Raging Bull
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| Raging Bull | |
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| Directed by | Martin Scorsese |
| Produced by | Robert Chartoff Irwin Winkler |
| Written by | Paul Schrader Mardik Martin |
| Starring | Robert De Niro Cathy Moriarty Joe Pesci Frank Vincent Nicholas Colasanto Theresa Saldana John Turturro |
| Editing by | Thelma Schoonmaker |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | November 14, 1980 |
| Running time | 129 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18,000,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Raging Bull is a 1980 film directed by Martin Scorsese, adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from the memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a temperamental and paranoid but tenacious boxer who alienates himself from his friends and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's brother and manager, and Cathy Moriarty as his abused wife. The film features supporting roles from Nicholas Colasanto (who would eventually play the character "Coach" on the TV sitcom Cheers), Theresa Saldana, and Frank Vincent, who has starred in many films directed by Martin Scorsese. After receiving mixed initial reviews, it went on to garner a high critical reputation and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made, along with the pair's other famed collaboration from that era, Taxi Driver (1976). It is one of three films that has been named to the National Film Registry in its first year of eligibility.
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[edit] Production
Raging Bull was a project brought to Martin Scorsese by his friend and collaborator Robert De Niro. De Niro discovered the book upon which the film is based and wanted to play the title character. The initial screenplay adaptation was written by Scorsese's friend Mardik Martin, who had co-written Mean Streets. It was reportedly a Rashomon-style drama with many different points of view being presented. In the end, this approach was abandoned in favor of a more straightforward narrative written by Paul Schrader, who had written Taxi Driver. Studio executives at United Artists were initially reluctant to finance the project as they feared that the extreme profanity and violence in the screenplay would draw an "X" from the MPAA ratings board, thus the final draft of the screenplay was written, uncredited, by De Niro and Scorsese themselves.
Scorsese has acknowledged that he was deeply involved in cocaine abuse before the making of the film.[1] He has stated that Robert De Niro saved his life by insisting on Scorsese's continued involvement in the production.[1][2] Scorsese has also claimed that the raw emotional quality of the film and its theme of redemption were a result of his struggle to recover his life through the production of the film.
The movie was shot in two parts. The majority of the film, including all the boxing scenes, were shot first. Following this, the production was shut down for several months, during which De Niro gained the weight necessary to play Jake LaMotta in the latter part of the film. De Niro put on 60 pounds in mid-shooting to turn himself from the young, muscular boxer La Motta into the fat, washed up older La Motta. This is particularly visible in one of the last scenes in the film, where La Motta is sleeping with his shirt open, exposing a sizeable belly. According to Scorsese, these scenes were shot quickly and with a minimum of takes because the physical strain they caused De Niro was so evident. De Niro's extreme method acting was a notable example of a physical metamorphosis in modern cinema.
Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman decided to shoot the film in black and white, despite initially having fears it would make it seem pretentious. This was done for reasons of period authenticity (Chapman and Scorsese remembered 1940s boxing bouts as black and white photographs in magazines) and to differentiate the film from several other boxing pictures which had recently been released, especially the Rocky series.
Scorsese disliked the way previous boxing films shot the fight scenes from a spectator's view, hence insulating the audience from the brutality of the ring. Throughout the filming, Scorsese's mantra remained "stay in the ring", he was determined to capture the raw violence of every punch and make the viewer feel everything the boxers did. Each intricately choreographed boxing sequence would have a different style reflecting LaMotta's varying states of mind during the different fights. Scorsese drew every shot of these on paper before the shooting, and both he and Chapman have commented on the difficulties caused by the elaborate setups.
The film was edited in Scorsese's apartment in New York City, mostly at night. Reportedly, Scorsese was obsessively fastidious during post-production. He and his friend, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, labored an unusually long time over the editing and the film's complex soundtrack. The unusual care dedicated to post-production caused considerable friction with the film's producers, who felt Scorsese was being unnecessarily slow. Scorsese took unusual care during post-production because he was convinced that Raging Bull would be his last film and he did not want to compromise what would be his final project. However, Scorsese also viewed the film as a kind of cinematic rebirth. He chose to end the film with a personal dedication to his college film professor, Haig Manoogian, "with love and resolution." Manoogian had helped produce Scorsese's first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door.[3]
[edit] Plot
The film begins with Jake LaMotta late in his life practicing his stand-up comic routine, then flashes back to his early boxing career. Jake (De Niro) is a talented and determined fighter from the Bronx, and his brother Joey (Pesci) is his manager. Jake slowly climbs the ladder to the top of the boxing world (due to numerous setbacks mostly involving his personal life and weight problems), and courts Vicki (Moriarty) a 15-year-old girl he meets in his neighborhood. After his first wife leaves, he starts a relationship with her which eventually leads to marriage and children.
