THREE ON A MATCH

Spotlight

With Bringing Out the Dead, Martin Scorese has lifted up a rock to reveal the crawly, maggot-in^ested^filthencrusted New York we'd forgotten still existed—the Abe Beame New York, the Kojak New York, the godforsaken Pelham One Two Three New York. Set in Hell's Kitchen, the new movie, which opens this month, is based on Joe Connelly's semi-autobiographical novel about an E.M.S. paramedic, Frank Pierce, whose mind comes undone as his nightly "missions of compassion" (Scorsese's words) take their toll. As visually conceived by Scorsese, Frank's workplace is one of unromanticized blight—an anti-no/r nightscape of shadowy crack dens, public housing, and cruddy Chinese take-out joints. When there is light, it's the harsh fluorescence of the decrepitly linoleum'd hospital where the medics dump their cargo. Nicolas Cage, understandably drawn and green-skinned, plays Frank. Inevitably, the movie summons thoughts of Scorsese's early New York pictures. (The screenplay, like Taxi Driver's, is by Paul Schrader.) "I was drawn to Joe's book because it has the same thematic ideas of other movies I've worked on," Scorsese says. "You go back to Mean Streets, and you see a guy who's essentially living in a feudal society, structured by organized crime, family, and church. He's wondering, How do you live out a Christian ideal in a society like this? Same thing with Frank. He's literally trying to save lives, and you put the enormity of that against the world he lives in."

Which isn't to say that Bringing Out the Dead is Jacob Riis-grim. The subject matter is rough going at times, but rife with what Scorsese describes as "defensive humor, keeping-your-sanity humor." The best of it comes from the tense interplay between Cage's Frank and the three progressively more unhinged partners he's paired with over three successive nights—played, respectively, by John Goodman, Ving Rhames (in a marcelled Billy Dee Williams wig), and a scarily dilated Tom Sizemore. Patricia Arquette, Cage's real-life wife, plays a patient's daughter in whom Frank seeks salvation. Marc Anthony, the salsa star, plays one of the paramedics' regular pickups, a skittery street kid with a flair for self-immolation.

One can't help but be jarred by the contrast between this picture's New York and Rudy Giuliani's high-stepping metropolis agleam. But Scorsese denies any political intent. "I grew up on the Bowery," he says. "I was taught in church to have compassion for the sick, the poor, the drunk. Yet you don't want these people touching you. It's the dilemma of not wanting to see it, yet knowing it's there—that's what I'm dealing with."

DAVID KAMP