Photosensitivity Warning: Bringing Out the Dead contains multiple sequences of flashing lights either directly (scenes with or focused on ambulance lights) or indirectly (lights flashing on characters) which may disturb sensitivity viewers.
A lot can happen in 25 years. For some, it’s multiple lifetimes’ worth of time. Twenty-five years ago, I was 18, a freshman at University of North Carolina at Asheville, and still exploring what it meant to be a young adult without supervision. Unlike most of my peers, that translated to realizing that going to the movies wasn’t just a “weekend when your work’s done” thing, but an “as you feel like it” thing, and the chaotic energy of Martin Scorsese’s (After Hours; Killers of the Flower Moon) latest team-up with writer Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver; Raging Bull) called to me. The full film wasn’t the bill of goods the market sold, it was something deeper, something darker, something that I could not fully comprehend. Twenty-five years later (not quite to the day), revisiting the film brings with it a different response as the chaos is easier to sort through, to identify, and, oddly, to relate to. Whether you’ve loved the film from the start or are questioning your own response, Paramount Pictures welcomes Bringing Out the Dead to the Paramount Presents specialty line with a first-time 4K UHD remaster approved by several members of the original project, as well as nine new on-disc bonus materials.
L-R: Director Martin Scorsese and actor Nicolas Cage on the set of BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
After five years as an EMT, Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) is in a six-month downturn period in which he’s lost patients. It’s not an entirely new feeling, but there’s usually been at least one save in there to lighten the load, to make the job and effort feel worth the energy he puts in. But ever since he couldn’t save a teenager named Rose (Cynthia Roman), it’s as if everyone dies on him. That is, until he gets a call for a heart attack patient who seems lost when he and partner Larry (John Goodman) arrive, but who Frank is able to resuscitate. Feeling a bit of hope, he continually checks in on the patient and his daughter Mary (Patricia Arquette), to whom he feels connected. But as the days wear on and more patients are lost, Frank’s understanding of what it means to save someone shifts, guiding him toward a most unstable precipice of self.
L-R: Patricia Arquette as Mary Burke and Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce in BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
In the last 25 years, I’ve graduated from two schools of higher education; worked in two different markets in multiple fields in broadcasting, marketing, public relations, and education; gotten married; had two kids; and learned that I still don’t know anything. The world is complex and ever-changing, even in the places that seem the same. The chaos is always there, it’s just a matter of how well one learns to navigate it and whether or not they can withstand the tide to uplift others before being pulled down by it. Respective to Bringing Out the Dead, Frank doesn’t come out of this 48-hour tale healed so much as he’s hopefully discarded his unhealthy ways to cope and, with luck, moved on, not just from what he’s held onto, but from the unhealthy attachment to Mary. Whether he actually does or not isn’t important within the confines of the film for tomorrow brings new challenges (essentially, that’s a Sunday problem); rather, what does, is whether he can live with himself. As the credits roll, his is a deep rest, posed with Mary akin to Italian painter Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato’s Madonna and Child — a touch on the nose, but tightly connected to the themes and performances within the film. He is looking for comfort, for forgiveness, for peace, and is finding only negative reinforcement wherever he turns. He lacks the fortitude to just quit, relying on others to make the choice for him, which none will do as he’s needed too much on the streets. Thus, for the entire picture, Frank is on his way out. He’s lost faith, he’s seeing ghosts of those he’s been unable to save, specifically Rose, and he’s continually losing patients. He wonders if it’s his presence, his touch, that’s the problem, an element that weighs on him even further when a breach birth of twins results in a dead child in his arms and a living one in the arms of his partner for the night, Marcus (Ving Rhames). All of this weight, all of this pain, was lost on an 18-year-old me wondering where the frenetic action of the trailer was hiding, whereas my 43-year-old self recognizes that the those moments, the ones highlighted in the trailer, are the mark of what’s wrong with Frank, Larry, Marcus, and actor Tom Sizemore’s (Saving Private Ryan) Tom Wolls. That these four men and the doctors, nurses, and medical staff they encounter have developed a coldness nearly imperceptible from a lack of humanity in the way they discuss or talk to patients. It’s all in how they cope with their own trauma caused by their chosen profession. As an adult, one can see the weight of their experiences, recognize that the comedy is meant to elevate the weight of the horror that permeates what’s essentially a ghost story by which Frank is the living dead as much as he is a guide or a witness for those about to cross over. It’s only in the end, when he decides that the best way to save someone isn’t to help them keep living, but to make the transition from one life to the next with honor and dignity, that he finds any kind of peace. Hence the final image of Mary and Frank, the two shown seemingly at rest for hours on end until the screen becomes frozen, signifying a held moment that will last until we know not when.
