Raging Bull

Review for ART 1145 American Cinema - Raging Bull ⚠️ SPOILER WARNING ⚠️ Raging Bull directed Martin Scorsese and produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler is a 1980 biographical drama adapted from Jake LaMotta's memoir “Raging Bull: My Story”. This film stars Robert De Niro, who would go on to win his second Academy Award as Best Actor due to this film. The film follows Jake LaMotta an Italian American who was a middleweight boxer in the 1940s-1950s. His animalistic and violent nature is shown throughout the movie through his boxing matches, as he wants to “destroy” his opponents. LaMotta’s career is affected by his and brother and manager Joey’s (Joe Pesci) mafia connections. Even though he is powerful in the ring, LaMotta must overcome his disagreements with what the mafia wants out of these matches and his own head-strong behavior, which eventually spills over into his personal life. We also see his warped version of “love” and lust throughout the film as well, as he cheats on his first wife for Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) who ends up marrying. However, when he becomes paranoid that she has been unfaithful, he’s filled with jealous rage and started abusing her. Even though at this point he’s at the top of his boxing career, he starts to lose control, gaining weight, and ends up hurting everyone around him with his self-destructive behavior. The story ends with him losing everyone around him and becoming a stand-up comedian. The acting for this film was phenomenal. I can understand why this role won Robert De Niro an Academy Award. He played his role masterfully and became the animalistic aggressive and self-destructive character Jake LaMotta was. Also, the cinematography and editing of this film were above standard, and really captured the overall dark tone of the film. I can see why the American Film Institute ranked it as the fourth-greatest American movie of all time. Although the story was very well-acted and directed, it was honestly too violent for my taste. Obviously, it needed to be, since this was a true story about someone who was clearly an extremely violent person, but it just seemed like a little too much. However, like previously stated the acting and cinematography of this movie really made it amazing.

The boxing was uninteresting, whiffs, and has an old timey kind of gore porn aspect. Jake is a meathead who follows a predictable self destructive spiral where he never seems to learn a thing the whole way down. Joe Pesci is almost a charicature of what he would be in later more developed mob movies. Generally the cast is wasted on a predictable slog through boredom. I love so much of the cast for it to be this way. I can't understand.

The movie somewhat reminds me of a great Greek tragedy. Gorgeous cinematography. It wouldn't have worked as well in color. The script is great. Pesci and DeNiro deliver their lines perfectly. Hell, nearly everyone does. The music is great, too. The opening scene is impeccable. It's one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful I've ever seen. Scorsese is a master filmmaker.