1. Slant Magazine | Film | Raging Bull 4/9/12 12:32 PM
Raging Bull
BY MATTHEW CONNOLLY ON NOVEMBER 2, 2010
**** stars
Film criticism seemingly doesn't get more banal than commenting upon Martin Scorsese's
"fascination" with violence. (Combine it with some extended musings on John Ford's conception of
"masculinity" and you've got a full-proof narcoleptic for cineastes.) Then you re-watch Raging Bull
and you remember that all those cocktail-party bloviations have their roots in one of American
cinema's most complex visions of physical brutality: its communal roots, hypnotic realization, and
corrosive legacy. Scorsese sees the glamorization/moralization of filmic violence as irrevocably
fused together, revulsion and fascination informing one another equally. And just as crucially, he
finds a similar connection between the subjective experiences of those committing violent acts and
the sociological factors that deem those acts acceptable (and often assumed). To watch a Scorsese
brawl or gunfight is to find a director working through all these multifarious ideas and attempting
to get them all on screen—often in the same scene, sometimes in the same frame. Do we feel
nauseous or vindicated when Travis Bickle takes out Harvey Keital's brutal pimp at the end of Taxi
Driver? Are we watching the implosion of a soul in Goodfellas, or is that bopping period soundtrack
too intoxicating for us to notice?
Note, however, that of all the issues that Scorsese tries to cram into his on-screen depictions of
masculine viciousness, notions of violence as a product of carefully explored mental disturbance
don't register as strongly. His films are not anti-psychological, and one can certainly read many of
Scorsese's protagonists as victims of psychic traumas. And yet we aren't asked to put Travis Bickle,
Henry Hill, or other of his (anti)heroes on the analyst's couch. (This might be why The Aviator's
mommy-scrubbed-me-rather-than-loved-me opening flashback feels so clunky.) We view them
more as products of their environment, shaped—and often warped—by cultural expectations whose
roots lie beyond their understanding. This contributes to that Scorsese distance: the emotional and
intellectual space between us and the character that allows us to plug into their experience while
always remaining a bit outside of it, all the better to question their destructive acts. We know them
and yet we don't, as perhaps too clear an understanding of their inner workings might upset the
delicate balance of empathy and objectivity that allows Scorsese to keep his various thematic plates
spinning in the air.
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2. Slant Magazine | Film | Raging Bull 4/9/12 12:32 PM
For all these reasons, Scorsese might never again find a subject as ideal as Jake LaMotta, the Bronx-
based boxer whose public bouts and private demons Raging Bull chronicles with such bruising
acuity. Internalizing the aggressive machismo of his surroundings but lacking the awareness to
control it, LaMotta is all brute physical action, throwing hard punches and harder stares at a world
made up of objects to be possessed and obstacles to be pummeled. He can be observed,
contemplated, judged, but never really understood. When we first meet him, Jake (Robert De Niro)
has long given up his lifelong battle with the bulge. His ballooned body stuffed into a suit, he puffs
on a cigar as he recites a rhythmic little poem about his past life as a prizefighter. "That's
entertainment!" Jake says at the end of his piece, repeating the phrase in a lower, perhaps more
contemplative tone as Scorsese cuts from a close-up of his bloated face circa 1964 to a matching
shot of him in 1941, leaner and about to be decked by opponent Sugar Ray Robinson in the boxing
ring. Such a structure would seem to indicate a certain ruminative quality to Raging Bull, as the
LaMotta of later years recalls the path that ended with him fat, alone, and working as a floundering
nightclub performer. One of the triumphs of both Scorsese's direction and Paul Schrader and
Mardik Martin's screenplay comes from how fascinating Jake remains despite him gleaning little to
no awareness regarding his inner rage and crippling sense of sexual insecurity. So many biopics
insist on squeezing their real-life subjects through the pop-psychology strainer and catching
whatever meager insights dribble out: canned recapitulations of damaged childhoods, meteoric
rises, and substance-addled downfalls that reveal more about the schematics of contemporary
screenwriting than truths about the individuals at hand. The extent to which Raging Bull sidesteps
such reductionism is remarkable.
The film takes us through the highlight reel of LaMotta's life from the early 1940s through the mid
1960s—with those formative early years conspicuously left out. Jake rises in the middleweight
boxing ranks along with brother and manager Joey (Joe Pesci). He comes achingly close to the title
but agrees to throw the match at the last minute, before finally getting the champion's belt in 1949.
Along the way, he ditches his first wife in favor of Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a blond beauty from the
neighborhood that Jake meets at the local pool.
