Raging Bull

... in that he lost everything he ever had by age 40, although Kane didn't die broke by any means. An athlete expects to lose their prowess over time, but Jake lost everything else too. He did have a pretty good second act, partially and ironically because of this film, and even managed to live to age 95 and not die alone. That's an unexpected outcome when you first see him at age 42.

It's really interesting how this film is set up. You first see LaMotta (Robert De Niro) at age 42 in 1964 - bloated, working in a dive of a nightclub, practicing the third-rate act that keeps him fed and off the streets. His name and the year are shown in print. Then immediately you switch to LaMotta in 1941, in the ring, at age 19. Granted, Robert De Niro at age 36 when he made this does NOT look anything close to a teenager, but then there has to be some dramatic license.

This first fight shown in 1941 tells you what you need to know about the kind of world Jake inhabits. There are the violent punches of the fight followed by a decision against Jake with which the audience strongly disagrees. Fans throw things - everything from popcorn to chairs. Fights break out. A woman is trampled in the chaos. And then the organist tries to calm things down by playing the Star Spangled Banner. The audience does not come to attention.

So you've seen the end and the beginning of the story. It's fascinating and grabs one's attention, and even though you can look up and see how the actual Jake LaMotta's life went in those 23 years, the movie gives you all of the intimate scenes telling you the how. Jake craves love, food, recognition - he has a tremendous appetite for all of these things but he's also tremendously lacking in confidence and self control and strikes out violently as a result. It really is a fascinating portrait.

There's very little to like about the character portrayed here by Robert De Niro, other than to acknowledge that he took advantage of one of the few things he was good at i.e. thumping anyone who enraged him regardless of whether they were in the boxing ring or not.

The power of the movie comes from De Niro under the direction of Martin Scorsese, providing a wholly convincing performance of the furious, bitter, bovine pugilist with serious psychological issues. It is one of the truly great performances of that decade, perhaps of all time, nailing the establishment of a character it's genuinely difficult to have any empathy or sympathy with. If you dig deeper, you will not be surprised to find a serial misogynist who married seven times and who beat all of his wives. If this is your type of hero you might like to reconsider how you got there. If De Nero, Scorsese and cinema are your heroes, not too many will disagree with that.

Bringing the life story of one of the roughest brawlers to ever step into the boxing ring, Raging Bull finds director Martin Scorsese & actor Robert De Niro teaming up once again to deliver yet another quality work but just like their other collaborations, it left me cold & indifferent to whatever it had in store and while I respect the legacy of this sports drama, I'm no fan of it.

Raging Bull chronicles the life of Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer whose rage, jealously & bouts of violent outbursts helps propel him to the top of the division but his inability to keep those vicious tendencies in check outside the arena leads him on a path of self-destruction, as he destroys his relationships with his wife & family over the years and wounds up all alone in his later life.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film is incredibly faithful to its source material and recreates the events with accuracy. Shot in black & white, which gives the picture a timeless quality, it illustrates the good, bad & ugly side of LaMotta with finesse and his arc is undeniably compelling. But he also comes off as an insufferable persona whose problems are of his own making which makes his downward journey all the more deserving.

What also affects the experience is that the story remains a monotonous ride for the entirety of its runtime. There is no escalation whatsoever whether we are witnessing LaMotta's boxing bouts or personal life. It's just a similar set of events repeated time n again for 125 minutes and that's not enough to keep the interest alive. It's brutal & violent in the ring but it fails to deliver the desired emotional impact because we are just not invested in his journey.

However, from a filmmaking standpoint, Raging Bull is an outstanding piece of work. The staging of events, the era-appropriate set pieces, the boxing choreography, the controlled camerawork, all of it exhibit an exactness that's quite commendable. And as for the performances, Robert De Niro leads the show from the front and delivers a smashing showcase as Jake LaMotta, and he is brilliantly supported by Joe Pesci & Cathy Moriarty who play his brother & wife respectively.

On an overall scale, Raging Bull is impressive in its craftsmanship but the narration is lacking in flavour and becomes repetitive after a while. Scorsese's direction & De Niro's commitment to his role certainly stand out but the longer it goes on, the more wearisome it becomes. Painting a faithful portrait of a character with no redeeming characteristics, Raging Bull is significant from a filmmaking viewpoint but there isn't much to gain by investing in someone who refuses to learn from his own mistakes.

An emotionally self-destructive boxer (Robert DeNiro) and his journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring, destroys his life outside it.

I do not want to be the one to say bad things about this film, because it is not a bad film. But most of it just did not resonate with me. The story is good, the acting is good, I love the use of the black and white cinematography at a time when color was far more dominant. But I cannot say this is one of the greatest movies ever made.

IMDb, AFI, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN and everyone else has this ranked so near the top of their list (IMDB actually only puts it in the top 100, which seems more fair). I am lost... it is a great movie, yes, but one of the greatest? No, it just is not true. DeNiro has done better, Pesci has done better, Scorsese has done better...

Robert Deniro as Jake La Motta in Raging bull is a boxer who's violence in the ring spills out into his home life. This not a boxing movie per se but a character study of a near pshcotic pugilist. THis guy is just overflowing with testosterone and has a severly unbalanced mental state. Any thing that gets in his way he promptly smashes. Raging bull is a study of male rage which knows no bounds. Jake La Motta has a massive inferiority complex which drives him to the heights of brutality. IN the ring, Jake is the pride of his neighborhood. Outside the ring however he hurts his family and friends. He wants to maintain control over his wife and does so through bullying and phsical abuse. He realizes she is the better person and feels she must be having an affair whenever he is away. His performance in the ring takes away from his sex life with her. HE cannot lose control of the things he feels he has a right to. In the end who loses everything; his wife his brother's support, and his status as a boxer. WIth age his violent passions subdued in part by his great weight he becomes a mere shadow of his former self. In closing this is a brilliant picture that should have swept the 1980 academy awards. One of my alltime top ten.