American Cinematographer - November 1999 - 38

Urban Gothic
Filming in the
depicting a
drug dealer's

set

apartment,
Scorsese and

Richardson set
up a

shot with
Nic

Cage.

This

some wild fastin which the EMTs

approach led to

motion

scenes

speed and panned to find the actor in
(It's one of the only moments in

bed.

speed around town as if
trapped in a hellish drug rush they

the film when Pierce is able to escape
his hectic job and rest.)

can't escape.
Another

cinematic

to

seem

compelling, techni-

cally-complex scene was accom¬
plished entirely in-camera in one
time-consuming take. During one of
the

rare

times when Frank Pierce is

home, he walks to his apart¬
ment's main window, which has a

seen

at

dramatic view of the Manhattan

skyline. The

camera moves in to fill
the frame with the window view, and

then shifts into

time-lapse sequence
skyline image rapidly
progresses from midday to evening.
The time-lapse then ends and the
shot continues, panning across the
a

in which the

room

to

Despite the melange of edgy
techniques effectively
employed in Bringing Out the Dead,
the film does

seem

to

a

films such

as

camera

was

returned

to

'94),

'96) and U-Turn

Scorsese

explains the absence
formats by stating simply,

"I don't like

to

story

JFK (AC Feb. '92),

Nixon (AC March

window. Once he was out of the shot,

switched

a

Natural Born Killers (AC Nov.

began with Cage walking to the
was

natural fit for

hallucinatory elements: the
cameraman's frequent use of multi¬
ple imaging formats, such as blackand-white, Super 8, videotape and
16mm film. Richardson has previ¬
ously employed this grab bag of
imaging formats to powerful effect in

of multiple

time-

lapse mode. When that sequence was
completed later in the day, the

36 November 1999

be

might

(AC Oct. '97).

pick up Pierce in bed.

camera

feature another

with

The execution of the shot

the

not

Richardson trademark that

normal

in my

to

use

different formats

films. Bob has done

an extra¬

for that,

certainly not in
Bringing Out the Dead. To me, the
very act of using 8mm, video, 16mm
and this and that, all mixed together
and thrown onscreen in superimpo¬
matter

sition and madness, is
ment

culture. I find that idea

interesting,
nothing to do with what I
was
trying to accomplish in Bringing
but it had

Out the Dead" Scorsese reiterates

that his

emphasis was the drama that
spiritual

results from Pierce's internal
numbness.

Of

array of stylistic signatures,
including the use of a moving
camera on
stationary actors, but he

decided

to tone

down those tech¬

niques because of the intensely inte¬
rior nature of the story. "I didn't want
to be distracting, especially in the
scenes

between Nic and Patricia," the

director

says.

knows how

doesn't

but I

woman.

way.

Scorsese has his

course,

own

ordinary job with that sort of thing,
just don't see the world that
I also don't have the subject

a moral state¬
itself, about the state of our

in

to

even

"Neither of them
reach the other; Frank

know how

All he

can

to

talk

to a

think of to say to

her is, 'Do you want to get some
American Cinematographer - November 1999

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