This fall marks the 25th anniversary of Martin Scorsese‘s “Bringing Out the Dead,” a masterpiece that didn’t connect with audiences in 1999 but has steadily grown in esteem in recent years with reappraisals here at IndieWire and elsewhere. Now, Paramount is releasing a new 4K UHD edition of the movie that gives it the home viewing showcase it has always deserved, with illuminating extra features and behind-the-scenes footage for Scorsese enthusiasts to hungrily devour.
“Bringing Out the Dead” reunited Scorsese with screenwriter Paul Schrader after their artistically fruitful collaborations on “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and to a certain degree, it’s another of their meditations on sin and salvation. The superficial resemblances to “Taxi Driver” — here Nicholas Cage spends his nights prowling the mean streets of New York not in a taxi, but an ambulance — worked against the movie at the time of its release, but this isn’t a retread of “Taxi Driver” any more than “Casino” was a retread of “GoodFellas.”
While “Taxi Driver” is steeped in irony and savage satire (its corrosive view is closer to Scorsese comedies like “After Hours” and “The King of Comedy” than to “Bringing Out the Dead”), “Bringing Out the Dead” doesn’t put up any barriers between its tragedy and the audience. This is a deeply empathetic film about lost souls, not just Nicolas Cage’s medic in search of redemption but also the hundreds of discarded people he encounters every night on the street; where Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) looks at most of his neighbors and sees filth, Frank Pierce — and Scorsese himself — sees fellow human beings worth saving.
The moral questions raised by trying to be a good man in a world filled with evil and indifference are right up Scorsese and Schrader’s alley, of course, and in “Bringing Out the Dead” you can see them developing the exploration of moral questions that began in earlier films and which would resurface for further examination in movies like Schrader’s “First Reformed” and Scorsese’s “Silence.” It’s a profoundly spiritual piece of work that also happens to be a complete blast as entertainment — Scorsese has always been torn between the sacred and the profane, and here he orchestrates his tragedy to the beat of The Clash and Johnny Thunders in a movie as energetic in its filmmaking as it is sorrowful in its world view.
The result is a movie unlike any other, one that finds Scorsese directing like a rock and roll Ingmar Bergman. Paramount’s new 4K release provides fascinating insights into Scorsese’s approach, with a terrific new interview and some great vintage footage of the director on set. The disc also features new interviews with Schrader, Cage, and cinematographer Robert Richardson, all of whom have clear passion for the film and articulate their intentions in a way that immediately deepens and expands the viewer’s perception of the movie. Watch an exclusive excerpt from the Scorsese interview above.
“Bringing Out the Dead” is now available on 4K UHD from Paramount Home Video.
