Martin Scorsese won his only directing Academy Award for his 2006 film The Departed. While he was celebrated for that well-made drama about mobsters and undercover officers, many felt that it was a makeup award for all the times he had been overlooked in the past, especially for Goodfellas. Films like Gangs of New York and Taxi Driver were also cited as times when he was deserving yet came up short. But there is one other film that is also in that conversation, one that was undervalued when it first released in theaters but has since become one of the most critically lauded films of all time: 1980’s Raging Bull.
Raging Bull was a film based on middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta’s memoir Raging Bull: My Story. Initially, Scorsese was reluctant to adapt it to the screen, though he later came to relate to the polarizing former fighter. LaMotta was no role model, and his life story is one of jealousy and anger. His nickname Raging Bull may have come from his time in the ring, but it also applied to his personal life and how he treated those in his inner circle, including his wives. Reading this memoir, or watching the film that came from it, we are not asked to like the man in question, nor can we pity him, either. He’s a brute, but he is also a man who had a drive to be the best in the ring, making it on his own merit without the help of the mafia or anyone else. Late in the film, he will look at himself in the mirror and quote the famous lines from On the Waterfront where Brando laments about how he could have been a contender. LaMotta was a contender, but his faults and his downfall were of his own making.
Despite outward appearances, this is not a film about boxing. Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) has a lot of rage he has to work out, and he does some of that in the ring, taking blows but never falling down, sometimes just standing there and letting his opponent wail on him. But he cannot leave that rage in the ring. He comes home to his wife, whom he first wooed when she was just fifteen, and takes his anger out on her. When he first meets her she is allegedly virginal, though she carries herself more confidently than that and communes with mobsters. The film never outright says she is sleeping around, but there are hints of it.
Jake is unable to relate to or trust women, a theme that seems present in a lot of Scorsese films. Jake falls for Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), but his fear of sexuality leads to accusations of infidelity, proven by just his suspicions alone. Soon, even a friendly gesture from her towards any man leads to a jealous rage, sometimes violence. An offhand comment about the handsome looks of one of his opponents in the ring leads to him pummeling the man mercilessly until a spectator remarks that the man is no longer handsome. After this beating, Jake stares at Vickie in the crowd, silently reminding her that this is the consequences of her words.
This jealousy is hard to watch on screen. It’s painful and heartrending to see just how paranoid and presumptive Jake is, even more so when compared to other scenes where they appear to be a happy couple, sharing intimate moments together. Jake at one point turns his paranoia on his brother and manager, Joey (Joe Pesci), accusing him of sleeping with Vickie. Things turn violent, both towards Joey and towards Vickie, who, exasperated with him, taunts him with claims that she has slept with everyone in the neighborhood. As absurd as this is, he cannot see beyond his own suspicions and his blind rage.
This is an unglamorous portrayal of a man made at a time when Jake was still alive. Reportedly, he was shocked and appalled by the raw depiction of his bad behavior and asked his ex-wife, “Was I really like that?”, to which she replied, “You were worse”. The film forced him to confront his past actions, which made him reflect on his life and how he was his own worst enemy. He felt that Robert De Niro did an incredible job bringing him to life, but the depiction was not a flattering one. Eventually, though, he came to appreciate the film and admitted that it was an accurate portrayal of himself, warts and all.
Joe Pesci was literally plucked out of obscurity when he was cast in this movie. He had made a few minor appearances prior to this but had decided it wasn’t working out and had decided to give up acting when he was asked to audition after De Niro saw him in a B movie. In most ways, Pesci’s performance equals De Niro’s. The dialogue, the reactions, and the interactions feel absolutely authentic, like two men who have known each other their entire lives. So too, the alienation and Jake’s clumsy, yet heartfelt attempt to reconcile with him years later.
Cathy Moriarty was just 19 when she filmed her part in Raging Bull, yet she has managed to convey the emotional range of a woman much older and far more experienced in the harsh realities of being married to a man such as Jake LaMotta. This is a woman who spends years married to an abuser who thinks every friendly interaction means infidelity, and you can see that wearing her down over the course of the film. Cathy was nominated for the Oscar for this and rightfully so. Robert De Niro’s winning performance would not have been possible without her incredible work opposite him.
Raging Bull was shot in black and white. Perhaps Scorsese was remembering having to desaturate all that blood in Taxi Driver to avoid an X rating. The ratings board is funny in that way. Blood is fine so long as it isn’t red, according to them, a fact that forced Quentin Tarantino to release a segment in Kill Bill Vol. I in black and white. The boxing sequences are so brutal and bloody that it seems to spray off the screen at times. There is no doubt this would not have passed the ratings board had it been in color. This makes anything seen in a Rocky or Creed movie look childish in comparison.
The Oscar for Best Picture for 1980 was awarded to Ordinary People, a psychological drama about loss and blame directed by Robert Redford. But in the years since that award was given out, history has shifted and Raging Bull has been considered the better film overall. But Oscars cannot be re-voted upon or awarded to the film that has better stood the test of time. Instead, it just becomes another example of us looking back through modern lenses and asking “What were they thinking?” Raging Bull had mixed reviews at the time but has since joined the ranks of films preserved in the Library of Congress, an honor reserved for the best of the best.
Raging Bull will never be someone’s idea of an easy film to watch. The boxing matches, staged in many different styles, are brutal and visceral. But the sequences outside the ring are far more brutal in a different sort of way. We are watching self-destruction and insecurity personified, and it is simply devastating to see. Jake LaMotta is not someone to look up to nor is he someone we can like very much. It’s endlessly fascinating watching him but not in a way that I could even say is enjoyable. Instead, it is raw and powerful, a psychological drama about a man with a lot of demons who is incapable of keeping them bottled up. It’s a brilliant bit of cinema that deserves the recognition it currently enjoys, though it will forever be, to me at least, a hard watch that I can only return to occasionally.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff
Best Director: Martin Scorsese
Best Actor: Robert De Niro (won)
Best Supporting Actor: Joe Pesci
Best Supporting Actress: Cathy Moriarty
Best Cinematography: Michael Chapman
Best Film Editing: Thelma Schoonmaker (won)
Best Sound: Donald O. Mitchell, Bill Nicholson, David J. Kimball, and Les Lazarowitz
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Release Date: December 19, 1980
Running Time: 129 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Cathy Moriarty
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
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