Raging Bull is a 1980 biographical sports drama film, based on Jake LaMotta's 1970 memoir Raging Bull: My Story. The movie was produced by Chartoff-Winkler Productions Inc. and distributed by United Artist. Raging Bull was written by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin and directed by Martin Scorsese.
The story is boxer Jake LaMotta is working his way through the ranks to earn his shot at the middleweight title. However, despite this great thing happening to him in the right outside of is a completely different story. While this anger might work for the boxing world, when he has this type of rage outside of it, his personal life with the ones closest to him pay the price.
My Thoughts
One amazing aspect of the movie is the look. Of course they would make this look like the 1940s considering that's where the movie takes place. But the reason it's such a high point is because of the overall quality. It feels like the 40s, everyone talks like it's the 40s. Scorsese even went as far as to make sure home movie footage looked exactly like the kind of quality you would get if the camera you were using was one from that decade.
Another spectacular thing about Raging Bull is Robert De Niro's performance. With the previous Scorsese/De Niro movie I reviewed, that one being Taxi Driver, Robert had a lot of dialogue to work with. Here, while he still has lots of dialogue, his acting also had to use a lot of facial expressions and body language. And he played it all perfectly. We see every bit of negative emotions just be looking at De Niro's face only. From anger to jealousy to everything in-between.
What I also loved about the film was the boxing scenes. Now there's not many of them, because the movie is more of a drama. But when we do have a boxing scene, it by no means disappoints. There very brutal and bloody scenes, hell at one point blood is coming out in such large amounts and coming out so fast, that the audience watching the match, gets covered in it. Like I said, brutal stuff.
Then we have the story. Where as Rocky is a story of a boxer achieving triumph, Raging Bull is a story of a boxer going through nothing but tragedy. It's a tale of Jake being consumed by nothing but feelings of rage, jealousy, and his insecurities. Then just when we're lead to believe that Jake has achieved some sort of peace and happiness in his life, he ultimately screws everything up because of all of his issues.
This leads me to my final point as that's the ending. Overall, this wasn't really a movie about redemption, as much as it was about atonement. Even the movie is over, there's by no means a feeling of a happy ending. I believe that the ending can only be interpreted as something sad, which perfectly circles back to this being a tragic story.
Raging Bull is definitely one worth watching. Whether your a film fan, boxing fan, or both. It perfectly captures the 1940s, it has a great performance from Robert De Niro, the boxing scenes may come in small amounts but they're still done to perfection, it tells a great tragic story, and it's not about redemption as much as it is paying for one's mistakes.
My final rating is A Must Watch.
So, that's going to do it for me. Come back on Monday, Apr 18th, where I'll have a special post about film studio executives, and what happens when they mess with a filmmaker's work. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
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