Rutger H Cornets de Groot
‘A PRESENT-DAY SAVIOR'
On Martin Scorsese's ‘Bringing Out the Dead' USA, 1999, 188 min. Direction: Martin Scorsese With: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Marc Anthony (I)
With ‘Bringing Out the Dead', Martin Scorsese returns to his native city New York once again. The movie features Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage), a paramedic working in Gotham's Hell's Kitchen. "Saving a life," Frank tells us, "is like falling in love." But Frank has not saved a life for months. Instead, his waking dreams are haunted by the image of Rose, a young woman who died while under his care. When he finally does succeed in saving the life of a heart patient, the man needs to be kept alive through repeated shocks with the defibrillator. With each shock, however, his daughter, Mary (played by Cage's wife Patricia Arquette) freaks out. To Frank, it is a dilemma representing many others. Accompanied by the dead Rose and the living Mary, he embarks on a three day journey closely reminiscent of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel ‘Journey to the End of the Night', brimming with dreams, horrors, jokes, hallucinations and revelations.
Core Hosting such early films as ‘Mean Streets' (1973) and ‘Taxi Driver' (1976), the city of New York has been a major influence on Scorsese's movie-making career, as it continues to be with next year's staging of ‘Gangs of New York' (starring Leonardo DiCaprio). Outside this autobiographical core, Scorsese's body of work becomes as vastly versatile as that of Stanley Kubrick, who seems to have lacked such a core altogether. But watching ‘Eyes Wide Shut', who would not wish Scorsese had taken charge of those nightly New York scenes? Scorsese's empathic understanding of New York is unsurpassed by any other film maker (with the exception, perhaps, of the incomparable Woody Allen). His crack-dealers and hookers, graffiti and garbage are not the stage props that we are used to seeing in any old action flick or police show. In Scorsese's films, they represent a grim and inescapable reality. No one can make you feel unsafe in your seat the way he can. Scorsese knows at exactly what moment you should cross a New York street when you see someone coming your way you don't fully trust. Of course, a neighborhood like Hell's Kitchen provides the perfect setting for Scorsese's appropriated Catholic themes of sin, conscience and redemption. Frank's co-workers can hardly be distinguished from the world in which they are taking charge. Indeed, their indifference and cynicism serve as a lubricant to make life 'easy'. In the case of Ving Rhames' character, the cynicism even transforms into an elated, but superficial and campy religious posture. Frank, by contrast, has not yet resigned himself to a life that would have the better of him. While he is not too rigid to not mingle with characters of suspicious reputation, he refuses to have the world decide on him that easy. It is a trait that brings him on the verge of physical and mental devastation, and it seems to be Scorsese's message that one can only hold on to oneself under compromising circumstances if one is prepared to make an effort.
Catharsis However, an effort can be made in different ways. Over the years, Scorsese has increasingly shifted the emphasis from an outer to an inner arena. In ‘Taxi driver', that archetypical movie, Travis Bickle (De Niro) sought redemption by confronting the visible world; the young hooker played by Jodie Foster served merely as a welcome focusing point for Travis' sense of righteousness, never as the object of any genuine interest. In ‘Bringing Out the Dead', written by Paul Schrader (who also signed for Scorsese's ‘The last temptation of Christ', ‘Raging Bull' and ‘Casino') this detour is no longer followed. Rather, Frank Pierce goes through an inner catharsis, one that does involve Mary up to a point, but without ever turning into a love affair, for which neither of them seem to find the time or the space. Perhaps their relationship can best be described as an anti-romance. To illustrate, Scorsese provided his movie with plenty of Catholic symbolism. Starting with the cross on the filmposter - in which the international Red Cross should not be overlooked - there is the hospital's name of St Mary's, Patricia Arquette's character's name is Mary, there are hands that are repeatedly being washed and, to top everything, there is a man whose side is being pierced. But the true modern-day Savior is none other than Frank himself, who not only heals the sick but also saves souls, as is shown in a dream sequence that expresses the title of the movie quite explicitly.
Dramatic With his characters portraying principles rather than themselves, Scorsese seems to be more interested in themes than in people. Of course, the script does not owe its dramatic power to any moral content, but, rather, to the transformation that this moral conflict brings about in Frank and Mary. There is no guarantee as to the outcome of their purification process, just the certainty that they have no choice but to go on. "You promised to fire me," Frank yells out to his employer, half in jest, half in despair. "I'll fire you tomorrow, I promise," the man answers. In Hell's Kitchen, he doesn't have much of a choice either. Although all the ingredients seem to be present, ‘Bringing Out the Dead' is not as frightening as ‘Taxi Driver' or ‘Cape Fear', nor is it as violent as ‘Goodfellas' or ‘Casino'. Fans of those features may be disappointed by ‘Bringing Out the Dead' and they may say that Scorsese has begun to repeat himself. That is hardly the case. ‘Bringing Out the Dead' simply comprises another step in a development of which the end is not yet in sight. Already, Scorsese's mastery has reached beyond the mere exotic, be it in form (‘After Hours') or content (‘Kundun'). It has made him examine and question the validity of moral values (particularly in ‘Cape Fear' and ‘The Last temptation of Christ'). By using his art as a means of formulating questions, rather than using ‘answers' to make some kind of ‘art', his importance as a film director exceeds the realm of the strictly artistic. His films contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of this world in general. In that sense, ‘Bringing Out the Dead' can be thought of as a homecoming after a journey that simply could not leave his own New York untouched. Besides, the true Scorsese fan still has a lot of good stuff to enjoy. It must not have been easy to come up with visual solutions within the limits of an ambulance, but no one knows better how to charge his shots with meaning and emotional power than this master of cinematography. Nicolas Cage, without being superficial, may not have the power of expression that Robert de Niro has, but his held-back, serious and seemingly unmoved style of acting fits Franks introvert personality perfectly. Finally, the movie's soundtrack brings forth an aspect of movie-making that usually remains underexposed. Scorsese, now 57, knows the repertoire: he plays old and new rockmusic, thus passing the atmosphere of the hybrid '90s accurately on to the movie. Meanwhile, the raw voices of the various performers perfectly express Franks attempts to elicit something humane from a world that has gone adrift around him.
Rutger H Cornets de Groot http://sites.netscape.net/cornets cornets@yahoo.com
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