The protagonists of writer and director Paul Schrader find comfort in solitude. Think about Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or Ernst Toller in First Reformed, men making sense of their despair in their private time, often through writing in a journal or (in the most famous example) speaking to themselves in the mirror. Frank Pierce, the desperate hero of Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, almost has no time to himself. Pierce works as a night paramedic in Hell’s Kitchen, an occupation that forces him to clean up one horrific mess after another. Along with cinematographer Robert Richardson, Martin Scorsese creates some of the most memorable imagery of his career, a vision of Manhattan that’s more akin to a hellish nightclub.
Nicolas Cage plays Pierce with a convincing mix of paranoia and weariness. His insomnia is so pervasive it has become part of his personality, and over the course of several grueling nights, Cage develops a sickly pallor that makes him almost like a ghost, or a zombie. Released in 1999, Bringing Out the Dead was before Cage became the subject of countless memes, and his performance is a reminder he can find greatness in the hands of a filmmaker who hones his instincts.
Cage is subdued for long stretches of the film, bearing witness to a community that is seized by drug-induced madness. His only solace comes from an unlikely source: Patricia Arquette plays Mary, an ex-junkie whose father has a heart attack. In a healthcare system where everyone is overworked and all the patients are whacked out of their mind, Mary represents the possibility of a quiet, normal life. She is a familiar Schrader character, seductive because she’s so ordinary and far-removed from Frank’s frayed routine.
To Frank’s chagrin, the tenor of his workday is a direct reflection of his partner in the ambulance, all of whom have different ways of coping with the same undiagnosed PTSD. John Goodman plays Larry, who sees himself as an impersonal janitor, the kind who studiously avoids taking anything in his job personally. Whereas Goodman plays a familiar type, the weary professional cynic, Frank’s other two partners are a little more eccentric.
Marcus (Ving Rhames) is a passionate Christian who sees healthcare as an opportunity to preach the Good Word, leading to a hilarious scene where he convinces onlookers that the power of prayer revives a junkie, not a discreetly hidden shot of adrenaline. Part of the film’s appeal is how Schrader, working from a book by Joe Connelly, finds extremes of humanity all in the same moment. Frank is exhausted down to the bones, and yet he finds excitement in places he never imagined. His third partner, the unhinged Tom (Tom Sizemore), drags Frank into his worst impulses, as he is the kind of man who would rather let a patient die than care for them.
Because so much of Bringing Out the Dead takes place in the streets and alleys of Manhattan, it is tempting to compare the film to Taxi Driver or Mean Streets. The best reference for the film, however, is the dark comedy After Hours. There is an episodic nature to Frank’s nights in Hell’s Kitchen, just like Paul Hackett’s awful night in SoHo. More importantly, Scorsese again suggests that the city almost a character in the film, a useful cliché because Frank and all the others are products of their environment. New York has never looked more frightening or more beautiful, with Scorsese’s camera using wan of pools to suggest small oases in a concrete urban slaughterhouse.
In early 2019, the critic and pop culture writer Brian Rafferty published Best Movie Year Ever, a book that argues that the movies of 1999 had unparalleled quality. Titles like The Matrix, Fight Club, and The Blair Witch Project get entire chapters, but perhaps not surprisingly, Rafferty does not devote a chapter to Bringing Out the Dead, as the popular consensus is that it’s a minor film from a major filmmaker. That consensus misses the point because, unlike the “best movie year” entrants, Scorsese is not trying to be hip. His point of view lacks any irony, the characters are depressed or psychotic, and Frank’s haggard appearance creates a kind of moral throughline. But there is a stubborn hope in Frank’s persistence, one that leads him to a moment of actual rest when he needs it most. That final scene is the most help a Schrader hero can ever receive, and once again, Scorsese suggests that it has to be enough.
The post Oeuvre: Scorsese: Bringing Out the Dead appeared first on Spectrum Culture.