Bringing Out the Dead

This is a long review. If you are in a hurry, the condensed version precedes the main review.

The direction is flawless. the acting is brilliant. This is Martin Scorsese's best film yet. If you are simply reading this review to find out whether you ought to go and see it, the answer is YES. You'll laugh, you may cry. You will definitely have a bit of a think on the way home.

My rating: Magnificent, Moving, Insanely Funny and downright brilliant.

The Review

Chances are, dear reader that you, me or anyone else reading this review will take our second last car ride in a back of an ambulance. Ambulances are central to modern Western life in any city of any size. They scream down the street and we try to avoid seeing our own deaths waiting for us. We try to avoid thinking of how we will feel when it's our turn in the back. Ambulances and their crews tend the wounded, try to save the dying and bluntly, keep the streets free of corpses. Ambulances are - all in all - probably more useful than Police, but far less attractive to the media because, simply, they represent no great "society strengthening" ideology.

So we get heaps of films about Police tracking criminals and nothing about fifty percent of the sirens that you hear every day. Why? Frankly, deep down, ambulances are really, really, scary.

If you don't know what I mean by that, or don't agree with it, you just aren't old enough. Sorry. You'll get the idea sooner or later.

Martin Scorsese's latest film takes on this subject with his standardly brilliant blend of clear vision and flawless direction. Some critics say that "Bringing out the Dead" is not as good as "Goodfellas"; that the film is "too dark" or "too confronting"; or, "like Taxi Driver but not as good." And I, dear reader, am here to say the exact diametric opposite.

With "Bringing out the Dead" Martin Scorsese does just exactly what nobody wants (least of all happy yuppie film critics with mortgages ). He confronts the one great horrible taboo of Western Civilization head on with all the guile of a scalpel wielding hippo - and in my opinion, he comes out a winner.

What is this great horrible taboo?

You are going to die. When you die you will be taken out in something exactly like a garbage bag by people who make jokes so that they can cope with what they are doing. Everyone who knows you will be really sad but deep down they will be saying over and over again...

"At least it wasn't me."

People generally (and yuppie film critics in particular) would rather not be reminded of ideas like these. So they didn't enjoy watching "Bringing Out The Dead" and responded rather like a Victorian Matron who accidentally wandered into a conversation about anal sex.

THE REVIEW (Finally! YAY!)

Nicholas Cage plays Frank, an ambulance man in the bad old days of New York in the early 1990's. For the last few years he has seen a whole bunch a seriously unpleasant stuff. Watched a great many people die and helped a few to stay alive. He is completely addicted to his job, nothing beats the rush of saving a life. For days afterwards he walks on air and the world is full of flowers. The problem is that Frank hasn't saved anyone in a good long time.

He feels that he has the touch of death and he can't break his run of luck. The bad part is that Frank isn't playing a poker machine and simply losing 25 cents a go. Everytime someone dies in Franks ambulance, Frank gets his heart torn out.

Frank is going quite mad. He sees the people that have died in his ambulance walking around in the street. He can't eat. He can't sleep. And he can't quit until he gains some form of truth out of the whole abortive mess that he sees around him or saves just one more life. The dead keep looking at him.

Over a period of forty eight hours Frank hits bottom, finds his own personal truth and - at the end of the film - has as much hope as anyone can ever rightfully expect.

Nicholas Cage plays Frank. Until this film I was completely convinced that Nicholas Cage had as much understanding of acting as a radish. Now I think that Nicholas Cage is a very talented man indeed. This part and Martin Scorsese's direction allow him great dramatic range and he meets every new challenge head on and succeeds unimpeachably. He is more than adequately supported by all of his co stars with John Goodman as one of his co-drivers deserving special mention. One thing is sure about Martin Scorsese, he always allows his actors to shine.

"Bringing out the Dead" is based on Joe Connelly's excellent book of the same name and has been turned into a script by Paul Schrader who also wrote "Taxi Driver." Combine the words Scorsese and Schrader on some credits and every reviewer in search of a lead immediately starts looking for a "Ambulance Driver" pigeonhole.

Of course, comparisons between "Taxi Driver" and this film are in reality, a bit strained. Both films take place in New York at night and the main character is a nut in both. People bleed in both. That is about as deep as it gets. In the obvious sense anyway. But when looked at as and evolution FROM "Taxi Driver" this film is very interesting indeed.

Because "Bringing Out The Dead" is actually a far more confronting and subversive film and has gained, almost universally, less positive reviews. Why?

Paul Schrader was a young man when he wrote "Taxi Driver" he had just finished a period of living in his car. In interviews it is obvious that he strongly identified with Travis Bickle the lead character. Travis as a character is completely lost, a man who must do SOMETHING to break the cycle that he is in. He decides to kill someone. He takes his best shot at a politician and fails and ends up killing a bunch of people who are vending underage prostitutes to people who are into that sort of thing. The media make Travis a hero. Travis seems to get better. (unless the last part of the ending is a dying hallucination.) Credits.

"Bringing Out The Dead" can be seen as the "anti Taxi Driver." Frank desperately needs much the same sort of saving as Travis Bickle, but his ache is to save life, to atone for the sins of the world. Frank finally gains closure by being forgiven and finds hope in allowing himself to forgive himself. He makes his own personal peace with the world by kindness, not wholesale butchery.

Yet the critics prefer "Taxi Driver." Why?

"Taxi Driver" in reality, is not a subversive film at all. If anything it strengthens and enriches the predjudices of middle class society while pretending to attack them. This is a very popular attitude with people who want to FEEL like they are rebelling, but don't really want to rebel at all. Taxi Driver's message is simple enough though, when you see that the people that Travis kills are the only people less popular in society than gun waving wackos. Specifically, pedophiles.

Travis kills some enemies of the state and Travis becomes a hero. Society wins. Mr. Average can leave the cinema musing on the fact that some sort of justice has been served and that society, "morals", the American way and consequently the existence he feels to be pointless, MEAN something.

"Bringing Out The Dead" states some much more important truths than "Taxi Driver" ever tried to. Here are a few:
You will die.
Society will not care.
Your existence will have been largely pointless.
It may hurt.
The emergency room at the hospital will not be a nice place.
All the medicine in the world will not save you forever.
You must come to terms with being alive.
You must make peace with yourself.
The peace you make with yourself will almost undoubtedly make no sense to anyone else.
Everyone else will get along alright without you, after awhile.

These are very heavy truths.

When examined clearly society does not mean very much at all. In fact, society has a strong tendency to look like a madhouse.

There is one final truth in "Bringing Out The Dead." It is that
There is always today.
You can deal with the afterlife when you have to.

No wonder that career conscious cinema critics had problems with it.

Martin Scorsese is a very clear sighted man and a very spiritual one. When he examines spiritual subjects his ideas make far more sense than any of the sermons and literate raves by science types that I have been subjected to over the years. Watching this film brought me very close to an understanding of what it actually means to be alive. Apparently, I had forgotten at some point. I'll be seeing it quite a few times in (hopefully, knock on wood) years to come. This film is what cinema OUGHT to be all about.

(C)opyright Alex Rieneck, 2000.