The movie opens to the sight of an aged, overweight De Niro as LaMotta rehearsing a stand up routine, and everything then is told in flashbacks. This is a younger, hungrier actor, one willing to push himself further than any other for the sole purpose of art. This is not the same actor who appeared in the Meet The Parents franchise, or even, more recently Dirty Grandpa. The real stand out in Raging Bull is De Niro. Raging Bull is a dark-styled affair, filmed in black and white, not just for the authentic 1940’s feel: overall it gives the movie a neutral nuance, and an ageless quality. For the movie based on his life, Scorsese concentrated on his out-of-the ring exploits as much as what happened within it. As a boxer he was nicknamed the Bronx Bull, or Raging Bull, due to his technique of brawling, stalking and beating opponents senseless in the ring. Post-boxing he became an actor and stand-up comedian. The subject of the movie, Jake LaMotta, was at one time a middleweight champion, winning 83 of 106 professional fights. It is the opposite, and explores the strengths, weaknesses and addictions of a man. It is not the rise, fall and comeback tale that leads to a happy ending. The story of Raging Bull is not a spectacular one.
“You make movies, you’re in the ring each time.” At the time, he believed Raging Bull would be his swan song, so every piece of his creativity was summoned, and projected directly into the film. “The ring became an allegory for whatever you do in life,” Scorsese observed in a Rolling Stone interview.
The story goes that, at the time, Scorsese was hospitalised recovering from a cocaine overdose, and it was the actor who reached out to the filmmaker and friend.ĭe Niro’s passion to make this movie finally struck a chord within Scorsese, and the battle within the boxing ring came to represent the director’s own battles on set and in his own life. This fact points to how De Niro approached Scorsese with the idea of bringing the story of legendary boxer Jake LaMotta to the big screen. Yes, it was directed by the revolutionary director Martin Scorsese (also Goodfellas, Taxi Driver), but it was De Niro’s project.
In truth, Raging Bull is Robert De Niro’s film. Not only does it remain a watershed moment in cinema, but also that of the movie’s lead Robert De Niro. Nowadays we are fed one after another, and the genre is soaked with uneven, unbalanced outings. Above all of these, Raging Bull stands as a masterpiece in storytelling, a low-budget noir that tells a true story with a gritty style that is daring, and with a realism not found in other biographical films. The 1980 classic Raging Bull is one of the greatest biopics of all time. “So give me a stage, Where this Bull here could rage.”
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