Brutally Honest

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2000)

It would be horribly wrong to think of Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" as a no-holds-barred testament to the world of professional boxing or a simple, if effective, biography of middleweight champ Jake La Motta. One would also be mistaken in seeing it as an exploration of the rise and fall of a once prominent sports hero. Bull's focus is not on plot, or even singularly on character. Rather, it is about the stunning interplay between the soul and its outmost needs, and the ever present contrast between the physical, and the emotional and spiritual.
Scorsese's brilliance in realizing the film is matched by his immensely talented creative team. Paul Schrader's script is strikingly intelligent, as he finds a perfect balance in playing out La Motta's innermost psychological demons with an onslaught of brutality. Michael Chapman's gritty, black and white cinematography (he also shot "Taxi Driver") gives an evocative and at times shocking glimpse into the psyche of a truly conflicted man. Scorsese, despite some truly superb stylistic work- note how he compresses and then elongates the size of the ring for momental effect- never loses sight of his themes of low self esteem, jealous insecurity, and fear. He masterfully weaves them into a kind of poetry, as the scenes between La Motta and his wife in their domestic rage, and those within the ring take on a kind of rhythym. It is this rhythm that allows Scorsese to perfectly strike every dramatic note dead on.
If it is Scorsese who provides the film with its basic structure, it is the actors who give it its soul. Robert De Niro, in what has to be one of the ten finest performances of all time in American film, gives us a raw and painstakingly honest central performance. De Niro's work is so pure, and so emotionally raw, that he breaks the barrier between character and audience. We become embroiled fully in the film's hurricane,as its force confounds our expectations. The supporting work is also superb. Joe Pesci, playing La Motta's long suffering brother,captures all the right notes as a man torn between his own ragen and inhumanity, and his need to protect Jake from himself. And Cathy Moriarty, as La Motta's wife, Vicki, is stunning, conveying her character to us with cool-eyed intelligence.
"Raging Bull" is an immensely ambitious film. It gives us a rare glimpse into our humanity, confronting head-on some of our most terrifying inner workings. Like any successful film made from a biography, the film becomes so much more than a mere retelling of its character's life. It becomes a thematic exploration- its issues as relevant to La Motta's life as they are to ours.