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Raising Cain
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Raising Cain
Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: September 13th, 2016.
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich, Steven Bauer, Mel Harris
Year: 1992
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The Movie:
Brian De Palma's much maligned Raising Cain tells the story of Doctor Carter Nix (John Lithgow). A child psychologist by trade, he's recently taken a leave of absence so that he can be a better father to Amy (Amanda Pombo), the daughter he raises with his wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich). This would be all well and good except for the fact that Jenny is becoming increasingly convinced that Carter's motives are less than pure. She thinks he's basically using her as a guinea pig, studying her behavior rather than trying to be a proper father to the girl.
Jenny talks to her friend Sarah (Mel Harris) about this, but doesn't get anywhere. As far as Sarah's concerned, dads don't get any better than Carter! In fact, Sarah's fairly certain Jenny's using this as an excuse to ditch carter and maybe see what's happening with Jake (Steven Bauer), the husband of a former patient of hers. As his wife passed away some time ago, Jake is on the market and they do have a past together. As Jenny goes about her business, the increasingly strange behavior from her husband would seem to have something to do with a rash of disappearances in the area that tie into Carter's own childhood experiences… and possibly multiple personalities.
A return to the psychological thriller territory in which he'd originally made a name for himself (his late stab at it before Raising Cain being 1984's Body Double), Raising Cain sees a lot of De Palma's traits on display right out of the starting gate. Here we have a beautifully shot film with a few particularly ornate tracking shots that wouldn't look out of place in one of his seventies or eighties classics like Obsession or Dressed To Kill. We've also got some solid sexual tension, a lot of very stylish lighting and some Hitchcockian plot twists as well. Pretty much everything that makes a De Palma film a De Palma film can be easily spotted in the picture. Unfortunately, in the theatrical cut at least, the movie spells everything out way too early and way too easily, resulting in a film that's fairly devoid of suspense, even if it looks absolutely gorgeous most of the film and features a pretty great score from the great Pino Donaggio.
Worth noting is that this two disc set from Shout! Factory includes the theatrical cut of the picture, which will obviously be familiar to fans of the picture, and on a second disc the re-cut 'director's cut' of the film. This was put together by Peet Gelderblom based on an early version of the script and it's a considerably more interesting picture in this form. There's quite a bit more to the relationship between Jenny and Jake as well as more with Jenny and Carter established earlier in the film. Some of these scenes do a much better job of establishing a few character motivations that, in the theatrical cut, were a bit questionable given that they came later in the picture to give the film a more conventional flow. The whole first half hour of the film is structured very differently, and for this reason some of what comes later in the film winds up having much stronger impact. It's still not a perfect film, but this alternate version is definitely a much better film overall. If you haven't seen the film before, skip right to this cut and leave the theatrical version (which has been rightly preserved on this release for those few who may prefer it) for a rainy day when you've got nothing better to do.
As to the performances, they're quite strong. Lolita Davidovich does fine work here, trying to get away with what she wants to get away with and looking great as she does it. She has the right sort of facial features and body language to properly inhabit the affluent world that the Nix's live in. Steven Bauer and Mel Harris are quite good here as well. It is, however, pretty much entirely John Lithgow's show in about sixty percent of the film. He chews through the scenery with a pretty healthy appetite but somehow makes it work. As the plot expands (especially in the director's cut) his increasingly unhinged and fairly maniacal turn in front of the camera comes to suit the character and the tone that De Palma is going for here. There are streaks of black humor running throughout the film, and Lithgow is a big part of what makes those elements work as well as they do.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Raising Cain arrives on Blu-ray from Shout Factory's Sceam Factory line in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. Both cuts of the picture use the same source material and look very good. Detail is quite strong, this is very nicely shot and lit film and that really comes through in HD more than it could have on DVD. Colors look really nice here, occasionally hyper-stylish as they sometimes are in De Palma's films, but completely in keeping with the director's intended look for the film. There are no obvious problems with noise reduction and the image is quite clean showing virtually no print damage. Black levels are nice and deep and the picture is free of any compression artifacts.
