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Bringing Out The Dead
USA 1999
Reviewed by Kevin Jackson
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
New York City, the early 90s. Frank Pierce, an ambulance driver who works the graveyard shift, is close to cracking up. On one mission he revives Mr Burke from a heart attack and rushes him back to the ER at Our Lady of Mercy hospital where he is put on life support. Nonetheless, Frank still feels guilt about the death of Rose, a young woman whose ghostly face he sees everywhere. Like his fellow-drivers - Larry, Marcus and Tom - with whom he works on three successive nights, Frank is enraged by those who use and abuse the service. Frank begins to fall for former drug-user Mary, the daughter of Mr Burke. Frank declares his intention to quit one night after his ambulance crashes. He tries unsuccessfully to get himself fired.
Accompanying Mary to the apartment of Cy, a drug dealer who gives her a powerful drug, Frank follows suit and experiences macabre hallucinations. Back at the ER, Frank seems to hear the disembodied voice of Mr Burke begging Frank to let him die. On another mission, Frank is called to help Cy, who has been impaled on a spiked railing after a rival gang's attack. Later, Frank almost succumbs to the temptation of helping Tom beat up Noel, a local drug casualty, but repents at the last minute. He returns to the ER and, giving in to the ghostly voice, allows Mr Burke to die peacefully. He goes to tell Mary the sad news; she invites him in and cradles him as he drifts towards sleep.
Review
Why, this is hell; we've been here before. The sulphurous visions of nocturnal streets splashed with garish neon and prowled by "whores, skunk pussies, buggers" and other oiks, sneaks and cads; the speed-driven loner who stares at it all with enthralled horror from his roving vehicle as he nurses chronic insomnia and a hypertrophied craving for redemption; the enigmatic young woman, the Beatrice figure, who may both save and be saved - similarities between Taxi Driver (1976) and Bringing Out the Dead are clear beyond reasonable dispute. The only shouting match worth having just now is whether the new film amounts to director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader offering us a rich reworking of their original tragic material from the chastened perspective of maturity, something along the lines of, say, Othello and A Winter's Tale, or sad self-plagiarism.
I'm inclined to agree broadly with David Thompson's contention (S&S December 1999) that the old team's return to familiar turf has produced a very different and, in many respects, very impressive film. Talent aside, much of Taxi Driver's thrilling originality came from the (relative) youthfulness of its makers, and many of its qualities are those found in gifted adolescents: morbidity, introspection, rage, a sense of the world's endemic rottenness and a stubborn refusal of compromise. (A quarter of a century on, the movie still casts a spell on teenagers and on the teenager in grown-ups who should know better.) Taxi Driver also made delicious mock of its otherwise dangerously appealing protagonist, since Travis Bickle, "God's lonely man", is not just a psychopath but a goon: Homer Simpson as imagined by Robert Bresson.
Frank Pierce, the driven driver of Bringing Out the Dead, just isn't like that. Yes, he's a profoundly troubled man, worn raw by the violence and stress of his job, but he's a good man. And that simple fact may be the very thing that will disappoint some viewers, since one of the most telling differences between the two films is that Bringing Out the Dead is far less smitten than its precursor with the glamour of being a misunderstood outsider. "No one asked you to suffer," Mary gently rebukes Frank as she cradles him, pietà-fashion, at the end of his dark working nights of the soul. "That was your idea." Her words, which sound less sententious in Patricia Arquette's quiet, bone-weary delivery than in cold print, strike just the right cautionary note of perspective. Frank's martyrdom is at least partly self-elected, as any decent grown-up could have told him.
For all its frequent bloodiness and immaculately crafted frenzies - and some of the film's sequences of ambulances hurtling down the streets are terrifically exciting, all berserk camera angles, cranked-up Clash anthems and spasms of accelerated motion - Bringing Out the Dead is unwontedly tender at the core, closer in some ways to Scorsese's overtly religious films such as The Last Temptation of Christ or even Kundun than to his contemporary thrillers. Nicolas Cage even looks like Christ (like a distressed El Greco painting of Christ that is, not like Willem Dafoe). When the camera dotes intently on his increasingly wan, drawn and bestubbled features on the rare occasions when he laughs or smiles, it's as if his face is quoting somebody else's.
Oddly enough, Frank does have a fair bit to laugh about since Dead is heavily interlarded with chunks of fast-talking gallows humour, some of it provided by the ambulance men's radio banter with their off-screen controllers (spoken by Scorsese himself and Queen Latifah), some of it by the tasteless antics they dream up to sweeten their chores. Ving Rhames (a pure joy every time he's on screen as Marcus, one of Frank's partners) has a wonderful scene in which he coerces a bunch of gawky goths to join hands and pray for their overdosed pal. But all the scenes of medics and drivers at work are finely done - pacey, witty and a sight more convincing than ER.
