Vivendo no Limite

I was genuinely curious about "Bringing Out the Dead". I am a fan of Scorsese, but I never heard about this motion picture until a few months ago. The movie follows a medical technician responding to tough emergency calls. There are tons of raw scenes that portray perfectly how crazy and chaotic New York might be during the night. Frank Pierce is a man hunted by the people that was not able to save, he lives with deep regrets and traumas. In order to cope with all this, he becomes addicted to alcohol and other substances, disconnecting completely from reality. On paper this movie is great: first responders see a lot of really difficult situations on a daily basis and this can have some serious consequences on a person's psyche, to the point where personal life and relationships are heavily impacted. I think that the director portrayed this aspect very well. Unfortunately, I had a hard time going through it, because it is really repetitive and I feel that the main character never really develops in any way, he just keeps living in the same way, without doing anything about it. Towards the end we finally see some progressions, but then the credits roll and we do not get to see if Frank will finally find redemption. Maybe someone might find this choice appealing because it leaves the audience in the mystery, but personally I did not enjoy it.

This film had a lot of potential, the acting is decent, the plot is extremely interesting and the side characters are appealing. However, the lack of progression and the exhaustingly repetitive sequences, made "Bringing Out the Dead" a tedious experience.

Bringing out the Dead is the most underrated film ever done by Martin Scorsese. It is one of the most well made films I've ever seen and is one of my favorite dramas of all time.

The film focuses on a paramedic called Frank played by Nicolas Cage. The film focuses on 48 hours of Frank's life as a paramedic and all the horrific things he has seen. As well as that Frank is also haunted by spirits of people who he couldn't save, befriends a young women called Mary played by Patricia Arquette and a whole range of strange partners.

The actors that Scorsese has chosen are a weird bunch as they're not really in Scorsese's other films and they're not really big name actors. As well as Nicolas Cage there's also supporting roles from people like John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Siezmore. Everyone does a fantastic jobs even the actors who have much smaller roles than others.

This is much more surreal film than most other Scorsese films as we go into Frank's mind.

The reasons why this films succeeds is just that you really care about this characters and while the film dosen't really have much of a story it grips you the whole way through.

It also has a great soundtrack which includes artists like Van Morrison, R.E.M and the Who.

Overall the film is quite different to what you're usually expecting but it grips who the whole way though and it gets a full 5 star rating form me.

Director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Shrader, these two names alone stand for excellence and brilliance, put them together and you havebrilliant film making history as witnessed by their former collaborations ("Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull" and "The Last Temptation of Christ"). Add the totally compelling and very real "Bringing Out the Dead" to that list. Based on the novel by Joe Connelly, a former EMS worker, "Bringing Out the Dead" follows three long nights in the life of New York City paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicholas Cage) as he navigates through the life and death situations of the last era of the "mean streets" of New York City, the early 90's, all the while attempting to hold on to his sanity by a thread.

Scorsese creates a very real New York (before the gentrification of the Giuliani era) that is rarely seen in films. This is not the flashy and glitzy New York that is often shown in most movies. He goes deep into the psyche of a city that is crammed with 9 million people, some who are struggling just to stay afloat. As the character Mary says, "You have to be strong to survive in this city." Some of the scenes in the movie are so memorable and haunting such as Frank's hallucination of actually pulling people literally from the steam shrouded pavement and bringing them back to life and the harrowing, almost Christ-like sequence where Frank is saving a drug dealer from death as he dangles from a balcony.

Nicholas Cage, one of our finest actors working today, gives a brilliant performance of great emotional range that is draining to watch. You literally see him coming unglued piece by piece. This is his best performance since "Leaving Las Vegas". Patricia Arquette (Cage's wife) gives a very moving and subtle performance of a person who has been to hell and back while struggling to maintain some balance in the jungle. Goodman, Rhames and Sizemore turn out good performances as always playing Cage's co-pilots in the nightly journeys. Also standing out are Latin singer, Marc Anthony as a homeless crazy and Cliff Curtis as a drug dealer who provides an "oasis" for the stressed-out individuals of the city. An excellent director and a great script are a perfect formula for producing top-notch performances by actors and Scorsese and Shrader bring out the best in theirs.

