Bringing Out the Dead

Last updated

Bringing Out the Dead
Bringing out the dead.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Screenplay by Paul Schrader
Based onBringing Out the Dead
by Joe Connelly
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Robert Richardson
Edited by Thelma Schoonmaker
Music by Elmer Bernstein
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release date
  • October 22, 1999 (1999-10-22)(United States)
Running time
121 minutes [1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$32 million [2]
Box office$16.8 million [3]

Bringing Out the Dead is a 1999 American psychological drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader, based on the 1998 novel by Joe Connelly. It stars Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore. The plot depicts the life of a depressed New York City paramedic (Cage).

Contents

Bringing Out the Dead was released in the United States on October 22, 1999 by Paramount Pictures, while it was released internationally by Touchstone Pictures through Buena Vista International. It was the final film to be released on LaserDisc in the United States. [4]

Plot

In Manhattan, paramedic Frank Pierce suffers from depression, insomnia, and occupational burnout having not saved any patients in months after botching the resuscitation of Rose, a homeless teen. He has begun to hallucinate Rose's ghost. One night, Frank and his partner Larry respond to a dispatcher's call by the family of Mr. Burke who has entered cardiac arrest. There, Frank befriends Burke's distraught daughter Mary, a former junkie, and discovers Mary was friends with Noel, a drug addict and delinquent who is frequently sent to the hospital.

After a few minor calls, Frank and Larry respond to the aftermath of a shooting, where Frank notices two vials of "Red Death" heroin roll out from a surviving victim's sleeve. While in the back of the ambulance with Frank and Noel, the victim attempts to repent for his drug dealing ways but dies before they can reach the hospital.

The next day, Frank is paired with the charismatic, fervently religious Marcus. The two respond to a call to a man reported to be in cardiac arrest in a club. When they arrive, Frank diagnoses that he is, in fact, suffering from an overdose caused by Red Death. As Frank injects the man with Narcan, Marcus starts a prayer circle with the baffled club-goers, and just as his preaching climaxes, the overdosed man regains consciousness.

On the way back to the hospital, Frank visits Mary's apartment to tell her that her father's condition is improving. Frank and Marcus then respond to a call by a young man whose girlfriend is giving birth to twins. Frank and Marcus rush the two infants and mother to the hospital, where Marcus brings the mother and healthy twin to the maternity ward, while Frank attempts to revive the other twin with the hospital staff. The hospital is unable to revive the smaller twin, and a dismayed Frank starts drinking before Marcus joins him and crashes the ambulance into a parked car. They are unharmed and laugh the incident off.

The following morning, Frank sees Mary leaving the hospital and follows her to an apartment block; Mary tells Frank that she is visiting a friend and he escorts her to the room. After waiting a while, Frank barges in and discovers that it is a drug den run by a dealer named Cy Coates. Mary admits that she has turned back to drugs to cope with her father's condition, and as Frank tries to get her to leave, Cy offers him some pills.

In a moment of desperation, Frank takes the drugs and begins to hallucinate, seeing more ghosts of his patients. Once sober, he grabs Mary and carries her out of the building. While visiting a comatose Burke in the hospital, Frank starts hearing Burke's voice in his head, telling Frank to let him die, but he resuscitates Burke instead.

In his third shift, Frank is paired with Tom Wolls, a fervent and messianic man with violent tendencies. The pair respond to a call to Cy's drug den where a shooting has occurred, and find Cy impaled on a railing. Frank holds onto Cy as emergency services cut the railing but both are nearly flung off the edge before being pulled back up. Cy then thanks Frank for saving his life and becomes the first patient Frank has saved in months.

Afterward, Frank agrees to help Tom beat up Noel, and chase him down. Frank starts to hallucinate again, snapping out of it just as he comes upon Tom beating Noel with a baseball bat. Frank saves Noel. As Frank visits Burke again, the voice pleads for death once more, and Frank removes Burke's breathing apparatus, causing him to fatally enter cardiac arrest. Frank then heads to Mary's apartment to inform her that he died. He hallucinates Rose's ghost for a final time, obtaining her forgiveness. Mary accepts her father's death. Frank is invited in and falls asleep with Mary.

