Bringing Out the Dead (Remastered) (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Featurette-Production Featurette
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	116:02
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:35)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Martin Scorsese
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Nicolas Cage Patricia Arquette John Goodman Ving Rhames Tom Sizemore
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$28.95	Music	Elmer Bernstein

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	French Italian Bulgarian German Spanish Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Bringing Out The Dead is a study in addiction, compulsion and post-traumatic stress disorder. Frank (Nicolas Cage) is a paramedic hooked on the rush of saving lives. But after a street girl named Rose (Cynthia Roman) died in his arms, he has lost the talent. Now all he can do is bear witness to the dead as he works a series of endless night shifts, becoming more and more unhinged, while Rose’s ghost haunts him. As he forms a closer relationship with Mary Burke (Patricia Arquette), whose father now lies in a vegetative state in the emergency ward because of his efforts, Frank becomes a casual observer to the lunacy of the world he lives in – complete with a drug war, the victims of which he attends, and a mentally ill man named Noel (Marc Anthony) who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time for Frank.

    Set in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, in the early 1990s – before the Zero Tolerance program cleaned up the streets (by putting everybody in jail) – Bringing Out The Dead is filmed in a series of murky, dark and depressing locales. The people Frank goes to save are generally junkies, alcoholics, drug dealers or prostitutes. There is humour in these vignettes, but it is a very black sardonic humour; a depressing kind of laughter, where you are forced to chuckle or simply give in to the madness Frank is embracing bit by bit.

    Directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring excellent performances by Cage and Arquette – not to mention a strong supporting cast in John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore – this film is not for the squeamish. Written by Paul Schrader, who also scripted the cult classic Taxi Driver, the two scripts have many similarities, but are quite different. However, much like Taxi Driver, this film defies any real classification, and is definitely more in the realm of an arthouse feature than a mainstream blockbuster. Although it has its comedic elements, it is not a comedy. Although it has its dramatic elements, these are often offset by its many bizarre and surreal moments. Although it is often blood-soaked and confronting, it is not as ruthless or as disturbing as Taxi Driver – Frank is clearly messed up, but he is not a psychopath.

    What is this film exactly? Undeniably good. A strange and twisted look at the night life of a filthy urban hell through the eyes of people sworn to patch it up, stop the bleeding and keep the heart going until the mind can heal itself. Funny, quirky, haunting, disturbing and utterly unforgettable.

Video

    Presented in 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced, this is the original theatrical aspect ratio.

    Picture quality is exceedingly good, although it should be kept in mind that the director has used many different lighting techniques and lens filters to create particular visual effects for various sequences. White has a luminescence which vibrates, seeping into shadowy areas. Shadow detail varies between exceptionally good to dead black where nothing can be discerned. Edges can be blurred or dead sharp, depending on which cinematographic effect is being utilised. Grain can be excessive or non-existent.

    Colours are wonderful, with deep bloody reds, live flesh tones and pallid flesh for the dead, the near-to-dead, and Frank himself – the living dead.

    There are no MPEG artefacts of note, no film-to-video faults I could detect, and although there was the odd fleck of dirt, I only noticed it because I went back through hunting for it.

    There are 7 subtitle options: English for the Hearing Impaired, French, Italian, Bulgarian, German, Spanish, Portuguese. They are white with a black border and easy to read.

    The dual-layer pause is at 58:35, the same point as the original release, and, although noticeable, is not disruptive to the flow of the film.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four soundtracks here: an English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround track; a German 5.1 Dolby Digital track; a Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital Track, and; an Hungarian 2.0 Dolby Surround track. The foreign language tracks appeared okay, and I followed the German track along for a while. However, this film is one of those which doesn’t translate all that well into another language. As the emergency doctor in the film says: “Mercy killing doesn’t translate well in Spanish”. The English track bears a little more discussion.

    Dialogue is clear and easy enough to understand, and there were no audio sync problems.

    The range was quite good, Elmer Bernstein’s score fills out nicely, although it is quite a subdued track in many respects.

    Surround use in the original release was somewhat muted, and having compared my R1 release to this release, I have concluded that there is no distinguishable difference between them, and therefore no likely no distinguishable difference between this version and the original R4 release. There is little in the way of surround use, and the majority of the sound in this film is front-driven.

    The subwoofer was used occasionally to flesh out the music and to add ambience in certain scenes, but was not heavily relied upon.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, static with no sound.

Production Featurette (10:59)

    Presented in 1.33:1, non 16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo. Includes interviews with principal cast and crew, including Martin Scorsese himself and Joe Connelly, the writer of the novel on which this film was based.

    The R1 version has the same featurette, and also includes a theatrical trailer. However, it has fewer audio options and subtitle options. Aside from that, the only other difference between the R1 and R4 release is that the R1 release is slightly more prone to aliasing. So, all I can suggest is determining which language options are important to you, and deciding upon that basis.

    Bringing Out The Dead is not your typical Scorsese picture, but what is? Just to make a brief comparison, Gangs of New York is not like Taxi Driver and none of these films are like Raging Bull. All I can really say is that Bringing Out The Dead is quite brilliant in its own right.

    Video is very good, and any faults are generally the product of intentional cinematographic effects.

    The sound is good, and on par with my R1 release and the original R4 release, although lacking any real surround use.

    The extra is quite minimalist.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall