking waking nightmare. Reimagining New York as a city full of
lingering disembodied ghosts who haunt the psyche of Frank Pierce for not
saving them, including but not limited to several effects shots of the homeless
girl reappearing as inhuman doppelgangers, Scorsese’s film draws the viewer
deep into our protagonist’s headspace and we find ourselves sharing in his
daylight hallucinations and dismay over the amount of lives he failed to
protect. Stemming from Scorsese’s own
experiences with ambulances and paramedics involving his parents, it is a
vision of New York that’s at once familiar and out of a high-contrast gritty
desaturated color scheme. At once
deconstructing and heroizing the paramedic’s struggle in addition to portraying
it as overworked and in desperate need of more helping hands, it represents the
only time Scorsese worked with his principal cast members who all give
generally strong performances.
Nicolas Cage has ample room to go nuts
in his usual way with this character, but he stays trained within the limits of
a Scorsese nonjudgmental portrait of a complex, flawed but ultimately good man
trying to make the right decision in a morally complex environment. In 2022, the actor would look back on it as
one of his greatest achievements and rewatching the film decades after its
initial release I’m inclined to agree.
Burning with fatigue, madness and ultimately compassion, it asks for a vulnerability
within the actor rarely glimpsed onscreen even with his already diverse
filmography. Equally strong onscreen are
John Goodman and Ving Rhames as arches of support to Cage’s depleted mental and
physical state. Patricia Arquette who
was reportedly dating Nicolas Cage during filming is mostly fine though Lost
Highway is arguably her acting peak.
For those who are really listening, you’ll spot some sneaky voice cameos
from Martin Scorsese and Queen Latifah on the paramedics intercom.
A divisive critical darling compared
to some of Scorsese’s others and tragically a commercial failure at the time,
grossing a mere rough $17 million against a $32 million production budget, Bringing
Out the Dead represented one of the last laserdisc home video releases in
the United States alongside a strong but now dated DVD release. Sometime in 2024 however, decades after its
original release, Bringing Out the Dead finally got a limited-release
Blu-ray/4K UHD combo disc release replete with a newly created Dolby Atmos
soundtrack. It also comes stacked with
extras including newly filmed retrospective interviews with Martin Scorsese, Nicolas
Cage and Paul Schrader. There’s also a
bevy of archival on-set interviews with the cast and crew which lasts around twenty
minutes along with an original interview reel from the press kit. Looking at this kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory
reimaging of nighttime New York as a madcap pinball machine dripping with death
and ghosts, Bringing Out the Dead remains one of Scorsese’s most
underappreciated and underseen offerings.
While sadly the 4K UHD disc release is out of print save for the digital
streaming version, Bringing Out the Dead demands viewing as one of
Martin Scorsese’s most painterly and compassionate films in his oeuvre. Perhaps one day, the film’s following will
expand beyond devotees of the director.
--Andrew Kotwicki
