Bringing Out The Dead (Paramount Presents #47) (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)
When Bringing Out The Dead arrived in theaters in 1999 it was up against a lot. The film was touted as one thing and marketed as another. Seeing the film showed you exactly what Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader and their excellent cast were working for. The film has long gestated on DVD since 2000, where now, 25 years later, we have the film on 4K UHD Blu-ray. I hadn’t seen the film since about 2001, and so revisiting for this review revealed a lot of wonderful new nuances for me. Read more about Bringing Out The Dead below. Perhaps the review will give you wonderful readers a reason to revisit this incredible film!
Film: 
Frank (Nicholas Cage) is a paramedic working nights in New York. Frank is verging on insanity with a lack of sleep and a constant weight of the losses he’s suffered in his job. There are literal ghosts coming to Frank. He hallucinates from tiredness and self-medication. The horrors of the job are weighing on him. Frank practically begs to be fired from his job at a moment’s notice.
The same cannot be said for his teammates. Larry (John Goodman) treats the job as just that — a job. He plans his days around the lunch break meal he will want to pick up, and dreams of working as a chief someday, to which he won’t have to drive the ambulance anymore. Marcus (Ving Rhames) treats the job to show people “miracles.” To Marcus, there is nothing that can’t be helped by the power of prayer. He turns his stops into Gospel revivals, much to Frank’s embarrassment. Tom (Tom Sizemore) is the most intense. He treats the job as an excuse to channel his anger. He is seen beating up patients before taking them to the hospital. Over the course of 3 days, you are taken on wild ride after wild ride, finding empathy in Frank’s blight as he tries his best not to go insane on the job.
On the flipside of these wild nights, we have Mary (Patricia Arquette). Her father is one of the patients Frank makes a house call for. As her father dies, Frank suggests to Mary to play some music. As Frank Sinatra begins to play over the events, Mary’s father’s brain begins to function again. Once at the hospital, Mary’s father must constantly be defibrillated, but somehow signs of life persist. As Frank consistently goes back to the same hospital, he talks to Mary. They can divulge a lot with these conversations, and they find support with one another.
Noel (Marc Anthony) is another person Frank encounters over his nights. Constantly picked up in some state of insanity, he is a person who cannot control his issues. As a cranial gunshot survivor, he has no control over his brain function, which causes him to have constant episodes. We also meet Cy (Cliff Curtis), a drug dealer who operates under the guise that he’s “helping” people at his “oasis.” Oh, and don’t forget, that ghost of Rose is still haunting Frank.
Franks New York feels like a grand hallucination. With desaturated colors, bright lights and moments of madness in the ambulance, Frank has every reason to want to release himself from his work. Moments are fast and flashy. The nights come like a blur. The drives are odd and disjointed with a feel of insanity just underneath. Through it all there is Frank’s narrative. He is dying to get out and find a different way to live his life. There is a desire to help but a repulsion in the idea of loss. He can relay this to few people. His dispatcher just screams at him, while the chief just can’t let him go. His ambulance mates don’t get it either. They all do the job differently. The partners also have their own oddness – Larry wanting to move forwards, Marcus wanting to spread the gospel, and Tom dealing with his own insanity in sometimes repulsive ways. Is Frank out of his depth wanting out? Is he looking for a companion in Mary? Is he relating to those he’s saved and lost? Is the thought of loss what is ultimately making Frank crazy?
Bringing Out The Dead marks the fourth and final collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader. The two made not only Taxi Driver but Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christtogether. Their relationship proved to be able to make some incredible films related to characters or real-life figures that had their moments of being less than perfect. Travis Bickle wanted to kill – either himself or someone else. Jake LaMotta wanted to be a champion, and he lost everything being an angry abusing womanizer. Jesus was Jesus and all of the stories about Him are conflicting when you really read into them. And then we have Frank in this film. He wants out of his job. He is beyond burnt out, and he is even worse for wear being that he hasn’t saved a life in what feels like it a lifetime itself. It’s clear that flawed humanity runs like rivers in these films. This for those who really look can be something incredible. The writing and direction lead you to films that can at one point feel straightforward and engaging that then get turned into fever dreams where you’re the audience-as-fly-on-the-wall seeing everything unfold with unwieldy and fascinating results.