With it's story of the lead character Frank cruising the streets making narrative comments about life in the city, comparisons will be made naturally to Scorsese's other brilliant work "Taxi Driver" with it's main character Travis Bickle, but those comparisons are normal and stop right there. Where Travis Bickle wanted to save people who did not need saving, Frank Pierce reaches out to people who desperately need saving, but does not always have the power to save as in the case of the homeless girl Maria, who haunts him constantly. Also Scorsese is too highly intelligent, creative and the ultimate professional to retread the same waters, he never takes the easy road. A Scorsese film is like any great film, it takes time to take it in and digest, because there are so many different layers added that need to be looked at long after the last reel finishes. This is a powerful piece of filmmaking proving once again that Martin Scorsese is one of the all-time great directors of this century. Highly Recommended. × × ××

BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999) ***1/2

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Cliff Curtis Director: Martin Scorsese Running time: 120 minutes Rated R (for gritty violent content, language, and drug use)

By Blake French:

Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out The Dead" is one of the only movies I have ever seen that does not remotely glamorize its subject matter. That is something that does not come naturally in the world of film. Movies glamorize almost everything they face matters with; whether it's violence, drugs, sex, or other behaviors. Movies persuade, advertise, and sell incorrect messages to hungry and excepting pedestrians. Not only is "Bringing Out The Dead" an anti-violence, drugs and glamour film, it also manages to deliver its message through one of the most talented actors in Hollywood clearly and understandably. This is one of the year's most unsettling and uncompromising productions, and also one of the year's best.

"Bringing Out the Dead" offers no story in its existence. But there is no actual need for a plot here, due to a strong, precise narrative through-line and focused point of view seen through its central character. He is Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage), who narrates the film with a sense of depravity. He and his buddies, Marcus (Ving Rhames), Tom (Tom Sizemore), and Larry (John Goodman), work the evening shift at New York's Hell's Kitchen as Ambulance Drivers for an emergency hospital. They live a life full of stress, sweat, and desperation. Frank often comes to work pleading for his boss to fire him. The opening scene, which properly induces the desperate and gritty lives of the main characters, features Frank and Larry, being called to the home of Mary Burke, whose unhealthy father is having a heart attack. They stabilize him, rush the man to their emergency care facility, and go on with their lives.

Now, where many "lesser" movies would have developed a romantic subplot with the Mary character and Frank, "Bringing Out the Dead" is too focused and skillful to do that. There is affection between the two. But Frank is in such a position in his life that he just isn't prone to fall for a woman. Nor does he give in to any of the many hookers standing on the street blocks tempting him to keep them in business. He is on the verge of an nervous break down, and the film never pretends otherwise.

While for the most part, this movie didn't give into any major distractions or side-subjects, it did have several flawed and unexplained subplots. The story featuring Frank constantly being haunted by the ghost of a young girl he lost some time ago isn't really explained enough. Nor does an unusually bizarre scene later on payoff featuring Frank saving lost souls in pain beneath the streets of New York. And there seems to be an extremely dangerous drug featured in the movie, which strangely appears at the overdoes scenes where Frank is called to--this isn't detailed enough to pay off either. I do realize the purpose of us not knowing about this medical issue; we don't have the knowledge because Frank doesn't. But I still think there may have been a way to inform the audience on the context of this material, without making the hero look stupid. Also, the film is over narrated by Frank, who sometimes describes his interesting past experiences through words, not flashbacks or visions, which would have been much more intriguing.

Scorsese makes no sense of the chaotic, unorganized, unsettling medical experiences patients go through in the emergency room where Frank doctors in. The style he uses to depict the film in is flawless in this justification: the camera angles are mind-warping and fast paced, the atmosphere of the movie is gritty, with blood and vulgarism abound. The characters pace frantically as they travel across one end of the building to the next, not sure to where or whom they are going. The characters also are injected with a deep sense of lifeless scrounge, as they stare and gaze into each other's eyes, only to discover there is nothing in each other. In some aspects, this film is like "Saving Private Ryan": a tantalizing hell.

And Nicolas Cage delivers yet another fascinating performance here. His character is empathized with the entire way through, even if narration is used instead of illusion. He manages to depict his character through the torment and emotional damnation required. He pursues profoundness in scenes where his character realizes happiness in itself. "I fell like I saved someone," mutters Frank to himself. Good job, Frank. You saved yourself.

Brought to you by Paramount Pictures and Touchstone Pictures.

Frank Pierce is at the end of his rope. As portrayed by Nicolas Cage in Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out The Dead", he is a burned out, alcoholic, insomniac New York City ambulance driver tormented by the ghosts of those he failed to save -- specifically, the ghost of Rose, a young, asthmatic woman he couldn't "bring back". The movie is basically a snapshot of Frank's life -- three days of hell as seen from his vantage point : a speeding ambulance by which a blurred, uncertain, frightening, and often oppressive world flies.

