Oscar winning film ‘Leaving Las Vegas‘ gets 4K restoration for 30th Anniversary.
The film most famous for Nicolas Cage being awarded Best Actor in 1996; the film is garnering a StudioCanal 4K restoration on Blu-ray.
Cage plays Ben Sanderson, a failing Hollywood screenwriter who once was top of his game, but has now succumbed to a crippling alcohol addiction.
He decides to use the generous severance package from the studio that employed him to go to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. Upon arrival, he quickly falls in with an escort Sera (Elizabeth Shue who was Oscar nominated) who sympathises upon his plight and chooses to abscond from her pimp, Yuri (Julian Sands) and stay with Ben for his final days.
Directed by Mike Figgis, who also wrote the script, uses his outsider eye as an Englishman to paint Vegas as this soulless desolate location where people go to pass the time or pass away.
A film that is very much timeless but also of its time, in the sense of Vegas as a waiting room with Sting’s jazzy compositions ringing out along the soundtrack. Shot for a modest $4m budget the film garnered widespread acclaim and awards across the calendar.
Cage’s performance was rightly lauded, this was an actor who had worked steadily and hard for ten years ranging from work with Coppola and Lynch to romantic comedies and action blockbusters. This was his shot for legitimacy and it paid off in spades; his Ben stands along with other cinematic drunks, Ray Milland (The Lost Weekend) and Bogart (In A Lonely Place). Cage stealthily plays Ben as a charming individual with one terrible default setting. The chemistry he has Shue makes the doomed romance all the more bittersweet.
The new 4K UHD and Blu-ray editions include zoom interviews with Figgis, Cage and Shue; a new documentary by Figgis, audio commentary by Figgis, original interviews, B-roll and a making of featurette.
Thanks to Studiocanal UK for the review opportunity.
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