Director: Martin Scorcese, 1980
Starring Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci

Boxer Jake La Motta channelled his raw power in the ring and punched himself to bloody victory in the 1940s, becoming the Middleweight Champion of the World. He was brutal, precise, and the energy in his punches only hinted at a fiercer strength and an animal side that lay dormant, ready to erupt. All that held the man together was a small amount of self-control. And as his cult grew, he lost it.

Raging Bull tells La Motta’s story – his rise to success, and his catastrophic fall – in a way that reflects the man’s own temperement: it is acted intensely, lashes out at you brutally, and its perfect images are the disciplined expression of something more dangerous – the talent of the director Martin Scorcese, who treats this film as his prize fight.

The film details La Motta’s life and career as he goes from small-town boxer to prize-winning monster: his relationship with Vicki (Cathy Moriarty), a woman able to reach the boxer’s sensitive side; his struggle to get a title shot, and his paranoia and insecurities. La Motta is not a nice man, but Scorcese makes him fascinating, giving an intimate and detailed treatment of his life and showing us both his bouts of testosteronized rage and his fragile moments of humanity.

Jake La Motta is famously played by Robert De Niro. De Niro actually becomes La Motta. In doing so, he finds a frail human at the heart of the monster, and his performance is totally convincing. When De Niro fights as La Motta, he does so to a professional level. And when he needs to play the older, fatter washed up version of the boxer – he piles on the pounds. Most importantly, of course, he acts.

La Motta’s stages of violence and downfall are seperated by vicious boxing matches – just as we look back on our own lives and see them defined by key events, the drama of Raging Bull is built around the breathtaking fights. Each match is filmed in a way that mirrors La Motta’s own mental state. When he’s losing, the ring is distorted and flickering like an inferno. When he wins, the ring is a wide and open expanse. Scorcese is famous for planning every one of his shots meticulously, and in this film it really shows.

Most biopics either skim over the unspectacular part of the main character’s life, as in Ed Wood, or treat it dishonestly. Raging Bull really comes into its own when La Motta starts to come apart. De Niro’s body tranforms before your eyes, the film is polluted with shadows, and the boxer’s life sinks and unfurls until he is left in darkness, protesting ‘I’m not a bad man’.

Raging Bull is artistic, unconventional, challenging and personal, without obscuring the tragic story at its heart.

Scorcese’s finest film. De Niro’s finest performance. The best film of the Eighties.

PS.
The Phoenix only seem to be showing this once so SEE IT WHEN THEY SHOW IT because this a film that will truly live and breath on a big screen.

Jason Theodorou, July 2004.