I've Heard Things..I've Heard Things...

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2007)

"Raging Bull" is routinely named one of the greatest films of all time. "Scorsese was robbed! This is his best film! This should've been Best Picture of 1980!" are the typical battle cries. Watching the film now, it emerges as one of those films I respect wholeheartedly as a Scorsese fan, and more importantly, as a film buff. It's not on my favorite films of all time list, and as far as Scorsese goes, I enjoyed "Goodfellas" and "The Departed" far more. Still, it is an uncompromising example of film as art.
First, we have the usually bombastic Scorsese, beautifully subdued here from the classical music to the graceful camera movements to the haunting black and white photography. Second, we have Robert DeNiro as boxer Jake LaMotta giving the performance of his career that rightfully won him the Oscar. Thirdly we have all that we come to expect from a Scorsese film: iconic shots (like the pan to the blood dripping from the ropes), quotable dialog ("I've heard things. I've heard things"), and his rich archetypes (DeNiro and Pesci in their love/hate relationship as brothers, and a raspy and sassy Cathy Moriarity in the objectified wife-as-whore role). The fight scenes are the most artistically satisfying of any boxing film that has come before or since.
Finally, it contains something only in which a rabid movie buff can find joy. It contains the link between two of my favorite directors: Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. As Joe Pesci watches one of the fights on TV, Pabst Blue Ribbon appears as the corporate sponsor. Later, in a scene where DeNiro is being interviewed at his Florida home, a Tony Bennet version of "Blue Velvet" can be heard playing in the background. The movie gods shined down on us six years later when David Lynch made his classic thriller "Blue Velvet," which, in no small coincidence, featured prominently, Pabst Blue Ribbon as the favorite drink of Dennis Hopper's psychotic Frank Booth.