by Yazmin Ghonaim

BRINGING OUT THE DEAD Martin Scorsese (1999) Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader and based on the novel by Joe Connelly, Bringing Out the Dead takes the viewer to the streets of New York alongside an ambulance driver/paramedic.Bringing Out the Dead roams the city streets at night, often from inside the vehicle and from the point of view of its narrator, Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage). Like a misplaced animal that has become familiar with its surroundings but must betray its nature in order to adapt and survive, Frank personifies a lonely, exhausted man who knows his setting, can perform his tasks, but cannot reconcile his soul with the world. Bringing Out the Dead focuses on the hostile "underworld" that Frank as a paramedic inhabits, but mostly on the mental and emotional anguish that inhabits him. The incessant 911 calls, mostly from people who are victims of their own inadequacies within their decrepit worlds, and the extreme measures he mechanically performs to save them, haunt and possess Frank. Alcohol, caffeine and his partners, Larry (John Goodman), Marcus (Ving Rhames) and Tom (Tom Sizemore) frustrate and appease him. Frank's anxiety is heightened by the reappearing ghost of a girl he could not save and by a regular patient (played by singer Marc Anthony) who constantly tests his composure. However, his encounters with Mary (Patricia Arquette: Lost Highway, Stigmata), whose father he resurrects from a stroke but cannot bring out from a state of comma, grow from coincidental to deliberate and seem to provide some comfort. Aside from questioning the benefits of saving a life which often does not want to be saved, the film exposes the problems of overcrowded clinics and overworked staff. Most importantly, the film explores a popular and justified branch of graphic violence (medical emergencies so popular in contemporary television), where tolerant viewers who oppose the negative influence of gratuitous violence may find a less troubling form of entertainment. Still, unlike the memorable protagonists in other Scorsese films (such as in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Last Temptation of Christ), Bringing Out the Dead will disappoint the viewer in that the mysteries inherent in the protagonist are a product of poor character development and of the lack of a complicated, troublesome --and thus, interesting-- ideology.		DVD Music Books Search by keywords:
Outstanding Features: Character Development, Color, Lighting, Cinematography Bringing Out the Dead Movie Review © 1999 Cinephiles - All rights reserved.