Bringing out the Dead also exists within the New York of After Hours. There is barely any daylight, with the nights being lit by flashing lights, headlights and hallucinatory spotlights. Sparks fly in these nightmarish streets, but they’re not the flash you’d expect. By the time the film has rushed to the end credits you have a feeling of exhilaration and exhaustion. The feelings you’ve felt riding along with Frank and his rotating partnerships are at some points all over the place. Once you’ve had a moment to sit with them, you might want to take the ride again. Cage, Goodman, Rhames and Sizemore all fill their roles with such nuance and incredible range. Patricia Arquette makes her Mary someone who is sympathetic and wounded. You feel for each person as they emote throughout the film. The cliché would be to call Bringing Out The Dead a wild ride or electrifying, but those terms full apply. Bringing Out The Dead is a little seen film that deserves to be watched and cherished. Even better, we now have this beautiful 4K UHD Blu-ray edition to enjoy the film as we’ve always been meant to!
Video:
Encoding: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Layers: BD-100
HDR: Dolby Vision
Clarity/Detail: Bringing Out The Dead comes to 4K UHD with a director supervised transfer. The desaturated, often brightly lit nature of the film benefits from the resolution uptick and we get a gorgeous layer of film grain and fine detail giving you views of everything from clothing texture to gradients on the wet streets in the film. Looking at this transfer is seeing exactly what the filmmakers intended and this is why we love the format.
Depth: The darkest night is still given plenty of beautiful focus in the frames. Cityscapes and claustrophobic ambulances both benefit from sharp camera work and even with a few blurry moments (no doubt intentional), things look incredible overall.
Black Levels: Black levels are near perfect with no artifacts or crush to be seen.
Color Reproduction: The color palette for the film is desaturated, so don’t expect a vibrancy here. At the same time, the colors look exactly as they should and that means they look wonderfully desaturated, not just desaturated. Bright lights make things look a tad off and the hallucinatory nature of the events in the film make this color palette make total sense.
Flesh Tones: As wacky as colors may look, the flesh tones are much more down to earth. Besides some makeup, there are no flaws in the presentation fo flesh tones.
Noise/Artifacts: None.
Audio:
Audio Format(s): English Dolby Atmos
Subtitles: English SDH
Dynamics: Bringing Out The Dead makes its newest physical media debut with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. The movie calls for this in many ways – The overlapping dialogue, the blasts of music and sound effects, and the roar of ambulance engines all feel like parts of Scorsese’s prowess in many films. These signatures soar in this audio format, and dynamically, the immersion is very satisfying.
Height: Music, city sounds, hospital din, and more come from above. As the ambulances fly on screen you hear sound coming down upon you and then you’re right in it with the actors.
Low-Frequency Extension: Bass is not the priority of the mix, and never has been. Music and the occasional engine noise give the subwoofer some light work.
Surround Sound Presentation: More city or hospital ambience play in the surrounds, and the immersion continues nearer to your ears with a lot of things to hear in small and large spaces.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue sounds excellent throughout.
Extras: 
Bonus Features for this, the 47th Paramount Presents release, are big. There is a wealth of bonuses here created new and created from archival material that was never used. We also get 10 minutes of legacy content that was previously released. Overall, this is a great gift for fans of the film to delve into.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Legacy Bonus Content
EXCLUSIVE CAST AND CREW INTERVIEWS
THEATRICAL TRAILERS
Summary:
Bringing Out The Dead came out and made very little in theaters. People were led to believe that they were seeing an action thriller from trailers. Then seeing the film, no doubt felt disappointed by the misleading marketing. The beauty of the film is not in the glimpses of it that the trailer showed. It’s an onion – Many layers, worth peeling back to get to so much more. There is depth and horror and humor in these frames. This is a beautifully, lovingly made film and one of Scorsese’s best that you’ve never seen. Fans of the film get this completely, and with hope, this new edition will reach film fans who can embrace it with open arms as well. This one is not to be missed.