If Scorsese and Schrader hadn't brought humour and authenticity to bear on this loaded material, it would have been a lot closer to Taxi Driver and so a lot weaker. Their film firmly places Frank's hyperbolic view of Manhattan/hell (every prostitute's face a dead girl's, every underlit alley or stairwell an out-take from The Fisher King) as the distorted vision of stress and drugs and shock and soul-searching. At heart, it seems conceived more in sorrow than in anger, with a hero struggling confusedly towards health rather than towards a convulsive and gratifyingly apocalyptic expression of his sickness. If we persist in finding Scorsese's avenging angels more irresistible than his angels of mercy, that may well be a sign of our unregenerate appetites, not the director's allegedly waning powers. Or, more simply: the devil has all the best goons.
Credits
- Director
- Martin Scorsese
- Producers
- Scott Rudin
- Barbara De Fina
- Screenplay
- Paul Schrader
- Based on the novel by Joe Connelly
- Director of Photography
- Robert Richardson
- Editor
- Thelma Schoonmaker
- Production Designer
- Dante Ferretti
- Music
- Elmer Bernstein
- ©Paramount Pictures Corporation and Touchstone Pictures
- Production Companies
- Touchstone Pictures and Paramount Pictures present a Scott Rudin- Cappa/De Fina production
- Executive Producers
- Adam Schroeder
- Bruce S. Pustin
- Co-producers
- Joseph Reidy
- Eric Steel
- Associate Producers
- Jeff Levine
- Mark Roybal
- Production Supervisor
- Shell Hecht
- Unit Production Manager
- Bruce S. Pustin
- Location Managers
- Len Murach
- Robert T. Striem
- Post-production Supervisor
- Kendall McCarthy
- Assistant Directors
- Joseph Reidy
- Christopher J. Surgent
- Gregory G. Hale
- Script Supervisor
- Martha Pinson
- Casting
- Ellen Lewis
- Associates:
- Marcia DeDonis
- Gayle Keller
- Camera Operator
- Vincent Galindez
- Special Visual Effects
- Industrial Light & Magic
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Michael Owens
- Visual Effects Producers:
- Camille Geier
- Jill Brooks
- Compositing Supervisor:
- Jon Alexander
- Digital Timing Supervisor:
- Kenneth Smith
- Digital Artists:
- Al Bailey
- Stella Bogh
- Pat Brennan
- Jeff Doran
- Kimberly Lashbrook
- Tia Marshall
- Chad Taylor
- Digital Paint & Roto:
- Chris Bayz
- Deb Fought
- Amy Shepard
- Visual Effects Co-ordinators:
- Susan Greenhow
- David Lambert
- Visual Effects Editor:
- John Bartle
- Digital Effects
- Cineric Digital
- Effects Supervisor:
- János Pilenyi
- Motion Control Services
- Gear & Rose, NYC
- Special Effects
- Foreperson:
- Ronald Ottesen
- Co-ordinator:
- John M. Ottesen
- Consulting Editor
- James Kwei
- Art Director
- Robert Guerra
- Set Decorator
- William F. Reynolds
- Costume Designer
- Rita Ryack
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- William A. Campbell
- Joanna Brett
- Make-up
- Key Artist:
- Linda A. Grimes
- Artist:
- Jane DiPersio
- Special Effects Make-up
- Manlio Rocchetti
- Key Hairstylist
- William Farley
- Hairstylist
- Scott Farley
- Titles
- The Picture Mill
- Opticals
- Cineric Inc
- Orchestra Conductor
- Elmer Bernstein
- Orchestrations
- Emilie Bernstein
- Executive in Charge of Music, Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group
- Kathy Nelson
- Music Editors
- Kathy Durning
- Bobby Mackston
- Score Recordist/Mixer
- Dan Wallin
- Soundtrack
- "T.B. Sheets" by/performed by Van Morrison; "You Can't Put Your Arms 'Round a Memory" by/performed by Johnny Thunders; "September of My Years" by Sammy Cahn, James Van Heusen, performed by Frank Sinatra; "Bell Boy" by Pete Townshend, performed by The Who; "Mr. Highway", "Threat" by Elmer Bernstein; "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" by William Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, performed by R.E.M.; "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" by Stevie Wonder; "Llegaste a mi" by Omar Alfanno, performed by Marc Anthony; "Too Many Fish in the Sea" by Norman J. Whitfield, Edward Holland Jr, performed by The Marvelettes; "So What!" by Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins, Flea, performed by Jane's Addiction; "These