(US, 1999) Dir- Martin Scorsese St- Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore.
Martin Scorsese takes us back into the jungle that is New York with this latest hugely depressing, if technically excellent window into life on the darker side of the Big Apple. Despite having a heavily mainstream cast, which would suggest a more commercial flavour, the result is somewhat different. Paul Schrader’s script depicts a terminally ill city where hopelessness is rife and gloom is omnipresent. Touching on some of the themes that have circulated through many of his earlier films (Taxi Driver is the obvious example) Scorsese blinds his audience with images of lost souls and tormented ghosts that ravage the city backstreets and alleyways.
The picture focuses on three nights in the life of paramedic Frank Pierce (Cage) and those individuals he encounters as he goes about his work, being called to all manner of drug overdoses, shootings and attacks. Ravaged by stress, insomnia and guilt for all those he could not save, Pierce has become an alcoholic and is one step away from taking up drugs. He begs his boss to fire him at regular intervals turning up to work late and drunk but is never dismissed: no-one wants his job, numbers are short and there is always another person who needs his help. His partners are either psychotic or religious nuts and the girls he meets are normally junkies or hookers. As the weekend goes on, Pierce falls further into the abyss, before finding a way of redeeming himself and re-establishing purpose in his life.
This is in no way a happy movie. The subjects it depicts are not suited to a multiplex audience and make it very difficult to watch. Scorsese’s usual high quality camera work is there, going into overdrive as Pierce begins to lose control. The neon lights of the city flash by faster and faster as Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing heats up. Cage is well handled – he rarely has opportunities to fall into his occasionally annoying glaring mad schtick whilst the rest of the cast (especially Arquette as an ex-junkie daughter of one of Pierce’s patients) provide moments of deep gravitas and savage humour.
The film has been called a very black comedy but I think that to limit it to one genre does not do it justice. There is much merit to what Scorsese and Schrader are trying to say here and I would recommend you see it when you are in the mood for something very heavy and more than a little dark. However, if its Saturday night and you are in the mood to be entertained, avoid this movie like the plague. See Sleepy Hollow instead – you’ll thank me for it later.
Luke Watts.
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