Scorcese's Personal Masterpiece- a Must See

Rating: 10/10 (21 November 2005)

Probably the most deeply affecting film I have ever seen, Raging Bull towers as a masterpiece of cinema. Scorcese's personally urgent portrait of a man in need of redemption, it is the most powerful film I have ever seen. Watchable multiple times, Raging Bull contains astonishing scenes of pure, unbridled emotional truth; as well as intense, raw fight scenes.
It is the tragic story of Jake LaMotta, a boxer who in the ring was never knocked down. He experienced little but downfall in his personal life, as his paranoid torment and sexual inadequacy drove him to alienate everyone that he had loved.
At home he was paralyzed by suspicions of his young wife, Vicky, cheating on him. In the ring he punishes her and himself by dealing out and receiving incredible amounts of pain as his payment for a deeply sinful nature.
Scorcese's work ranks with the greatest portraits of tortured artists (by that I mean both LaMotta, and Scorcese at the time) in this film which was made by Scorcese because of how strongly he related to the fundamental male need to torture himself over his lack of understanding towards women.
In Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Scorcese's hero's guilt led them to hold their fists over flames, testing the fires of Hell. In Raging Bull, Scorcese sends Jake LaMotts into a pounding, animalistic, physical Hell on earth every time he steps into the brutal, unforgiving ring.
Scorcese's choice choice to film in crisp black and white gives the film an authentic but surreal tone that brings it closer to real life than most movies. It is beautifully shot, and the black and white elevates it to a timeless, mythic place in the viewers mind.
Robert Deniro's performance as Jake LaMotta can never be matched or compared. It leaves the realm of performance and instead is an embodiment. Famously gaining sixty pounds for the tragically extraordinary final moments, Deniro finds moments of unbelievable power and uncompromising truth in a man flawed not because he is evil; but so uncontrollably, paralyzingly human. It ranks alongside Charlize Theron's performance in Monster as the number one piece of acting in the history of cinema.
Failing miserably at the box office (Raging Bulls filming budget was 18 million, compared to its box office take of 0 million), and unloved by critics who felt that it was an ugly story about ugly people, Raging Bull was not a financial success story. Instead it was discovered over the years as the art that it was and is now considered one of the best films of all time.
Any honest person who watches this film will find a riveting, emotionally draining film about what it means to be human. One of very, very few films that I found lived up to all of its expectations and beyond. It occupies a powerful place in my mind, and in the history of film.