L-R: Actor Patricia Arquette and director Martin Scorsese on the set of BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Fascinatingly, there’s another read on the film in which Frank is so unstable that he’s shifted from friendly EMT to predator, seeking out private information regarding his patient, tailing said patient’s daughter, and refusing to listen to her when she tells him not to follow her. Even that final sequence can be viewed as more about Frank than Mary (which is a read I completely agree with), him comforted by her despite her just learning that her father has died and being unaware that it was Frank who killed him. There’s evidence in the text of Frank’s growing despondency and insomnia are turning toward self-harm, so his shift toward “light stalking” brings with it a certain ick that makes the entire film the story of a selfish man whose rush from saving lives has dried up and is desperate for his next fix. While I don’t disagree that this view of Frank is without merit, that his “nice guy” persona is the worst kind of veiled threat, to dismiss the character completely seems to simultaneously ignore that, within this view, Frank is as much an addict as Mary is (recovering and lapsed as she may be), helping to facilitate their connection as one recognizes that aspect in the other. Frank is absolutely using her, there’s no denying that aspect of the relationship between the two characters. He’s using her to (first) learn whether her father will survive, thereby giving him that glorious hit of satisfaction and then (second) to be the person who needs saving, until, finally, he transfers Rose onto Mary in the final scene, and he rests. None of this is healthy, at all, which is the point. Nothing about Frank is put together, nothing about his choices is within the scope of clarity, but they don’t come from a totally negative or harmful space, which is what ultimately saves the character from being a complete shitbag.
If you’ve come to this to learn about the 4K UHD, let’s part ways for a bit from the narrative exploration and shift into the technical.
L-R: Nestor Serrano as Dr. Hazmat and Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce in BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
According to the press release from Paramount Pictures, this 4K UHD edition was created using the original camera negative and was reviewed by Scorsese, cinematographer Robert Richardson (Casino; Django Unchained), and editor Thelma Schoonmaker (After Hours; Killers of the Flower Moon) — elements which should comfort those whose experiences with 4K UHD haven’t always been up to expectation. Bringing Out the Dead is a ghost story involving the living and the passed on and the 4K UHD does a remarkable job at helping to convey what was already on screen. The greater amounts of data UHD allows for enable the audience to see details they may not have caught before, like the stitching in the badge patches upon Frank’s shoulder or the crispness in the white shirts the EMTs wear. But where the details really make an impact is during the scenes at the hospital. The sick pea green adorning the walls, the taupe of the waiting room, and pale blue of the scrubs worn by the medical staff all denoting a space as worn down as the people working within the walls. A good 4K UHD edition doesn’t provide dramatic changes (though there are few instances where such changes improve the thematic tones of the narrative such as in Full Metal Jacket (1987)) so much as bring out what was already there. Here, that means offering a tighter clarity of images despite the constant use of haze to denote Frank’s fractured perspective or the presence of Frank’s ghosts. Here, that means that the night shift is made up of inky blacks, sharp reds, and bright whites so that colors pierce the darkness in the way that Frank’s dwindling hope cannot. This edition also includes a new audio mix via Dolby Atmos, but the EoM home setup isn’t compatible yet to test it. The 5.1 track, however, is clear and crisp with no notable audio imperfections to distract from the drama unfolding before us.
