On jealousy, the opening credit, boxing scenes, and other things

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2004)

Spoilers
Watching Raging Bull nearly a quarter of a century after De Niro won his Oscar cannot be the same experience as watching the movie when it was freshly made. The interesting thing is that regardless of when you watch a movie, there would often be another one that it would make you recall. In my case, it's Sylvia which I saw very recently. The link is the emotion called jealousy. Manifested in two real-life characters of the opposite sex, jealousy just jump out of the screen at you in both movies, although strangely, it isn't the main subject matter of either. Strange it may seems, jealousy serving as an immediate link between two human beings that could not have been more different: Jake La Motta and Sylvia Plath,.

In the opening credit, against the background music of Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod's version, I think, but could well be wrong), we see in slow motion a blurred figure (presumably De Niro) in a hood, at a distance, practising by himself on the far left side of the screen, in a boxing ring. Regardless of what it is saying, or not saying, the combination of the mystic visual image and serene music produces an uncanningly haunting effect.
Moving right alongon the boxing scenes. Someone once said that boxing is the purest form of head-to-head confrontation/combat. The movie industry is prolific with good boxing scenes. (Even Elvis Presley in Kid Galahad is not that bad). The unique thing about the boxing scenes in Raging Bull (and there are so many of them) is that they are closest to documentary footage than what you'll see anywhere else. In Raging Bull, there is little dramatic consequence to them. As are result, they can be filmed in the purest form. Many have commented that these boxing sequences are brilliant, and maybe that's why.
Going to other aspects of the film, I enjoy particularly watching the courtship sequence. The parties involved are not exactly intellectual giants, and both De Niro and Cathy Moriarty portrayed there characters beautifully and, as far as I can surmise, realistically. Coming with the slightly minimalised acting is a sweet innocent that is uncharacteristic of the film.
On De Niro's Oscar calibre performance enough has been said over the last quarter-century, including how he went off for two months to put on that extra 50 pounds before they resumed shooting to complete the last part of the film. Looking at Charlize Theron today, we see that something never changes: the winning combination of talent and professional dedication.