Released in 1980, which was the same year of David Lynch's The Elephant Man, Robert Redford's directorial debut in Ordinary People, and Sissy Spacek's lovely performance in Coal Miner's Daughter, Raging Bull certainly was in good company. I've seen all of these movies and enjoy them all for different reasons, but Raging Bull is the one that haunts me the most, and not for necessarily good reasons.
The film chronicles real life boxer Jake LaMotta's rise and fall in his boxing career, and it is a brutal, agonizing decline. Robert De Niro, whose performance is perfection here, got into incredible shape for the boxing sequences, then gained over 60 pounds to play LaMotta in his later years. It is a breathtaking transformation and one that anyone even mildly interested in acting or film must see. He captures LaMotta's anger, stupidity, paranoia, and (in my opinion) personality disorder flawlessly. One of the most perfectly shot, edited, and acted scenes is his final fight with Sugar Ray Robinson. If you've never seen this film before, you must watch this:
The editing in this scene is brilliant. Spike Lee points out that one of the greatest things about this movie is the boxing choreography, and it is perfect. The cuts of the lights, the punches, the blood--we learn so much about LaMotta as a person through these boxing sequences, and none more than in the clip above.
Although Raging Bull is recognized as one of the great collaborations between Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, many people fail to realize this was the first in a long and masterful line of collaborations between Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker, who is without a doubt one of the great editors of the sound era. If you feel I'm overstating, just watch this interview with Scorsese and Wang Kar Wai in which they both gush over Schoonmaker's talent (13:00 minutes in):
Since 1980, Thelma has edited all of Scorsese's movies and now practically has a telepathic relationship with him. She's been nominated seven times for Best Film Editing, and she's won three Oscars--the first of which was for Raging Bull (The Aviator and The Departed were her other wins). For some reason, every self-described feminist I know who is interested in film does not know anything about Schoonmaker, which bewilders me and speaks to how much editors are overlooked, especially women. In any case, Scorsese and Schoonmaker's collaboration on Raging Bull is nothing short of ingenious. The cuts on the Sugar Ray sequence are of course only one small example.
This film also marks the first collaboration between Scorsese and Joe Pesci. Anyone who is familiar with their later work, particularly Goodfellas and Casino, knows that in the Pesci-De Niro relationship, De Niro plays the calm one and Pesci the psychopath. In Raging Bull, the relation is much the opposite, with Jake LaMotta as essentially a paranoid, narcissistic psychopath (he is a "raging bull") and Pesci as the slightly more level-headed brother. Truly, Raging Bull is an American Othello, with LaMotta constantly suspecting and punishing his Desdamona, played by an extremely young Cathy Moriarty.
So, with all of these accolades, why do I dislike this movie?
It's complicated. The first time I watched this film was in the midst of my and my brother's obsession with Scorsese's Goodfellas, which you can read about on my "About Me" page. We were in love with anything even remotely associated with Scorsese and wanted to see Raging Bull as soon as we knew what it was. I still remember Burt and me watching it on an old TV in our living room and both of us feeling...confused by the end. I don't know what I expected, but I do remember feeling let down. Because I was only about 17 at the time, it is easy to dismiss my initial reaction to youthful ignorance. However, I've watched it since then several times and always carry that same feeling of...disappointment. After watching the film last night, I am finally able to articulate that disappointment.
Jake LaMotta is a character consumed by violence; it defines every fiber of his being: his masculinity, his passions, his home life, his career, his treatment of his family. He is a man who is drowned in violence, defined by it, driven by it, aroused by it. As a result, every single scene of the film is at the very least tinged with this violence. Watching the film last night, I felt emotionally exhausted only thirty minutes into the movie, and it was then that I realized why.
The film puts you inside the mind of a man--a "raging bull"--whose obsession with violence permeates everything about him, and it fills the audience with anxiety, fear, and trepidation. You have no idea whom he is about to attack, what he will break or destroy, or to what extent he will explode. He is a ticking time bomb in the most extreme. If you look at other Scorsese protagonists, this is not an unusual characteristic; in fact, it is quite common. Johnny Boy in Mean Streets, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Nicky in Casino, Tommy in Goodfellas--all of these guys are on the brink of explosion. For me, the difference is that LaMotta was not only a real person (this is a biopic, after all), but his anger and intensity feel so real. It is because of this constantly pulsing violence throughout the entire film that I believe Raging Bull is the most violent film Scorsese has ever done.
I can only speculate about how men feel watching Raging Bull, but for me as a woman, I feel anxious and tired the whole time. Although I have never been in a violent relationship, I have been on the receiving end of that kind of attitude LaMotta exudes: women as property, women as sexual objects, women as things. Indeed, every woman alive (and most girls) have been subjected to sexual harassment at some point (usually quite frequently), and the Jake LaMottas of the world are the ones we fear most of all.
One scene in particular that made me feel queasy--in a way it did not when I was a teenager--was toward the end. LaMotta has a club and is quite fat and creepy at this point. He walks around the club kissing girls who may or may not be underage as a way to "test" and see if they are 21. I had to stop the film and walk around for a moment to calm down; De Niro's performance in that scene is so real, it provoked memories of every creepy, lecherous old man I've met at practically any social function: The ones who walk over to girls, sometimes still teenagers, and attempt to flirt by asking, "What's a pretty little girl like you doing here?" That familiarity and the underlying violence beneath it--sexual violence, violence that we as an audience know LaMotta is not afraid of using to get his own way, violence that threatens any woman who does not adhere to his idea of women as property--actually scared me; I say that without hyperbole.
When we learn in a subsequent scene that one of the girls was only 14, and LaMotta is arrested, I had trouble sympathizing with him. In fact, I really have no sympathy for his character throughout the film, which I think compromises it. Although it is true almost Scorsese's entire filmography is about "bad people," I do not have trouble identifying or feeling interested in the protagonists of his other films, even the gangster pictures or The Wolf of Wall Street. Raging Bull, on the other hand, leaves me feeling nothing but revulsion and mercy when the final credits come. I don't really feel bad for him at all and struggle to empathize with anything that happens to him.
One thing I would like to add is that over the years, critics have accused Scorsese of being misogynist, but I find that misguided at best. In Raging Bull, you are put inside the mind of a misogynist, and it is a creepy, unsettling place to be. The film, and almost all of Scorsese's movies, is an indictment of many of the things we associate with masculinity: violence, treating women like property, domination. There is nothing in this film indicating Scorsese endorses this behavior, but he forces you to experience it. I suppose this is one reason why I find this film so emotionally draining.
All in all, Raging Bull is an exhausting, laborious movie to watch, but there is much to admire about it. I can see why people love it, and I do appreciate the many artistic elements of it; that doesn't mean I enjoy watching it.
Grade: B+
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