Cast

Production

Bringing Out the Dead is an adaptation of the 1998 novel of the same name by Joe Connelly. [5]

The idea of contacting Nicolas Cage to play the main character came to Scorsese after a conversation with Brian De Palma, who had worked with the actor on Snake Eyes. [6]

Soundtrack

Release

The film premiered in Los Angeles and New York on the same day, October, 22 1999. [5]

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, Bringing Out the Dead has an approval rating of 73% based on 111 reviews, with an average rating of 6.70/10. The site's consensus reads, "Stunning and compelling, Scorsese and Cage succeed at satisfying the audience." [9] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 70 out of 100, based on reviews from 34 critics. [10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "C−" on scale of A to F. [11]

Roger Ebert gave it a perfect four-star rating, writing, "To look at Bringing Out the Dead—to look, indeed, at almost any Scorsese film—is to be reminded that film can touch us urgently and deeply." [12]

Years later, Scorsese reflected to Ebert that Bringing Out the Dead "failed at the box office, and was rejected by a lot of the critics." Yet he added: "I had 10 years of ambulances. My parents, in and out of hospitals. Calls in the middle of the night. I was exorcising all of that. Those city paramedics are heroes -- and saints, they're saints. I grew up next to the Bowery, watching the people who worked there, the Salvation Army, Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement, all helping the lost souls. They're the same sort of people." [13]

Thelma Schoonmaker, the editor, praised the movie and said: "It's the only one of [Scorsese's] films, I think, that hasn't gotten its due. It's a beautiful film, but it was hard for people to take, I think. Unexpected. But I think it's great." She claims that the film initially was mis-marketed as a car-chase film: "What happened was, that film was about compassion, and it was sold, I think, as a car chase movie. When I saw the trailer I said, "Wait a minute! That's not what the movie's about!" I think people were made nervous by the theme of it, which I think is beautiful. I think it'll get its due." [14]

In 2022, Nicolas Cage singled out Bringing Out the Dead as one of the best movies he ever made. [15]

Box office

Bringing Out the Dead debuted at #4 in 1,936 theatres with a weekend gross of $6,193,052. The film grossed $16.7 million against a production budget of $32 million, making it a box office bomb. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Scorsese</span> American filmmaker (born 1942)

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American filmmaker. He emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolas Cage</span> American actor (born 1964)

Nicolas Kim Coppola, known by his stage name Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. Known for his versatility as an actor, his participation in various film genres has gained him a cult following.

<i>Taxi Driver</i> 1976 American film by Martin Scorsese

Taxi Driver is a 1976 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film follows Travis Bickle, a veteran and taxi driver, and his deteriorating mental state as he works nights in the city.

<i>Goodfellas</i> 1990 American film by Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas is a 1990 American biographical crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of the 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy by Pileggi. Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco and Paul Sorvino, the film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980.

<i>The Family Man</i> 2000 film directed by Brett Ratner

The Family Man is a 2000 American romantic fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Brett Ratner, from a screenplay by David Diamond and David Weissman. The film stars Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni, with Don Cheadle, Saul Rubinek, and Jeremy Piven in supporting roles.

Dorothy-Grace Elder is a Scottish journalist and former Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region 1999–2003. She sat as an Independent MSP 2002–2003, having first sat as a Scottish National Party member from 1999 until she left the party in 2002. Among achievements for campaigning, she was awarded the 1996 Britain's Reporter of the Year for investigative journalism at the British Press Awards. In 2019, she was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Scottish Press Awards.

<i>Go</i> (1999 film) 1999 film by Doug Liman

Go is a 1999 American crime comedy film written by John August and directed by Doug Liman, with intertwining plots involving three sets of characters. The film stars William Fichtner, Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, Sarah Polley, and Scott Wolf and features Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer, Timothy Olyphant, Desmond Askew, Jane Krakowski, J. E. Freeman, and Melissa McCarthy in her film debut.

<i>Casino</i> (1995 film) 1995 film directed by Martin Scorsese

Casino is a 1995 epic crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, adapted by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi from the latter's nonfiction book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas. It stars Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, Don Rickles, Kevin Pollak, and James Woods. The film was the eighth collaboration between director Scorsese and De Niro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Schrader</span> American film director

Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader is more prolific as a director: his 22 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts "man in a room" stories which feature isolated, troubled men confronting an existential crisis.

<i>Next</i> (2007 film) 2007 film

Next is a 2007 American sci-fi action thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann, Tory Kittles, and Peter Falk. The film's original script was loosely based on the 1954 science fiction short story "The Golden Man" by Philip K. Dick. The film tells the story of Cris Johnson, a small-time magician based in Las Vegas, who has limited precognition. His ability allows him to see into the very immediate future. His gift not only makes him a target of a highly motivated and heavily armed group of terrorists, but also puts him in the crosshairs of the FBI who want to recruit him to oppose those terrorists instead.

<i>Disco Godfather</i> 1979 American film

Disco Godfather is a 1979 American action film starring Rudy Ray Moore and Carol Speed, directed by J. Robert Wagoner and released by Transvue Pictures. J. Robert Wagoner wrote and directed Disco Godfather while living in The Hotel Carver.

<i>Evil Angel</i> (film) 2009 American film

Evil Angel is a 2009 indie horror mystery film written, directed and co-produced by Richard Dutcher, starring Ving Rhames, Ava Gaudet, Kristopher Shepard and Dutcher. It was the last work of cinematographer Bill Butler before his death in 2023.