English language DTS-HD options are provided in 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo options with subtitles available in English only. As you'd probably guess, the 5.1 mix spreads out the score and the effects more than the stereo track does, but so too does it occasionally play around with dialogue placement a bit. It sounds quite good, while the original stereo track also gets a nice boost in both quality and clarity. Both tracks are free of hiss and distortion and benefit from properly balanced levels.
The first disc in this set includes not only the theatrical cut of the film but also some nice extra features staring with an excellent half hour long interview with leading man John Lithgow entitled Not One To Hold A Grudge. He speaks quite candidly about not only working with De Palma on this film, but on Blow Out and Obsession as well. He talks about his relationship with the director, how and why he has enjoyed working with him on the three films they've made together, his thoughts on Raising Cain and his character and quite a bit more. Lithgow is always an interesting guy and hearing him talk about his work with De Palma is pretty great.
In the twenty-four minute long The Man In My Life, actor Steven Bauer shares some insight into what it's like taking direction from De Palma, what the director wanted out of him in terms of his performance, what he tried to bring to the character in the movie and his thoughts on the film as a whole. Gregg Henry shows up in The Three Faces Of Cain where he talks about working with De Palma on Raising Cain, Scarface and Body Double, what it was like acting alongside Lithgow and their cumulative rehearsal tactics, and a fair bit more. Tom Bower gets eight minutes to go over his experiences on the set, his thoughts on his fellow cast members and his appreciation of the director's visual style in The Cat's In The Bag, while in A Little Too Late For That we get nine minutes with Mel Harris who provides her thoughts on playing Sarah, shares some stories from the set and also offers up some appreciation for De Palma. Last but not least, editor Paul Hirsch appears in a piece called Have You Talked To The Others? Here he shares some stories about how he was brought on board to work with De Palma on the picture a little late in the game, how challenging it was to edit the film based off of a script that left him scratching his head a bit, and his thoughts on the finished picture.
Closing out the supplements on the first disc are the film's original theatrical trailer, animated menus and chapter selection.
On disc two, accompanying the director's cut of the picture, we also get two featurettes. The first of these is Changing Cain: Brian De Palma's Cult Classic Restored. In this quick two minute piece we learn how and why Gelderblom decided to reedit the film, how De Palma reacted to it and how the director himself pushed to have it included on this Blu-ray release. In the thirteen minute Raising Cain Re-Cut featurette we're treated to a video essay by Peet Gelderblom in which he explains most of the core differences in the two versions and why things were changed the way that they were changed in the director's cut.
Both discs fit inside a standard sized Blu-ray keepcase. Along with the two discs we also get some nice reversible cover art with the original theatrical art on one side and the newly created Shout! Factory artwork on the other side. The case fits inside a nice cardboard slipcover that features the new artwork on the front panel.
The Final Word:
Raising Cain doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves, but maybe now that a proper cut of the film as originally intended by its director is available thanks to this Blu-ray release, that'll change. It isn't perfect, but it is a solid thriller with a twisted sense of black humor and some legitimately great acting, especially from Lithgow. The plethora of extras included here is impressive, and the movie looks and sounds great in high definition.
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Now, take the director approved fan edit cut by Dutch director/editor (and De Palma fan), Peet Gelderblom, which radically reorders scenes according to De Palma's original vision. First of all, Lithgow barely appears in the first 20 minutes. which establishes a narrative coherence that was completely missing from the theatrical cut. This small foundational change sets a narrative tone that allows all the other elements to "click" and fall into place. The "funny" bits (of which there are a lot) are now even funnier, the homages (to Hitchcock, and most brilliantly, to his own films) stand out more crisply and on-point, given that one is not trying to muddle through a needlessly convoluted story. The film is so purposefully cheesy (and tongue-in-cheek) that I never quite rode its wavelength -- until watching this new cut. It's meta-awareness, purposefully matched by John Lithgow's deliciously over-the-top performance{s) is so much better suited for this "director's cut", it even makes me appreciate the original more in retrospect, and spurs me (I am De Palma fanboy, hear me roar :)) to upgrade my initial rating and give it the props that I feel it now deserves.
Bottom line is that Brian De Palma was, in 1992 (and riding the heels of a couple of critically-panned flops) ready to go back to what he knew best, this time armed with a self-deprecating sense of humor that caught most everyone (myself included), off-guard.