4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
(1&2) Nicolas Cage stars as burned-out New York City EMS Paramedic Frank Pierce, haunted by the death of Rose (Cynthia Roman), a homeless teenager he couldn’t save from a drug overdose. Her face continues to pop up as Frank works his overnight shift. (3) Frank tries to help Noel (Marc Anthony) a young man suffering from drug addiction.
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“BRINGING OUT THE DEAD” – PARAMOUNT PRESENTS
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 1999; R for gritty violent content, drug use, profanity; Digital copy Fandango Home (4K)
Best extra: “A Rumination on Salvation: Nicolas Cage in ‘Bringing Out the Dead’”
SIMILAR TO Martin Scorsese’s darkly brilliant “Taxi Driver,” his “Bringing Out the Dead” focuses on a young man tormented by some of the horrors found by night on New York City streets.
In the two films, Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) and Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) provide voiceovers as they drive through those streets – Travis in his cab; Frank in his ambulance – to do their respective jobs. But, where the protagonists differ, is that Frank isn’t motivated by anger and revenge, the way Travis is. Frank is haunted by guilt after not being able to resuscitate Rose (Cynthia Roman), a teenager dying from a drug overdose. To assuage that guilt, Frank is absolutely desperate to save lives, and each time he’s not able to, it takes more of a toll on his physical and mental health.
The film follows Frank, along with three different – each crazy in his own way – EMT partners (John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore) over three nights as dispatchers (voiced by Scorsese himself, and Queen Latifah) send them to one nightmarishly bloody scene after another. Once the two-man team loads the victims into the ambulance, they’re taken to a frenetic overcrowded emergency room hell-scape, where overwhelmed doctors and nurses have to find a way to do triage. In the midst of all the chaos and screams, Frank makes a warm connection with Mary Burke (Patricia Arquette), a gentle former addict whose father Frank had rescued, and who’s being mechanically kept alive after a massive heart attack. The outstanding cast also includes Marc Anthony, Cliff Curtis, Mary Beth Hurt, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Aida Turturro, among many other fine actors.
(1-3) Frank is out driving the ambulance on his night shift. (4-6) He and his partner Larry (John Goodman) are called to rescue a heart attack victim, the father of Mary Burke (Patricia Arquette), and treat him as the family looks on.
VIDEO
Paramount’s 4K scan and mastering of the original 35mm camera negative (2.39:1 aspect ratio) provides a striking impression of Scorsese’s and three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson’s (“JFK,” “The Aviator,” “Hugo”) visual intent of the New York nightlife. Scorsese wanted a different look, so they followed a photochemical process Richardson had just used for his Oscar-nominated imagery in Scott Hicks’ “Snow Falls on Cedars” (1999). This involved bypassing a bleach bath, producing a “lesser color palette with more gray in it,” Richardson says. He showed Scorsese an early print of the “Snow Falls” before its theatrical release, and the director said, “I love what it’s doing with the colors.” Richardson also used heavy downlights and dimming for the stylish visuals.
Onscreen clarity is very good with an overall edge to the 4K disc compared to the 1080p disc – especially with fine detail and wide shots. The film grain is natural and consistent throughout.
HDR10 peak brightness levels are on the low side, only hitting 174 nits, possibly because of the increased gray level in the highlights. The average is 124 nits. Everything was encoded onto a 66 GB disc; video still varies from 60 Megabits per second to over 80 Mbps.
AUDIO
The Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core) soundtrack is a stunner – especially with the lively rock, R&B, and reggae mix. The bass response is deep and powerful, as the music moves from Van Morrison’s “T.B. Sheets,” Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run,” and The Clash’s “Janie Jones” and “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” The ambulance siren wails off the Manhattan buildings as it races to the next call, bouncing around the room from the front, sides, back, and above. The dialogue is never lost in the active soundstage.
(1&2) Arriving at the hospital ER, Frank argues with the emergency room guard Griss (Afemo Omilami). (3) Noel (Marc Anthony), a psychotic addict, is restrained on a stretcher and begs for water. (4) Larry (John Goodman) is Frank’s partner tonight. He assists with an IV in the ER waiting area. (5) Left, Tom (Tom Sizemore) is Frank’s partner on the third night and they bring Noel back to the hospital.
EXTRAS
All of the bonus features are on the enclosed Blu-ray, including new interviews with Scorsese, screenwriter Paul Schrader, and cinematographer Robert Richardson. Also featured are archival interviews recorded during the production, with Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore and Marc Anthony, as well as other cast and crew members.
In the recent interview with Cage, he looks back at his feelings about working with Scorsese: “I was transported by ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Raging Bull,’ ’Cape Fear,’ ‘Goodfellas,’ and ‘King of Comedy …’ (Those films) made me want to continue on my path as a film actor.” After Cage had been cast in “Bringing Out the Dead,” Scorsese took him to his private screening room in Manhattan, and introduced him to Michael Powell’s movies, among others. Cage calls Scorsese “the most pro-movie person I have ever met,” who “is doing so much to protect cinema.” Author Joe Connelly, whose memoir is the basis for the film, explained that it “reflects a small village, with a handful of characters who keep running into each other.”
Cage acknowledges the relationship between “Bringing Out the Dead” and “Taxi Driver,” but notes the contrast: “Travis has bloodlust. Frank wants to save people.” Both characters, however, are “men in their rooms”; and both are introspective. Cage says that during the shoot, he wasn’t sleeping much, because he had visitation with his son only one day a week. This meant that he flew to Los Angeles every weekend, and came back exhausted, which added verisimilitude to his portrayal of Frank. To prepare for his role, Cage spent time with real EMTs in an ambulance in Manhattan, and noted the way they used humor as a coping mechanism to deal with all the horror they were exposed to. Those moments of humor are reflected in Connelly’s book and in Schrader’s screenplay. Cage talks about Robert Richardson, calling him “the greatest cinematographer I ever worked with,” and points to the hallucinatory scene which was shot in reverse, noticeable because snow is falling up. For that scene, Cage and Goodman actually had to learn their lines backwards, so they’d be intelligible when reversed.
Cage believes that “Bringing Out the Dead” was misunderstood by critics and audiences at the time. He says the film is “not an action movie at all … but a deep character analysis … with a story,” he adds, “that stays with you.”
— Peggy Earle
(1&2) Marcus (Ving Rhames) takes over the driving on the second night, and he leads a group of concert-goers in a prayer for their friend who overdosed on drugs. (3) Frank has visions of saving ghosts-like figures. (4) Cinematographer Robert Richardson changes the camera’s perspective as the ambulance races toward the morning’s first light. (5) Frank and Tom are at that the ready, as they watch a highrise fire, with a trapped victim.
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