BRINGING OUT THE DEAD  
 

From the promos for Bringing Out the Dead, I figured that Martin Scorsese was returning to the surreal hijinks that dominated his 1985 film After Hours.  Both are quasi-contemporary stories set in New York during the wee hours, share a mordant sense of comedy, and focus on the absurdities encountered by a youngish, single protagonist named for a saint (Francis in the former and Paul in the latter). In addition, each features an Arquette as a romantic attraction -- Rosanna in After Hours and Patricia in Dead.  But Scorsese's latest effort echoes several of his other works, too, including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Casino.

Nicholas Cage plays Frank Pierce, a paramedic working the night shift who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It seems that making saves determines Frank’s mindset -- "saving someone’s life is like falling in love" -- and lately, rescues have been few and far between. Instead, Frank and his various partners have to attend to a man who’s set his pants on fire, a demonic possession, and a woman who goes into cardiac arrest when a roach climbs into her ear. Adding to Frank’s despair is the fact that he sees ghosts. (Now where have we seen this in the past few months?…) When he rushes to the side of one heart attack victim, not only is Frank instantly smitten by the man’s daughter (Cage’s real-life wife Patricia Arquette, late of the creepy Stigmata), but he begins to question his choice of profession.

The religious imagery manifest in most of Scorsese’s films, especially Mean Streets and Raging Bull, is much in evidence here. This is surely due not only to Scorsese’s belief that the cinema is the optimal place for him to explore Catholicism, but the input of screenwriter (as well as director and film theorist) Paul Schrader, who injects his Fundamentalist upbringing into all his films.   For example, religious allusions in Dead include at least three manifestations of Mary: it’s Arquette’s character’s first name, Frank attends a woman in labor named Maria who claims to be a virgin (and thus the birth is "a miracle"), and he rushes charges to Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy Hospital, a.k.a., "Perpetual Misery," where a neon-haloed Madonna stands guard.  We twice encounter a diminutive nun spouting Doomsday rhetoric, and one of Frank’s partners (John Goodman) reminisces about a pizza parlor that used to festoon its pies with plastic mini Madonnas, much the way some bars decorate sugary drinks with paper umbrellas. The most farcical mention of religion involves Marcus, a gospel-spouting paramedic (splendidly played by Ving Rhames in a James Brownish wig), who leads pale-faced denizens of a Goth club in prayer at an impromptu revival meeting. Then, of course, there’s the question of whether Frank is playing God in deciding how assiduously to attend to his charges.

Another familiar Scorsese motif, New York City as Hell on earth, appears, as well. The  city streets are crawling with assorted lowlifes, à la the druggies, pimps and whores that populate Taxi Driver.  (The story is conveniently set in the early 1990’s, prior to Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s cleanup and the precipitous drop in New York’s crime rate.)  Frank makes rescues in menacing locales, replete with gleaming garbage bags, crimson doors and blood-red graffiti, and junkies OD left and right on a nasty drug called Red Death.  Similarly, fire references -- which figure prominently in Casino (the car blast that punctuates the film’s beginning and end) and After Hours (Rosanna Arquette’s inexplicable collection of books on burn victims) -- appear here. There’s the painting of an erupting volcano on the wall in Mary’s apartment, fireworks that seem to permeate the sky, and Marcus wanting to know if Frank is "scorched" or merely "burning." (The fact that Frank is reckless enough to eschew safety precautions, such as wearing gloves or using a ventilation device, when making rescues, clues us in as to just how far gone he may be.)

Aficionadi of Scorsese’s pyrotechnical techniques won’t be disappointed with Dead. Thanks in part to special effects by Industrial Light and Magic and cinematographer Robert Richardson (who photographed Casino and several Oliver Stone films), Dead boasts grand camerawork, such as fast motion shots of Frank’s careening ambulance from several angles, including a 90-degree slant that looks like the vehicle is speeding up the side of a wall. (It’s sort of like Fred Astaire tap dancing on the walls and ceiling in one of his classics.) There are Scorsese’s signature tracking shots that follow Frank on route to various emergencies, as well as close-ups and point-of view shots that put us in Frank’s shoes. And Scorsese’s use of light is magical; even in the nocturnal shadows, Frank’s regulation white shirt sports a fluorescent glow, marking him as special.

Known for his meticulous editing to music, Dead has an eclectic score, ranging from a plaintive Sinatra number (no doubt a relic from Scorsese's own boyhood) and bouncy sixties’ tunes ("Nowhere to Run") to songs by Natalie Merchant, Van Morrison and REM, all with commentative lyrics.  In fact, the general use of sound in Dead is innovative. A cacophony of wailing sirens, doctors yelling, and patients spewing obscenities, like the layering of sound in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, intensifies the view of "Perpetual Misery" as a bloody war zone.

Like many of Scorsese’s films, Dead is based on a book, in this case an autobiographical first novel by Joe Connelly. Connelly, who spent a decade as a paramedic in  the "trenches" of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, was on hand during the filming, and contributed some of the dialogue, adding to the film’s gritty realism.

Several of the director’s cronies are behind the scenes. They include editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who’s worked with Scorsese for more than 30 years, long-time producer Barbara De Fina and production manager Bruce Pustin (an erstwhile cohort of mine at Villanova University).  Paul Schrader, mentioned above, teams here with Scorsese for the fourth time as screenwriter. (Previously Schrader wrote the original screenplay  for Taxi Driver and film adaptations for Scorsese’s Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ.) However, don’t expect to see Scorsese’s coterie of on-screen regulars, like Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Pesci; Schrader’s wife, Mary Beth Hurt, who has a small role in The Age of Innocence, is the only returnee, playing an emergency room nurse.   They may be Scorsese neophytes, but the cast, which also includes Tom Sizemore (my fave in Saving Private Ryan) and Queen Latifah (unseen but providing the saucy voice of the radio dispatcher) is wonderful.  Alas, I wasn’t able to spot any Scorsese relations (yes, I know his parents have passed, but at least one of his daughters has appeared in his films) or a cameo by the auteur himself.

Attention EMS responders:  You in particular should appreciate the banter and the settings.  Whether in the ED, dispatch office, or dragging supplies up the narrow stairs of rickety apartment buildings, the medics maintain continuous conversation: They bemoan the repeat patients (especially the ones who smell bad), whether they’ll get a chance to eat before the next call (and in typical Scorsese style they’re very specific about food preferences), and hope some really interesting trauma will come their way that night.

October 24, 1999
Elana Rose Starr, www.homepage.villanova.edu/elana.starr