A "raging " triumph

Rating: 9/10 (6 October 2012)

Raging Bull is more about a boxer's life out of the ring. Shot entirely in black and white,it is based on the turbulent career and life of the two time middleweight champion Jake La Motta.
The film opens in 1964 where an aging & overweight Jake LaMotta (Robert DeNiro) is rehearsing his lines for a standup comedy act. The scene then moves to two decades earlier with JakeLaMotta losing his first major match. Jake's brother & agent Joey (Joe Pesci) discusses his chances for a potential title shot with one of his mafia connections, Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent). He starts a relationship with a 15 year old Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) inspite of being married. He defeats Sugar Ray Robinson twice but is denied victory in the second bout due to judges. He finally marries Vickie, his love for her gradually becoming an obsession. Frequent fights erupt, most of which end in Vickie being abused physically. In one of his bouts, which he wins against Tony Janiro he brutally smashes the latter's face because he knows that Vickie finds him attractive. Later , discussing Jake's victory with journalists in a night club, Joey spots Vickie in the company of Salvy and his friends. He attacks Salvy and injures him badly in a fight. The mafia head asks Jake to throw his next match in order to have a title fight. As a result, Jake is disqualified. However, he wins the middleweight title in his next bout against Marcel Cerdan in 1949.
The title win and subsequent success the following year do nothing to quell his jealousy about Vickie, his insecurities only become worse. Things come to the worst one day when he blatantly asks Joey whether he and Vickie have something going in between them. Joey leaves, disgusted. Unmoved, he confronts Vickie asking her the same, to which she replies, fed up of the routine torture, that she has relations with Joey and every man in the neighbourhood. Enraged, Jake goes to Joey's house and beats him up brutally in front of his family. That spells the end of relations between the two brothers.
Jake defends his title against Laurent Dauthille in 1950, a match even his estranged brother Joey watches on TV. He calls Joey in an attempt to reconcile but is unable to speak anything when Joey answers the phone.He never tries to call his brother again. His career slowly starts to go downhill and he loses his title to Sugar Ray Robinson in 1951.
The scene then cuts to 1956 with a now obese LaMotta, having moved to Miami and running a nightclub. Vickie soon asks for a divorce,which she had been planning since his retirement. She gets the custody of the children and moves away. Jake then suddenly gets arrested one morning on the charge of introducing underage girls (posing as 21 year olds) to other patrons of his nightclub. He is jailed being unable to raise enough money for parole even after selling his title belt. In a memorable scene, he bangs his head and pounds the walls of his prison cell, crying and repenting his actions and questioning his misfortune. The scene then moves to 1958.On being freed, he moves back to New York and continues his gigs at various night clubs in addition to managing them. One night, he sees Joey on the street. He calls out to him and asks him to forgive him, but Joey keeps walking. Finally he catches him near his car and hugs him and asks for forgiveness. Joey reluctantly forgives him and drives away without another word. Back to the first scene in 1964 where La Motta is practicing his lines and in between pondering what might have been had things been a little different and had Joey looked out for him .A stagehand informs that his act is ready and the last shot of the film shows Jake exiting the dressing room, shadowboxing like the older days.
This isn't a biopic about a idol because this is anything but a hero. Its a story of a man who inspite of reaching great heights in the ring is pulled down to the abyss because of his abhorrent behaviour outside it. Like his other works, Scorsese does not add a bit of pleasantry but shows realism, with human nature at its ugliest, the usual expletive laced dialogues and grimness.
This is arguably Robert DeNiro's best performance & the most physically demanding role any actor can have.Not for a moment does he even try to make the viewer feel any sympathy for or like the hatred and envy filled character he is playing. Jake LaMotta on screen is the exact opposite to Rocky Balboa . Rocky is a hero in everyman who we root for in his quest to reach for the sky. For Jake, who already has reached the top, the viewer feels only revulsion and later on pity, when he begins his downward slide. To prepare for the role, DeNiro trained vigourously for weeks under the real Jake LaMotta,even fighting and winning some amateur matches. Production was halted for four months and DeNiro went on a binge eating spree on gourmet food across Europe in order to add nearly 30 kilos to portray the older La Motta. On seeing his performance, the real LaMotta quipped "I never knew that I was that bad".DeNiro deservedly won the Oscar for the Best Actor for this role where he had in his usual style erased the difference between reality and celluloid.Joe Pesci who was an unknown actor at this time, is great as Joey. He very aptly portrays the brother who tries his best to stick with his sibling but puts and end to the whole thing when it gets beyond redemption. Cathy Moriarty is impressive as Vicky in her debut film but couldn't live upto the promise she showed in this film.
A must watch simply for the appreciation of good cinema.