L-R: Director Martin Scorsese on the set of BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
As this is a Paramount Presents label edition, thought’s gone into making the physical elements equally interesting. As with prior Paramount Presents releases, the slipcover includes an incorporated mini-theatrical poster so that you can get a sense of new and old for the film either by looking at the shiny art design on the front or opening it to reveal the original poster underneath. The case itself is a clear two-disc standard case containing a 4K UHD and Blu-ray disc along with a digital code slip. The 4K only includes the film and features a subtitle track for the deaf and hard of hearing with a screenshot of Frank driving adorning the top of the disc. For the technologically inclined, the presentation of the disc waivers between low 50 to high 60 Mbps, denoting an average 4K disc presentation. Credit to Paramount for making the best use of the 4K disc by not diluting the storage space with bonus materials. Though the numbers seem low for a 4K UHD presentation, the nature of the film doesn’t require something akin to high spectacle features of today. The Blu-ray includes the film and all the special features and is adorned by a screenshot of Mary cradling Frank. This disc contains over 75-minutes of materials including legacy materials (cast and crew interviews and a theatrical trailer), as well as the nine new featurettes. These featurettes are comprised of a 12-minute “filmmaker focus” (a staple of the Paramount Presents label) with Scorsese, the nearly 15-minute “A Rumination on Salvation” with Cage, the six-minute “Cemetery Streets” with Schrader, the nine-minute “City of Ghosts” with Richardson, and five individual on-set featurettes with Arquette (True Romance), Goodman (The Emperor’s New Groove) , Rhames (Pulp Fiction; Mission: Impossible series), Sizemore (Heat), and Marc Antony (Man on Fire) who plays Noel. These special features make up the most comprehensive collection for this film to-date. Being a plastic case, with the discs removed, one is treated to a collection of photo stills and a quote from Scorsese about the film.
BRINGING OUT THE DEAD packshot. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
All art deserves revaluation. The ones that resonated with you the first time and the ones that don’t. We often find that who we are in the moment of first experiencing that art is not who you are later. Sometimes this means that you watch something and discover it’s not as good as you remembered, sometimes it’s that who you identify with changes, and, sometimes, it’s that you weren’t ready for what it was trying to say. Remasters and restorations are fantastic opportunities for films, even those released by the supposed masters of cinema, to receive necessary reevaluation and, luckily, Bringing Out the Dead just so happens to be in a presentation that only enhances the work. To that end, if this is a film that you’ve enjoyed, snagging the film is easily a foregone conclusion and you require zero convincing. For the rest, if you’re wondering if it’s worth a revisit or whether the film is right for you to try out, as great as the remaster is and the bonus features are, it may be worth renting before purchasing. But, should you go out on a limb, I can’t imagine you’d be disappointed given the plethora of special features that accompany this edition, not to mention the rare three formats that are included.
Bringing Out the Dead Special Features:
- *NEW* Filmmaker Focus – Martin Scorsese on Bringing Out the Dead: Visionary filmmaker Martin Scorsese shares stories behind the production, touching on casting, shooting in New York City, and the music and art that inspired his approach. (12:08)
- *NEW* A Rumination on Salvation – Nicolas Cage on Bringing Out the Dead: Academy Award® winner* Nicolas Cage relates tales of wild nights in New York City, his cerebral approach to his character, and his time with Scorsese prior to shooting. (14:43)
- *NEW* Cemetery Streets – Screenwriter Paul Schrader on Bringing Out the Dead: Legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader talks about adapting author Joe Connelly’s novel, how traveling with real paramedics informed his writing, and his creative partnership with Scorsese. (6:05)
- *NEW* City of Ghosts – Cinematographer Robert Richardson on Bringing Out the Dead: Frequent Scorsese collaborator and Academy Award® winning** cinematographer Robert Richardson opens up about shooting Bringing Out the Dead and how the film personally resonated with him. (9:21)
- *NEW* On Set with Patricia Arquette: Actress Patricia Arquette reflects on working with Nicolas Cage, the creative openness of director Martin Scorsese, and how her own background allowed for a personal understanding of her character. (6:06)
- *NEW* On Set with John Goodman: Actor John Goodman talks about the intensity of portraying a paramedic, working with Nicolas Cage, and the honor of appearing in a Martin Scorsese film. (5:40)
- *NEW* On Set with Ving Rhames: Actor Ving Rhames shares how Martin Scorsese’s New York City differs from his personal experience and how his character relates to Nicolas Cage’s character. (2:58)
- *NEW* On Set with Tom Sizemore: Actor Tom Sizemore celebrates the opportunity to appear in Bringing Out the Dead and reflects on how life is full of surprises. (3:01)
- *NEW* On Set with Marc Anthony: Actor Marc Anthony shares how he turned witnessing real-life hardship on the streets of New York City into an unforgettable performance. (4:50)
- Exclusive cast and crew interviews (10:57)
- Two (2) theatrical trailers
Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray Combo and digital September 17th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Paramount Pictures Bringing Out the Dead webpage.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Recommendation
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