Overlooked Martin Scorsese - "Bringing Out The Dead"

In 1999, American movies were filled with millennial angst.  Characters saw imaginary alter-egos ("Fight Club"), wanted to be someone else ("American Beauty"), literally became someone else ("Being John Malkovich"), regretted not being someone else ("Magnolia"), and went somewhere else beyond explanation ("The Matrix").  Screens were filled with characters who witnessed the supernatural:  "The Green Mile," "The Blair Witch Project," and the year's biggest phenomenon "The Sixth Sense."  By the time Martin Scorsese released his own entry about a New York ambulance driver who sees dead people, audiences stayed away.  To this day, very few people have seen the movie, and it remains a footnote in Mr. Scorsese's career.

"Bringing Out The Dead" deserves better.  It's easy to call it a minor Scorsese picture, as it lacks the scope of his gangster flicks, or the innovation of his biographical dramas.  But it remains a thrilling, engrossing film about the trippy tightrope between life and death.  It is a surreal peek into the underbelly of 1990s New York, full of junkies, saviors, ghosts, and Nicolas Cage.

"Bringing Out The Dead" marked the first and only collaboration between Mr. Cage and Mr. Scorsese.  And given the intense, physical performance here, it's too bad because it appears they're made for each other.  He has nervous energy, introspective at times, explosive at others.  It's a dynamite performance that actors should watch and re-watch.  Mr. Cage bridged the gap in the Scorsese canon between De Niro and DiCaprio and it's fun to speculate how he might have fared in future collaborations.

Based on the novel by Joe Connelly, "Bringing Out The Dead" was Mr. Scorsese's reunion with screenwriter Paul Schrader, who previously collaborated on both "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull."  Expectations were high, therefore, as audiences expected Travis Bickle in an ambulance.  It's far from it.  Nicolas Cage plays a frenzied savior who sees the ghosts of his failures on every corner.  It's a phantasmagoric ride, taking place entirely at night over the course of a single weekend.

This is prime Scorsese real estate.  To know the man and his movies, you must know this picture.  Every corner of every frame is filled with urban beauty, alternating from Sinatra to the Stones.  The characters represent the dual nature of the Director himself:  loners with a conscience, or sinners with a heart.  Men fall for fallen women.  And redemption is available for a cost.

Everything is purposefully rough and grimy.  Even the technical aspects from the editing to the cinematography.  The neon city was photographed by Robert Richardson, whose gorgeous film work puts any digital efforts to shame.  The ambulances pop, as the ghosts radiate throughout the shadows.  It's a supernatural city, where Mr. Cage's eyes have seen too much.

"The city doesn't discriminate.  It gets everybody." 

Check out Roger Ebert's original review, or just buy it now.