Are Days" by Natalie Merchant, Robert Buck, performed by 10,000 Maniacs; "Nowhere to Run" by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland Jr, performed by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas; "I and I Survive (Slavery Days)" by Winston Rodney, Philip Fullwood, performed by Burning Spear; "Rivers of Babylon" by Frank Farian, George Reyam, Brent Dowe, James A. McNaughton, performed by The Melodians; "Rang Tang Ding Dong (I Am a Japanese Sandman)" by Alvin Williams, performed by The Cellos; "Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)" by Igor Stravinsky, performed by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein; "Combination of the Two" by Sam Andrew, performed by Big Brother & The Holding Company; "Hasta ayer" by Manny Delgado, performed by Marc Anthony; "Red, Red Wine" by Neil Diamond, performed by UB40; "Janie Jones", "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A." by Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, performed by The Clash
- Sound Mixer
- James J. Sabat
- Re-recording Mixer
- Tom Fleischman
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Philip Stockton
- Dialogue Editors
- Fred Rosenberg
- Laura Civiello
- Sound Effects Designer
- Eugene Gearty
- ADR
- Loop Group:
- Loopers Unlimited
- Recording Engineer:
- David Boulton
- Recordist:
- Alex Raspa
- Editor:
- Marissa Littlefield
- Foley
- Supervisor:
- Jennifer Ralston
- Artist:
- Marko Costanzo
- Recordist:
- George A. Lara
- Editors:
- Frank Kern
- Andy Kris
- Ben Cheah
- EMS Technical Advisers
- Joe Connelly
- Susan Callahan
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- G.A. Aguilar
- Cast
- Nicolas Cage
- Frank Pierce
- Patricia Arquette
- Mary Burke
- John Goodman
- Larry
- Ving Rhames
- Marcus
- Tom Sizemore
- Tom Wolls
- Marc Anthony
- Noel
- Mary Beth Hurt
- Nurse Constance
- Cliff Curtis
- Cy Coates
- Nestor Serrano
- Doctor Hazmat
- Aida Turturro
- Nurse Crupp
- Sonja Sohn
- Kanita
- Cynthia Roman
- Rose
- Afemo Omilami
- Griss
- Cullen Oliver Johnson
- Mr Burke
- Arthur Nascarella
- Captain Barney
- Martin Scorsese
- dispatcher
- Julyana Soelistyo
- Sister Fetus
- Graciela Lecube
- Marylouise Burke
- neighbor women
- Phyllis Somerville
- Mrs Burke
- Mary Diveny
- neighbour woman
- Tom Riis Farrell
- John Burke
- Aleks Shaklin
- Leonid Citer
- arguing Russians
- Jesus A. Del Rosario Jr
- man with bloody foot
- Larry Fessenden
- cokehead
- Bernie Friedman
- big feet
- Theo Kogan
- Fuschia Walker
- prostitutes
- John Heffernan
- Mr Oh
- Matthew Maher
- Bronson Dudley
- Marilyn McDonald
- Mr Oh's friends
- Ed Jupp Jr
- J. Stanford Hoffman
- homeless men in waiting room
- Rita Norona Schrager
- concerned Hispanic aunt
- Don Berry
- naked man
- Mtume Gant
- street punk
- Michael A. Noto
- grunt
- Omar Sharif Scroggins
- bystander
- muMs
- voice in crowd
- Michael Kenneth Williams
- drug dealer
- Andrew Davoli
- Stanley
- Charlene Hunter
- Miss Williams
- Jesse Malin
- club doorman
- Harper Simon
- I.B. Bangin'
- Joseph Monroe Webb
- drummer
- Jon Abrahams
- club bystander
- Charis Michelson
- I.B.'s girlfriend
- Lia Yang
- Doctor Milagros
- Antone Pagán
- arrested man
- Melissa Marsala
- Bridge & Tunnel girl
- Betty Miller
- weeping woman
- Rosemary Gomez
- pregnant Maria
- Luis Rodriguez
- Carlos
- Sylva Kelegian
- crackhead
- Frank Ciornei
- Doctor Mishra
- Catrina Ganey
- Nurse Odette
- Jennifer Lane Newman
- nurse adviser
- John Bal
- Raymond Cassar
- police in hospital
- Tom Cappadona
- Jack O'Connell
- Randy Foster
- drunks
- Richard Spore
- homeless suicidal
- James Hanlon
- Chris Edwards
- firemen
- Mark Giordano
- police sergeant
- Michael Mulheren
- David Zayas
- cops in elevator
- Terry Serpico
- Brian Smyj
- Floyd Resnick
- cops
- Megan Leigh
- surgeon
- David Vasquez
- screaming man
- Judy Reyes
- Joseph Reidy
- ICU nurses
- Queen Latifah
- voice of Dispatcher Love
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 10,887 feet
- 120 minutes 58 seconds
- SDDS/Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound
- In Colour
- Prints by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic [Panavision]