As a boxer, Jake is promising but headstrong. He takes punches well, and fights with passion, but he refuses to curry favor with the mobsters who control boxing. To compete for the middleweight title he is forced to throw a match to Billy Fox, which grants him the right to fight for the title. He wins, and defends the title against challengers, which puts him at the top of his career.
However, Jake becomes increasingly jealous of Vicki, and ultimately convinces himself of her infidelity with Joey. Enraged, he lashes out violently on his brother, who then abandons him. LaMotta loses his title to his rival Sugar Ray Robinson and retires from boxing a few years later due to his weight problems, and becomes a modestly successful stand-up comedian and nightclub owner. His wife finally divorces him, taking custody of his children, while LaMotta ends up in jail for abetting statutory rape. In jail he punches his cell walls and pounds his head against them with despair. After being released from jail, Jake tries to mend his relationship with Joey. The film ends as it began with Jake practicing his routine in front of the mirror.
[edit] Reception
Raging Bull was initially given a mixed reception. Scorsese had held an advanced screening for the film's producers and a few others at an MGM screening room. After the film had finished and the lights in the screening room came on, it is said there was a stunned silence in the room as if 'the audience had lost all powers of speech'.[cite this quote] Many critics, however, were repelled by the film's violence and its unsympathetic central character. Although its cinematography and editing were universally praised, some saw the film as an empty exercise in style. Produced on a budget of $18 million, the film grossed $23 million.[4]
De Niro won the Academy Award for Best Actor, his second Academy Award following his win for 1974's The Godfather: Part II (for Best Supporting Actor) and his first for a leading role. Thelma Schoonmaker won the Academy Award for Film Editing, whose style was far different from fight scenes in other boxing films, such as the Rocky series. Raging Bull was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci), Best Supporting Actress (Cathy Moriarty), Best Cinematography (Michael Chapman), Best Sound (Donald O. Mitchell, Bill Nicholson, David J. Kimball, Les Lazarowitz), Best Director and Best Picture.[5] When De Niro accepted his Oscar, he thanked Jake La Motta, "even though he is suing us." Scorsese lost to Robert Redford for best director (Ordinary People). United Artists was distracted by its worsening financial troubles in the wake of Heaven's Gate and could not adequately promote the film for awards.[citation needed]
[edit] Legacy and critical Rankings
By the end of the 1980s, Raging Bull had cemented its reputation as a modern classic. It was voted the best film of the 1980s in numerous critics' polls and is regularly pointed to as both Scorsese's best film and one of the finest American movies ever made. Several prominent critics, among them Roger Ebert, declared the film to be an instant classic and the consummation of Scorsese's earlier promise. Ebert proclaimed it the best film of the 1980s, and the fourth greatest film of all time.[6]
The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Originally, the American Film Institute ranked Raging Bull 24th of the greatest American movies of all time. However, when the list was updated 10 years later, Raging Bull rose twenty places on the list, reaching #4. and fifth on the Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. The 2002 Sight and Sound Poll found listed tied for 6th with The Bicycle Thief[7]. A two-CD soundtrack was released in 2005, long after the movie was released, because of earlier difficulties receiving permissions for many of the songs, which Scorsese selected from his childhood memories growing up in New York. The movie poster was painted by Kunio Hagio.[8] In 2002, Channel 4 held a poll of the 100 Greatest Movies,on which Raging Bull was voted in at number 20. Halliwell Film Guide, a highly respected British film guide, had a poll naming their Top 1000 movies. Raging Bull was placed #7.
[edit] Raging Bull II: Continuing the Story of Jake LaMotta
A sequel which has no actors or director attached, named Raging Bull II: Continuing the Story of Jake LaMotta, is in production by the new production company, Sunset Pictures. It still in the early stages of production and chronicles Jakes early life, as told in the sequel novel of the same name.[9]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Phil Villarreal. "Scorsese's 'Raging Bull' is still a knockout," The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ), February 11, 2005, page E1.
- ^ Kelly Jane Torrance. "Martin Scorsese: Telling stories through film," The Washington Times (Washington, DC), November 30, 2007, page E1.
- ^ I Call First (1967)
- ^ imdb.com
- ^ Raging Bull - Academy Awards Database. AMPAS. Retrieved on 2007-06-28.
- ^ Top Ten Lists of Roger Ebert
- ^ BFI | Sight & Sound | Top Ten Poll 2002 - Directors' Poll
- ^ http://www.west.net/~janus/kunio/ Kunio Hagio
- ^ Movies.com: Tipster: Raging Bull 2?!
[edit] External links
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