The rise and fall of Jake La Motta.

Rating: Null/10 (26 October 2011)

Raging Bull is a movie about a young talented boxer named Jake La Motta portrayed by Robert De Niro. Jake La Motta has some very serious anger issues, which I believe is the theme of the movie and a reflection of the title. In the beginning of the movie, Jake La Motta is married to an ordinary woman, but Cathy Moriarty's character Vickie catches his eye at the pool and he decides to take her for a ride in his sports car. One thing leads to another and they eventually get married. The story continues to unfold and shows how Jake La Motta rose to the top of the middleweight boxing division. As he reaches the top, Jake has some anger and trust related issues with his family and friends. After he eventually gets to the top and becomes champion he starts to let himself go. He eats excessively and little romance between him and Vickie cause problems. He accuses his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) of sleeping with his wife and they get in to an argument and Joey leaves Jake's house. Before leaving, Joey tried to convince Jake of how crazy the accusation was, but Jake was very persistent. Jake goes upstairs and confronts Vickie of the affair. Vickie, fed up with being controlled throughout the entire marriage and having done nothing wrong at all, says "Yeah I f****d your brother. I s****d his c**k too. What do you want me to say? Is that what you want me to say? I did all your friends too!" Vickie never committed any adultery, but Jake's obsession with feeling like something happened led Vickie to scream those words at Jake for his satisfaction. Jake then walked down to Joey's house and beat the crap out of him. This began as the events of the complete meltdown of Jake La Motta. In his next title defense, he lost the belt and never returned to the ring as a competitor. After his boxing days, Jake opened up a night club where he was the head comedy routine. Vickie leaves him after she cannot take any more physical abuse. Jake is then arrested for serving alcohol and introducing a fourteen year old to men at his club. After he is released from jail, he attempts to get his life together, but to no avail, he is now alone because he is a "Raging Bull."
The lighting is especially important to the theme. The lighting of when he is in jail is very dark. He is a raging bull and supposed to be fearless, after Jake furiously punches the wall shouting "Why, why, why?" He drops to his knees and begins to sob, however, you cannot see his face because of the lighting