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And so it is for Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, the latest in a series of Scorsese's poor bedevilled souls left adrift in a Hades of their own making.
A paramedic/ambulance jockey in Bringing Out the Dead, Frank toils, coincidentally enough, in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City, circa early 1990s. His life of late is one continuous nightmare, its scenery a Dantean diorama populated with a seemingly limitless supply of BR (before Mayor Rudy Giuliani) street characters. Pregnant prostitutes brazenly gloat in their terrorising depravity, legless men desperately pull themselves across frenetically busy streets, and a tied-down half-wit in the hospital emergency room begs passers-by for a cup of water.
And that's the good news. In a career slump that won't seem to abate, Frank hasn't saved a life in six months. Consumed with guilt, he has taken to hallucinating. Visions abound of a sadly attractive junkie who desperately seeks affirmation of her being by whispering "My name is Rose" just seconds before dying in his arms.
This and a host of other unfortunate circumstances are asymmetrically balanced with the movie's bizarre brand of gallows humour, especially evinced in how nonchalantly Frank's colleagues at the hospital accept his crisis. Fact is, his three revolving partners are all preoccupied with their own derangement, each exhibiting a pathology weirder than the next.
Partner Larry (John Goodman) simply displays a classic case of denial. He assuages his alienation with excess food and delusions about rising out of the muck and mire to captain. Fellow paramedic Marcus, electrically depicted by a holy rolling Ving Rhames, lectures our protagonist about the dangers of his predominantly alcohol and caffeine diet. But the stogie-smoking womaniser is actually quite fond of the sauce himself. And his real thrill, as witnessed in one scene when he makes some shocked rubbernecks join hands in prayer, is making it look like every lifesaving success is a divinely inspired event.
And then there's the cruising-for-a-bruising Tom (Tom Sizemore), a hyperkinetic loose cannon with a heinous laugh equivalent in irritation to fingernails on a blackboard. Completely hooked on the highs and lows of his job, if there's too long a lapse between calls, then the psychopath creates his own victims.
In this dark film's idea of a running gag, Cage's hangdog on the hunt for respite and redemption is forever begging to be fired, but it's to no avail. He can't get out. So he is left to search amidst the rack and ruin of his bailiwick for a life preserver.
In time, Frank chances upon and seeks to make a connection with Mary Burke (Patricia Arquette), seemingly a fellow traveller, when the father she hasn't spoken to in three years has a heart attack. Old Man Burke, though comatose and attached to life support equipment, is saved for the time being. Therefore his continued presence in the bedlam that calls itself a hospital affords Mary and Frank the opportunity to begin their profoundly tentative courtship. Confiding that she was once a dope addict and shameless sleep-around, the world-weary gal contends that she's been clean for three years. Frank briefly segues from his duties to accompany Mary on her own odyssey, which takes them to a dangerous oasis in the projects. The locale is later revisited in a freakishly detached sequence involving an impalement.
There's not much else of a plot per se. Filmed in the sleepwalking flow of consciousness reminiscent of Scorsese's wonderfully eerie After Hours, Bringing Out the Dead is so obviously one big metaphor. Hence it becomes an entertaining little game to guess how the filmmaker's early flirtation with the priesthood once again figures in his characterisations. If Frank Pierce is the saviour and mystically forsaken Rose is the Madonna, then is Mary Burke actually a personification of Mary Magdalene? And how about that peripatetic Noel? Perennially escaping from the ER and flitting in and out of the director's frenzied mosaic, Marc Anthony etches this alternate martyr with compelling spirit. Think he's some sort of variation on the Holy Ghost?
Of course this is all infinitely interchangeable and subject to interpretation. But it's the ability to convincingly posit such bold speculation that distinguishes a master craftsman from the gaggle of pretentious hacks grinding out one tritely derived gewgaw after the next. Deftly exhibiting his cinematic sleight of hand, sparks virtually emanating from his fingertips, Scorsese makes mincemeat of the MTV-school of razzle-dazzle action purveyors lately besmirching the silver screen. His technological command of the medium is wondrous.
To suggest that the director's Dali-inspired excursion among New York's fringe dwellers is merely a ghoulish discourse on job stress would be like saying that Moby Dick is an exciting primer on the fishing business. The daringly surreal journey obstinately plays on its own dreamy level between reality and the shadows of illusion. So it's certainly not for everybody. And it's this lack of a more accessible surface tale that ultimately keeps the strange brew from sidling up to a hallowed spot alongside the famed filmmaker's more celebrated efforts. But while it does place comfortably on the second rung, die-hard fans in search of an adrenaline rush will be satisfied to know that Bringing Out the Dead is very much alive with the Scorsese spirit.
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