Without losing sight of LaMotta's career arc, however, Scorsese narrows in on those themes that
make Jake's story very much of a piece with the rest of his oeuvre. Jake's possessiveness of Cathy
soon morphs into full-blown sexual paranoia. He tracks Cathy's whereabouts and becomes
convinced that she's sleeping with local mafioso Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent) and members of his
crew. This obsession grows out of a more generalized sense of isolationist machismo, revealed
through DP Michael Chapman's alternately seductive and unforgiving black-and-white
cinematography, Thelma Schoonmaker's stunning POV editing, and the masterfully manipulated
soundscape of bustling Bronx streets and swanky Manhattan nightclubs.
Life becomes funneled through Jake's suspicious mentality, the rest of the world blearily fading into
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3. Slant Magazine | Film | Raging Bull 4/9/12 12:32 PM
the background as innocent pecks on the cheek or clasped hands become infused with ill-defined
portent. That we don't comprehend the thought process behind these vivid distrustful glances only
heightens our ambivalence toward Jake and underlines his own animalistic territorialism. Is it any
wonder that a director known for his expressive use of voiceover chose to keep Jake's inner
monologue silent, with only the sounds of roaring lions and disembodied screeches connected to his
subjective state? This push-pull effect gives Jake's increasingly aggressive efforts to control Vickie a
predictability that's both sickening and queasily fascinating.
The film paints a claustrophobic portrait of violent compulsion, with scenes of domestic abuse
made all the more clammy by a static, unblinking camera. Yet beatings are not confined to the
home. Any situation is primed to explode in the Bronx of Raging Bull, a point driven home when
LaMotta's first losing bout with Sugar Ray Robinson quickly ignites into a stadium-sized
altercation. Men throw one another into and out of the boxing ring while a female spectator gets
trampled by the enraged mob—a pitiless microcosm of most women's fate in Raging Bull's world of
hard line masculinity.
Yet if violence is endemic, it's also not without its thrills and even beauty. I'll never forget the shot
of a single wooden folding chair, captured at a low angle as it's hoisted over the crowd and hangs
momentarily in the air before crashing down into the stewing masses. And of course there are the
boxing sequences themselves, among the most dissected scenes in contemporary cinematic history.
Watching them again, their flexibility of tone and technique struck me most. One mostly
remembers the bloody climaxes of these bouts, with noses breaking and blood spurting in hypnotic
slow motion. But the sheer variety of moods and images proves most impressive, with jagged cuts of
flashbulbs and beaten flesh intermixing with lyrical track-ins to Jake as he stews in his corner or
stalks around his opponent. This makes sense, given that LaMotta uses the boxing ring not just as
an arena for sport, but an ever-shifting psychic space in and of itself: a battleground to defend his
wounded ego; a showcase to intimidate and silence his family; and, in his final match with Sugar
Ray Robinson, a personal Calvary on which this Catholic sinner transforms physical pummeling
into spiritual ablution.
That LaMotta, consciously or otherwise, worked out these inner demons on a public stage made
him not just a product of his brutal surroundings, but a performer. His natural aggression found its
consummation in the ring, and he attempted to transfer that antagonism to a second-act career as a
comedian and nightclub emcee once his boxing career floundered and he moved his family to
Florida. Watching him stumble through canned jokes and strike back at drunken hecklers proves,
in its own way, as uncomfortable as his boxing bouts. De Niro's performance remains a
monumental feat, and you notice it most in these later scenes—not just the much-discussed weight
gain, but the unblinking portrayal of an innately physical man slowly becoming trapped by his
once-lithe body. The heaviness becomes at once a bodily reality and a metaphoric accretion of
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4. Slant Magazine | Film | Raging Bull 4/9/12 12:32 PM
wrongdoings. De Niro doesn't play LaMotta with any actorly distance, embracing Jake's essence as
primal instinct rather than psychological portraiture. And yet he knows just when to crack open
LaMotta a bit and offer a tragic flash of self-awareness. Jake brings Vickie back to his apartment
early in the film, giving her a little tour and informing her that he bought the place from his father.
Vickie asks if he got the money from fighting. "Yeah," Jake says, looking away for a moment before
adding with a quiet laugh, "what else?"
DIRECTOR(S):Martin Scorsese SCREENPLAY: Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin; based on the book by Jake
LaMotta with Joseph Carter, Peter Savage CAST: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent,
Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, Mario Gallo DISTRIBUTOR: MGM RUNTIME: 129 RATING: R YEAR:
1980
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