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Bringing Out the Dead will screen from an archival 35mm print.

Nicolas Cage stars as paramedic Frank Pierce, whose years treating and losing patients on the streets of Manhattan have left him dispirited and burned out. Over three nights – each with a different partner (John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore) – Frank descends further into madness, tethered only by a burgeoning friendship with the daughter of one of his patients (Patricia Arquette).

Martin Scorsese’s film is a vivid nocturnal drama with one of Nicolas Cage’s best performances. Schrader’s screenplay adaptation of Joe Connelly’s semi-autobiographical novel shapes the film as a treatise on violence and suffering, examining the frazzled mind of a man submerged in a constant cycle of pain by virtue of his work. The final of Scorsese and Schrader’s four collaborations, Bringing Out the Dead is a key late entry in the oeuvres of both filmmakers, showcasing their continued shared vitality and ambition as artists.

R18+