Frank tells us at the movie's outset that he hasn't saved a life in months, and that he's beginning to believe in things like spirits that leave a body and don't want to come back. He's starting to feel like a "grief mop", like his only real responsibility is to "bear witness" to death and suffering. Frank and his partner Larry (John Goodman) are attempting to resuscitate a heart attack victim as the movie begins, and as the man's daughter Mary (Patricia Arquette) looks on in horror, Larry is successful in pulling him back from death's door. The overrun hospital, however, shoves him into a corner and keeps him drugged up, shocking him back to "life" when necessary. Mary tells Frank she hadn't spoken to her father for a long while before his attack, and in fact had often wished he were dead, but that now there's nothing she'd like more that to just hear his voice again. She was once a junkie but has now been clean for months, she tells him. Frank seems moved by Mary, seems to want to "save" her -- perhaps he thinks if he can save her, he will be able to let go of the pain of losing Rose.

Frank's developing feelings for Mary provide a counterpoint to the insanity he encounters on emergency calls with his partners Larry (John Goodman), Marcus (Ving Rhames), and Walls (Tom Sizemore). Sometimes the calls involve merely picking up the local smelly drunk Mr. O, their "most frequent flier" who seems to think the hospital is a nice place to sober up. Other times they involve matters that are much more serious, like resuscitating a heroin OD in a club (a great scene) or assisting in the allegedly virgin birth of twins (haunting, and one of the movie's many examples of religious imagery). But no matter where Frank goes, he sees Roses' face -- he sees her everywhere, she comes to him in the guise of the nameless street people that cross his path.

There really is no plot to "Bringing Out The Dead", and that's a good thing because the movie isn't meant to be a straightforward narrative. It's meant to be a snapshot of a man's soul, of his inner demons, and a conventional plot would only cloud the movie's real point. The narrative thrust comes mostly from Frank's interactions with his partners -- each of them representing a different approach, a different way of dealing with the pain brought on by this nerve wracking job. Larry (Goodman) seems to be able to block out the emotional aspects of his job, he seems to see his position mainly as a means to an end, and in fact he tells Frank he'll be a captain one day. Marcus (Ving Rhames, in a scene stealing performance) puts all trust and faith in God, believing that if someone dies, it's just their time to go. Walls (a scarily effective Tom Sizemore) is a borderline psychotic, terrorizing patients (including dread locked street person Noel, well played by singer Mark Anthony) and bashing in his ambulance headlights with a baseball bat.

If these three provide the kinetic thrust of the movie, Frank and Mary provide it's emotional center. Frank finds himself drawn closer and closer to Mary, and in fact he tries to rescue her when she resorts to visiting scummy drug dealer Cy Coates (the excellent Cliff Curtis) at the Oasis, a scarily shot urban hellhole that seems to be a local haven for drug dealing. She needs some respite, however temporary and narcotic, from the pain, and in this sense she has a link with Frank (who drinks on the job and taps into his own medical supplies to get high). The movie seems to be saying that these two people need each other; perhaps each has what is needed to soothe the other's hurt.

"Bringing Out The Dead" is the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader, and it touches on their familiar themes of faith, guilt, hope, and redemption. Much has been written about the similarities between this film and "Taxi Driver", Scorsese's 1976 ode to urban rot. I feel these similarities are somewhat superficial. Though Frank and Travis Bickle are both lonely, disenfranchised, ill people, Frank wants to help people; Bickle just wants to clean the "trash" up off the streets. Bickle lashes out in rage; Frank lashes out in fear and desperation. Schrader's screenplay offers satisfying levels of complexity, so that ultimately, towards the end, when Frank does something totally unexpected and morally ambiguous, we understand exactly why he's doing it and can sympathize.

Of course, from a technical standpoint "Bringing Out The Dead" is flawless. Ace lensman Robert Richardson (who previously worked with Scorsese on "Casino") gives the city an appropriately gloomy, sick look, and his work is especially effective in a scene in which Cy dangles from a sixteenth floor balcony while fireworks explode behind him. Thelma Schoonmaker's expert editing is, as usual, outstanding -- she gives the fast paced scenes the charge they need, and provides some dizzying sped up camera effects during the emergency call scenes. Scorsese's choice of music is great, as is his work with the actors. Sizemore, Anthony, Curtis, Arquette, and especially Rhames are all good, but it's Cage who must hold the movie together, and he succeeds with a towering performance that is easily his best work since "Leaving Las Vegas". Cage is cast perfectly here; his tortured, implosive Frank Pierce is an indelible character.

"Bringing Out The Dead" is not for everyone. The movie's lack of a conventional narrative arc will probably confuse and alienate some viewers, and the way it uncompromisingly looks into the darkest corners of human nature with an unflinching eye will disturb others. Yet these qualities are Scorsese's hallmarks, and this film has links to many of his other works -- the confusion of "After Hours", the emotional indecision of "The Age of Innocence", the alienation of "Taxi Driver", the spiritual search of "The Last Temptation of Christ". "Bringing Out The Dead" is not easy to watch, and at times it's hard not to look away. But it's real, and it stays with you.