Raging Bull

I've never met the people in "Raging Bull", meaning I've never been a part of the world it depicts. "Raging Bull" is a vicious world, but a beautiful one, it's beautiful because it believes that a violent man like Jake LaMotta deserves redemption. At first he seems beyond redemption. He's a self-destructive man, he alienates his wife and his brother through his suspicions and paranoia. But at the end of the movie, Jake LaMotta is tamed going from a middle weight champion to a bloated nightclub owner, he has made his mistakes, he has paid his penance, we have seen his battles both lost and won, and what we are left with is a man who doesn't ask for our judgement, but our acceptance.

Watching "Raging Bull" again just recently reminds me just why it remains my favorite film by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese has a gift of giving us people it's difficult to sympathize with, let alone forgive. With "Taxi Driver" he gives us a psychopath, but he ultimately becomes a tragic figure through his own loneliness, with "Raging Bull", we are given a man who can only act out through violence, and that becomes a liability on how he treats the people around him.

We first see Jake LaMotta" (Robert De Niro) like he is at the end of the film, an overweight, over the hill nightclub owner who is reciting his routine to himself. Why are we given this image of him first? It does work as a bookend, but perhaps we are also being set up for this life we are about to see, perhaps it's a reminder to us to what this man was to become.

We see Jake early on, he's testy, he's temperamental, he's loud. In the ring, Jake fights hard and rough, the way Scorsese films the fight scenes, there doesn't seem to be much technique, only two men who punch and punch back, although I'm not an authority on boxing in any way. At home, Jake torments his manager/brother Joey (Joe Pesci) to no end. In one scene Jake has Joey hit him in the face harder and harder until his bruises are cut open. Jake seems to live off his violent nature he can't get enough of it.

He meets his wife Vicki (Cathy Moriarty) who he has a hold on, she suffers through verbal abuses by Jake and later is subject to slaps and punches. Jake becomes possessive of Vicki, Scorsese shows Jake's point of view when Vicki is touched by other men, it's maddening, Scorsese for my money is probably the best filmmaker to get inside the head of a diseased mind. It is indeed diseased because there is never any proof Vicki was ever unfaithful. But all the suspicions come to a boil when Jake accuses Joey of sleeping with her. In a long heated scene full of scary domestic violence, Jake confronts Joey about the false accusation beating him to an inch of his life.

There are other things in the film that damn Jake, one such instance comes when he is asked to take a dive in a fight by local gangster. In return they have offered Jake a chance at a title shot. Jake decides to take the fall, but his reputation and his own integrity is in ruin. After the fight, we see Jake being comforted and breaking down in his dressing room.

Having not been raised catholic, I'm not quite sure about the religious implications of "Raging Bull". Martin Scorsese can be thought of as a catholic director as the themes of guilt, and forgiveness come up very often in his films. I do think in Scorsese's mind, the ring becomes somewhat of a metaphor for Jake, it's where he can wash away his sins, he's fighting for something very primal, is it forgiveness? I'm not sure, perhaps his life in the ring is seen as a sort of purgatory. There is one fight where Jake fights his rival Sugar Ray Leonard and the ring is seen through fiery smoke which was rigged in front of the camera to give the effect. Jake is also seen in a heated steam room which in my mind looks to be as close to a room in hell could be. In this scene he asks for some water but is denied it as his trainer closes the door on him.

In his final fight with Sugar Ray, Scorsese shows Jake up against the ropes holding on trying not to fall (Sugar Ray never knocked him down). He's submitted blow after blow, gushing blood that splatters on the spectators. It's a sequence that I think is meant to remind us of Christ on the cross and his sufferings. Jake is a bloody mess at the end, perhaps the suffering has stopped.

I suppose the whole film could be seen as a purgatory, even near the end Jake isn't let off easy, he's arrested for a vice crime involving an under age girl and is sent to jail. We see him breakdown again screaming and punching the walls of his cell, yelling he's not an animal. It's a primal performance all the way through with De Niro, it's sometimes maddening, but in the end it's a bruised battered performance.

I'm not quite convinced "Raging Bull" is a perfect film, but it is a very passionate one. Scorsese has rarely made perfect films, but they are filled with raw emotion, I think this is his rawest and most beautiful film and after years of first being introduced to it, it's still in my opinion his best and most complex. It could also be seen as the culmination of the collaboration between him and De Niro, a relationship where the star and director have been so in sync with theme and character.

"Raging Bull" fascinates me to no end, it's a film that asks us to take a leap of faith with a character we may not identify with, but like with all of God's creatures at least deserves our understanding.