Bringing Out the Dead

 Year:  1999

Director:  Martin Scorsese

Screenplay:  Paul Schrader, based on the novel Bringing Out the Dead by Joe Connelly

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore

Running Time:  121 minutes

Genre:  Drama

New York City, the early 1990s:  Burned-out paramedic Frank Pierce (Cage) works the night shift.  Depressed, unable to sleep, and wracked with guilt for those he has not been able to save, Frank begins to hallucinate the patients he has lost.  After responding to a call about a man suffering cardiac arrest, Frank forms a tentative friendship with the man's daughter Mary (Arquette).

On it's release in 1999, this bleak urban drama was seen as a follow-up to Taxi Driver (1976), another collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader.  Both films tell the stories of nocturnal workers in a hellish urban environment, and have strong themes of guilt and redemption.  However, while Robert De Niro, as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, finds his salvation in violence, Frank Pierce is essentially a compassionate man, trying to do the right thing in a broken, fallen world.  The film take place over the course of a weekends Frank and his fellow paramedics make the rounds tending to the sick and wounded of night-time New York, and delivering them to the overcrowded, understaffed and under equipped hospital.  Nicolas Cage gives one of his best performances as the haunted Frank Pierce, deathly pale, with sunken red-rimmed eyes, he looks like someone who hasn't slept in weeks, his slow drawl fitting Frank's laconic narration, and even the scenes where Cage delivers some of his more trademark over the top moments, it fits with Frank's mania at that point in the film.  Patricia Arquette delivers a quietly powerful performance as compassionate drug addict Mary, who becomes Frank's angel of mercy.  Sharing Frank's season in hell are Larry (John Goodman), Frank's friend,  Marcus (Ving Rhames), an eccentric devoutly religious paramedic who enjoys flirting with the dispatcher and organises a prayer circle among clubbers while he and Frank try and save an overdose victim; and Tom (Tom Sizemore), a wild paramedic who enjoys beating people up when he's bored.  This is a violent, and dark film, which is sometimes hard to watch and often disturbing, but it is visually impressive, with the fast cutting between flashing ambulance lights, and the camera tearing down the streets of New York, it's also very funny, albeit with humour of the darkest variety, such as Frank begging his boss to fire him at the start ion every shift, and some surprisingly surreal imagery.  It is a tough watch, and failed at the box office when it was released, but it is one of Scorsese's most powerful and underrated works.

Nicolas Cage in Bringing Out the Dead
  

Mean Streets

 Year of Release:  1973

Director:  Martin Scorsese

Screenplay:  Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin, based on a story by Martin Scorsese

Starring:  Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, David Proval

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre:  Crime drama

Four friends live in the Little Italy section of New York City:  Charlie (Keitel) is torn between his devout Catholicism and the jobs that he does for his mafioso uncle (Cesare Danova); Johnny Boy (De Niro) is a violent, mercurial wild man whose reckless ways are about to catch up with him; Michael (Romanus) is a small time gangster and money lender who wants to break into the big leagues of organised crime; and Tony (Proval) owns the bar and neighbourhood hangout where these guys all congregate.  Johnny Boy owes Michael a lot of money, and Michael is determined to collect one way or another.  Charlie is sucked in because he has vouched for Johnny, and he is liable to pay if Johnny can't make good on his debts.   To complicate matters further is Charlie's secret relationship with Johnny's epileptic cousin Teresa (Robinson).

Martin Scorsese and Harvey Keitel had previously worked together on Scorsese's debut feature Who's That Knocking at My Door? (1968) and Robert De Niro had already made several features for Brian De Palma, but this was the film that broke all three of them into the big time.  It's shot in an almost semi-documentary style, with a constantly moving, handheld camera (the production were unable to afford to lay down tracks for tracking shots).  Scorsese had intended the film to showcase the world that he had grown up in, and it showcases the trademark criss-crossing dialogue and a soundtrack mixing rock, Motown, pop and Italian opera.  The film is sprawling and loosely plotted, but there is a spiky, kinetic energy that keeps it moving along. It's anchored by two incredible performances by Keitel and De Niro.  Harvey Keitel as Charlie is someone who is trying to be good, but trapped in a violent world, and anchors the film.  Robert De Niro gives an incendiary performance as the unpredictable maniac.  However, in the film's insular and strongly male world, people of colour and women don't really get a look in.  The only female character who really has much to do is Amy Robinson's Teresa, who doesn't really appear until the second half of the film, but she does hold her own in the boy's club.  It's an exciting, dynamic film, where sudden violence is just around the corner.  

Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro in Mean Streets

The Color of Money

Year: 1986
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: Richard Price, based on the novel by Walter Tevis
Starring: Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Helen Shaver, John Turturro
Running Time: 119 minutes
Genre: Sports, drama

Summary: New York City. "Fast" Eddie Felson (Newman) was once a successful professional pool hustler (basically a player who pretends to be less skilled then they actually are for the purpose of luring a less skilled player into playing against them for money), but he now sells liquor, although he still misses the excitement of his former career, and sometimes puts up some of the stake money for other hustlers. One night he meets Vincent (Cruise), a volatile but very talented pool player, and Vincent's shrewd girlfriend Carmen (Mastrantonio). Eddie sees a chance both to make some money and also to recapture some of his glory days and takes Vincent under his wing, becoming his mentor as well as putting up some of the stake money for Vincent. However, Eddie's increasing frustration with Vincent's impetuousness and Carmen's scheming soon causes tension.

Opinions: This movie is a sequel to the classic 1959 movie The Hustler, which was also based on a Walter Tevis novel, with Paul Newman reprising his role as "Fast" Eddie Felson. However, the film only makes occasional very brief references to the events in the earlier movie. This movie marked Martin Scorsese's first foray into mainstream commercial film-making after a couple of financial flops, namely The King of Comedy (1983) and After Hours (1985). The commercial success of this film gave Scorsese the clout to make his long-cherished pet project The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
Despite being a very mainstream film, it still features many of Scorsese's trademark stylisic flourishes and is very much a Martin Scorsese movie. The movie features impressive performances notably Paul Newman who is effortlessly cool as "Fast" Eddie and Tom Cruise's energetic performance as the wild Vincent. There are also appearances by rock star Iggy Pop, Forest Whitaker and Charles Scorsese (Martin Scorsese's dad). Martin Scorsese provides a brief voice-over at the start of the film explaining the rules of nine-ball pool. It also features a snappy screenplay from novelist and screenwriter Richard Price and a typically cool and eclectic soundtrack.
While the film is not the classic that The Hustler it is still a good film in it's own right and a worthy sequel.



Pool hall blues: Tom Cruise and Paul Newman in The Color of Money