Scorsese and De Niro at their best

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2008)

Contains Spoiler!
Raging Bull is my favourite Scorsese films and one of favourite films generally. The film follows the story of Jake LaMotta, a famous middle-weight boxing in the 1940s. In my opinion I believe the film is about the destruction of a person's character and how misleading the American Dream can be. In the film you see LaMotta as a successful boxer, but also a violent and abusive character. He was abusive to his first wife and ended up starting a relationship with a 15-year-old girl, Vicky. He had a loving relationship with her and ends up getting married but as the film progressives you see they relationship disintegrate. You see the same happen between Jake and his brother Joey who was also Jake's manager. LaMotta does make it to the top, becoming the world-champion and becoming well-off. However, after his career was over he moved to Florida, owned a nightclub before getting arrested. After he was released he ended up being a has-been performer.
The direction by Scorsese is some of his best. He does some very good shots, the boxing scene are fantastic with the feeling that it was real. Filming the film in black and white also was an excellent move by the director. The performers were also top-draw. De Niro was perfect as Jake LaMotta, and he performed brilliantly with Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty. De Niro deserves to his Oscar for this film, and Pesci and Moriarty would have been up their. I also felt that this should have been the film Scorsese should have won his Oscar with.