<i>Shutter Island</i> (film) 2010 film by Martin Scorsese

Shutter Island is a 2010 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, about a Deputy U.S. Marshal who comes to Shutter Island to investigate a psychiatric facility, after one of the patients goes missing. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, with Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow and Michelle Williams in supporting roles.

<i>Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans</i> 2009 film by Werner Herzog

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a 2009 American black comedy crime drama film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Tom Bower, Jennifer Coolidge, Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner, Val Kilmer, and Brad Dourif. Though the film's title and story loosely resemble that of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, according to Herzog, it is neither a sequel nor a remake; its only commonality is a corrupt policeman as the central character. Nonetheless, the director of the original Bad Lieutenant film, Abel Ferrara, expressed dismay that the Herzog film was being made. Both Bad Lieutenant films were produced by Edward R. Pressman.

Charis Elisa Michelsen is an American actress, a writer, an inventor, a former model and a make-up artist. Michelsen worked as a model in New York City in her early adulthood before becoming an actress. She appeared in supporting roles in the films High Art (1998), Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999), and Wonder Boys (2000). Michelsen invented the first Universal Beauty Standard System which was used to create an artificial intelligence personal stylist.

<i>Drive Angry</i> 2011 film by Patrick Lussier

Drive Angry is a 2011 American action horror film in the grindhouse cinema tradition, directed by Patrick Lussier, who co-wrote it with Todd Farmer. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke, Charlotte Ross, Katy Mixon, and Tom Atkins. Photographed in 3D, the film was released on February 25.

<i>USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage</i> 2016 film by Mario Van Peebles

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage is a 2016 American war disaster film directed by Mario Van Peebles and written by Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro, based largely on the true story of the loss of the ship of the same name in the closing stages of the Second World War. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, Matt Lanter, Brian Presley, and Cody Walker. Principal photography began on June 19, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama. The film premiered in the Philippines on August 24, 2016. It was released as a digital rental on iTunes and Amazon in the United States on October 14, 2016 and in limited theaters during the Veterans Day weekend.

<i>Inconceivable</i> (2017 film) 2017 American film

Inconceivable is a 2017 American thriller film directed by Jonathan Baker and written by Chloe King. It stars Gina Gershon, Faye Dunaway, Nicolas Cage, Nicky Whelan and Natalie Eva Marie. The film was released on June 30, 2017, by Lionsgate Premiere.

<i>Between Worlds</i> 2018 Spanish film

Between Worlds is a 2018 supernatural thriller film starring Nicolas Cage, and directed by Maria Pulera. The film was released on December 21, 2018, by Saban Films.

<i>A Score to Settle</i> 2019 film by Shawn Ku

A Score to Settle is a 2019 American action thriller film directed by Shawn Ku. It stars Nicolas Cage and Benjamin Bratt. It was released on August 2, 2019, by RLJE Films.

References

  1. ↑ "Bringing Out the Dead (18)". British Board of Film Classification . November 15, 1999. Archived from the original on September 14, 2016. Retrieved May 16, 2020.
  2. ↑ "'Bringing out' Scorsese". Interviews . October 21, 1999. Archived from the original on March 1, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Bringing Out the Dead (1999)". Box Office Mojo . Archived from the original on February 22, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  4. ↑ "LaserDisc Database - Bringing Out the Dead [LV335643-WS]". www.lddb.com. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  5. 1 2 "AFI|Catalog". catalog.afi.com. Archived from the original on August 7, 2023. Retrieved August 7, 2023.
  6. ↑ Sangster, Jim (August 31, 2012). Scorsese: Virgin Film. Random House. ISBN   978-1-4481-3327-7.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Various" – Bringing Out The Dead: Music From The Motion Picture". Discogs . Retrieved February 9, 2023.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not on album
  9. ↑ "Bring Out the Dead Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media. Archived from the original on May 28, 2024. Retrieved October 10, 2022.
  10. ↑ "Bringing Out the Dead". Metacritic . Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
  11. ↑ "BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999) C-". CinemaScore . Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Bringing Out the Dead". rogerebert.com. October 22, 1999. Archived from the original on June 21, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2011.
  13. ↑ Ebert, Roger (December 12, 2004). "Howard's end: Scorsese and 'The Aviator' | Interviews". Rogerebert.com/. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  14. ↑ Lambie, Ryan (December 23, 2016). "Thelma Schoonmaker interview: editing Silence, Scorsese, Michael Powell". Den of Geek . Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved April 21, 2022.
  15. ↑ Greene, Andy (April 16, 2022). "'People Thought I Didn't Care — I Did.' Nicolas Cage Sets the Record Straight" . Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved April 21, 2022.
  16. ↑ "Bringing Out The Dead (1999) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on August 7, 2023. Retrieved August 7, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.