Bringing Out the Dead

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

New York City, the early 1990s: Frank Pierce is an EMS paramedic driving an ambulance through the city's darkest streets on the 'graveyard shift'. His job is to deal with broken bodies on a daily basis. Bringing Out the Dead is the account of fifty-six hours in Frank's life - two days and three nights on the job - as, hungering for redemption, he reaches the very brink of spiritual collapse.This is Paul Schrader's fourth screenplay for director Martin Scorses, following their celebrated colaborations on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ. The film continues their fascinated exploration of the lives of drifting, soulful, lonely characters. But unlike Travis Bickle or Jake LaMotta, Frank Pierce is a man committed to saving the lives of others: fearful that he has become 'an instrument of death' and desperately in search of peace.

Reviews

Acclaim for the film:
"An intense, volatile film full of sorrow and wild, mordant humor." --Janet Maslin, "The New York"

Author Bio

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1946, Paul Schrader was raised in a Calvinist household where movies were proscribed. He made up for lost time by becoming first a gifted critic, then the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, then the director of a string of cerebral and provocative films, including Blue Collar (1978), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima (1985), Patty Hearst (1988), The Comfort of Strangers (1990) and Affliction (1997). His latest film is Autofocus (2002).