Waking the Dead
by Keith Gordon
List Price:
Our Price: $9.49
You Save: $0.50 (5%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $1.75 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Billy Crudup, Janet McTeer, Jennifer Connelly, Molly Parker, Paul HippDirector: Keith Gordon
Brand: Universal
Producer: Keith Gordon
Producer: Irene Litinsky
Producer: Jodie Foster
Producer: Linda Reisman
Producer: Stuart Kleinman
Writer: Robert Dillon
Writer: Scott Spencer
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-11-05
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Waking the Dead
Movie Review: love and idealism
Summary: 4 Stars
Perhaps Americans are simply ignorant of recent history, but still, I have a hard time believing that no one writing a review of this film has mentioned that Scott Spencer and Keith Gordon based the character of "Sarah" very closely on an actual person: Ronni Moffitt, the young political activist killed in the car-bomb assassination of Chilean Orlando Letelier in 1976. (agents of the Pinochet regime were convicted of the murders). Some might say the particulars of Moffitt's life shouldn't really have much to do with the success or failure of Waking the Dead as a fictional dramatic work, and in a narrow sense, that's true. But as the nature of this movie is the struggle of the higher duty of idealism vs. the earthly satisfaction of love, the real-life activism of Moffitt is relevant because of the way it "grounds" the idealism of Sarah. As much as conservative believers in the supremacy of the self might want to think it absurd, there really were and are people who sacrific to make things better. And the dramatic "path" of this movie is Fielding's slow back-and-forth realization, though the thickets of his lost love, of the ultimate importance of idealistic sacrific. This is why the movie's final scene (don't worry -- I won't give it away here), which no one else has mentioned, is so crucially important.
On the filmmaking details I have little to add. Crudup and Connelly, superb in so many other films, are superb here. Gordon's flashback-and-forward technique occasionally seems artsy but functions well enough in conveying the story. Challenging and moving.
Summary of Waking the Dead
Based on a scott spencer novel. In 1974 a man loses the love of his life in a terrorist attack.Eight years later he lives with another woman is an attorney making a bid for congress and becomes consumed by memories then visions of his lost love. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 04/12/2005 Starring: Billy Crudup Hal Holbrook Run time: 105 minutes Rating: R Director: Keith GordonActor-turned-director Keith Gordon has crafted a touching love story that transcends time, political ideology, and even death. The movie opens in 1974 as Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) watches a TV news report announcing the death in Chile of three American activists, including Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly), his one true love. The story flashes back to when they first met, showing how he was always more conservative, with grand political aspirations, but the relationship worked because they both shared dreams of making the world a better place, one from inside the system and the other from outside. The movie also flashes forward to his life in the early '80s, when he gets tapped to run for Congress. He starts having visions of her, but he is never quite sure if she's a hallucination arising out of his stress, a manifestation of his political consciousness, an out-and-out ghost, or maybe she's still alive somehow. Whatever she is, his deep longing for her is making him crack up. Gordon smartly jumps the story back and forth in time, forgoing an "objective" reality in favor of a more subjective and emotional one. It is a structure based on memory, and that in tandem with the content is what makes Waking the Dead a very powerful film indeed.--Andy Spletzer
Drama DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in Romantic Comedies: A Guys Perspective
Romancing the Stone / Jewel of the NileTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2006-08-29; DVD
Best price: $18.29
Price in other shops:
The Romantic Favorites Collection (Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason / About a Boy / Love Actually / Notting Hill)Universal; Release date: 2007-01-09; DVD
Best price: $19.00
Price in other shops:
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Dramas (East of Eden / Cat on a Hot Tin Roof / A Streetcar Named Desire / Rebel Without a Cause)Turner; Release date: 2009-02-03; DVD
Best price: $16.38
Price in other shops:
Fairytale Pack (Ever After / Where the Heart Is / Someone Like You)Release date: 2005-11-01; DVD
Best price: $18.56
Price in other shops:
A Very Long EngagementWarner Brothers; Release date: 2005-07-12; DVD
Best price: $4.23
Price in other shops:
The Science of SleepWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-02-06; DVD
Best price: $15.93
Price in other shops:
The Farrelly Brothers Collection (There's Something About Mary / Shallow Hal / Me, Myself & Irene)Release date: 2002-11-19; DVD
Best price: $16.93
Price in other shops:
Sleepless in Seattle (10th Anniversary Edition)HANKS,TOM; Release date: 2003-10-07; DVD
Best price: $5.80
Price in other shops:
Must Love Dogs / You've Got Mail (Romance Double Feature)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-01-02; DVD
Best price: $5.63
Price in other shops:
Dan in Real LifeBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $11.98
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
Lie With MeTHINKFILM LLC; Release date: 2006-02-14; DVD
Best price: $5.45
Price in other shops:
The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version)Release date: 2004-07-13; DVD
Best price: $4.88
Price in other shops:
Some GirlsTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-02-12; DVD
Best price: $7.55
Price in other shops:
Career OpportunitiesUniversal; Release date: 1998-10-27; DVD
Best price: $4.31
Price in other shops:
Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut)Lions Gate; Release date: 2001-08-14; DVD
Best price: $7.40
Price in other shops:
House of Sand and FogParamount; Release date: 2004-03-30; DVD
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Mulholland FallsTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2004-11-02; DVD
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Of Love and ShadowsRelease date: 2002-10-08; DVD
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Inventing the AbbottsTwentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2001-03-13; DVD
Best price: $4.67
Price in other shops:
The Hot SpotRelease date: 2000-06-13; DVD
Best price: $6.19
Price in other shops: