Raging Bull
Requiem for a Heavyweight
By Russell Bartholomee

When I was a child, I witnessed a robbery, though I didn’t recognize it as one at the time.  It happened on live television, in front of billions of people, and everyone applauded as the crime was committed.

I was eight years old and watching the Oscars for the first time.  Oscar night has become an almost sacred observance in my family, largely because that night my brother (a film freak six years my senior who eventually got a degree in film from NYU) devised an ingenious game, wherein everyone in our household predicted winners in all categories for points.  We used to have a homemade trophy, but these days it’s just bragging rights, and its serious business in my family.  Twenty-four years and twenty-four Oscar ceremonies later, we still play the game with vigor; I haven’t missed a single year.  No matter where we are on the big night, one of us phones the others to record all their picks.  And as soon as the Best Picture statue is awarded, the winner instantly calls the others to gloat.  (For the record, it’s 9 wins for my brother, 6 for me, 5 for my Dad, 3 for my mom, and one for my wife, who’s been sucked in as well). 

Since that night in early 1981, I’ve prided myself on being able to rattle off Oscar-winners from the years I’ve seen.  Best Picture of 1987? The Last Emperor.  Best Actress in 1993?  Holly Hunter for The Piano.  When other guys my age could name the shortstop for the ’94 Blue Jays (no idea, but the Best Actor was Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump), I was assuring the skeptical that Terms of Endearment really did beat The (far superior) Right Stuff in 1983.  I know there were decades of previous winners, but for me, Oscar history began when I watched Ordinary People beat Raging Bull for Best Picture and Robert Redford beat Martin Scorsese for Best Director.  It was a robbery, and what the recently released Special Edition DVD of Raging Bull makes clearer than ever before is what a grand larceny it really was. 

That’s not to say Ordinary People is a bad film; it’s solid enough.  But let’s be honest.  It’s more or less a really well-made TV movie which has had almost no impact on the development of film.  It’s all but forgotten.  On the other hand, Raging Bull has only risen in stature over the last quarter century.  In the time since its release, the film has lost none of its power; it’s just as emotionally charged, shockingly violent, and brilliantly performed as ever.  It is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of the 1980s (many critics consider it to be the best film of its decade).  On AFI’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies, Raging Bull comes in at number 24.  (In case you were wondering, Ordinary People doesn’t make the list).  It is a masterpiece and, in my opinion, the finest work of Scorsese’s illustrious career.

So why wasn’t it recognized as such right away?  Maybe it’s because of what the movie isn’t.  Though a boxer is its main character, it’s not really a movie about boxing.  Rocky had won top honors at the Oscars four years earlier after charming audiences with its celebration of the underdog, establishing the blueprint for sports movies to come.  Raging Bull was nothing like that.   It’s not a film with a feel-good Hollywood ending or even a protagonist that the audience finds it easy to like.  Jake La Motta is a self-absorbed brute, who seeks to satisfy his appetites at a terrible cost.  The Academy is not known for rewarding such bleakness.  It is known for rewarding biopics.  Raging Bull isn’t really a biopic either, even though La Motta is a real person and the film is based on events from his life.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the main goal of the film is not to tell La Motta’s life story. 

Rather, Raging Bull is an exploration of violence, and not just in boxing.  It’s a thorough examination of the brutal consequences of unchecked anger.  Jake is a devastating force in the ring, but he also carries his rage with him everywhere he goes.  He is abusive to everyone around him, beating up both of his wives, his brother, and anyone else who threatens his paranoid manhood (which is basically everyone).  But his fury does not exist in a vacuum; he is the product of a culture of violence—one that praises him for pulverizing his opponents in one setting while hypocritically expecting gentility in every other.  Jake is surrounded by violent people, a point made in the film’s very first fight sequence.  As La Motta knocks his opponent down three times in one round, chaos ensues outside the ropes.  There are brawls breaking out in the crowd during the fight, and a woman is trampled in the scuffle that follows the judges’ controversial decision. 

This theme runs through every scene of the film.  Even when there are moments of peace, they are merely brief interludes of calm before the inevitable storm that always follows.   When the violence comes, it is shown unflinchingly.  Scorsese uses this dark tale of a talented loser to make an uncomfortable point about the human condition: deep down, beneath our protective layers of civility and culture, we are all capable of such violence.  In Jake La Motta, we find this ugly truth: there but for the grace of God goes each one of us. At times, such unrelenting honesty is difficult to watch, but the film is so skillfully crafted that it’s impossible to take your eyes off the screen.  It’s so perfectly wrought that even after 25 years, it is as fresh and relevant as it was the day it was released.  It is in every way a classic.

Ironically, it’s a classic that almost didn’t get made.  The studio wasn’t interested.  They had already made Rocky and wanted a sequel.  Fortunately, Rocky’s producer Irwin Winkler was also one of the producers for Raging Bull.  He got the studio to agree, using the sequel to Rocky as leverage.  Beyond that, Scorsese, who is not a fan of sports (especially boxing), didn’t really want to make the picture.  He had to be talked into it by Robert De Niro.  The actor, with whom he had worked on Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and New York, New York, spent nearly six years convincing Scorsese, who finally agreed when he saw how he could use the subject matter to illuminate the issue at its core.

In a way, Scorsese had been building up to Raging Bull for his entire career.  In the often-overlooked Mean Streets, the director took a remarkably candid look at the New York criminal underworld.  It hit so close to reality that for many years, Scorsese took pride in the fact that the genuine Mafia guys of Lower Manhattan cited Mean Streets as their favorite gangster movie over The Godfather.  Two years later he returned with Taxi Driver, which set a new standard for gritty realism in modern film (and earned him his first nomination for Best Picture).  It is not a great leap from Travis Bickle’s misguided use of extreme violence and quiet seething to La Motta’s unbridled rage.  Both films are quintessential Scorsese in that they shine a light into the darker corners of humanity, bringing characters from the fringe to the foreground and telling their stories with power, truth, and passion.  Only Scorsese could follow someone as disturbed as Johnny Boy, Bickle, or La Motta (not to mention King of Comedy’s Rupert Pupkin or Goodfellas’ Henry Hill) and cause you to empathize with them.  But as great as all the aforementioned films are, Scorsese gets everything exactly right in Raging Bull, creating a veritable textbook for great filmmaking in the process. 

Of course he was not alone in doing so.  One of the things which the new DVD set makes so clear is how enormously talented everyone who made Raging Bull really was. 

Obviously, there’s De Niro, whose preparation for the role of Jake La Motta is the stuff of legend.  After training with La Motta himself for a year, De Niro was in terrific physical shape.  He boxed over 1,000 rounds with the Bronx Bull, and according to Jake, “I’m very certain he could have fought professional [sic].”  After the fight scenes were filmed, De Niro put on nearly 60 pounds, going from his fighting weight of 155 to 210 in three months.  In the scenes that bookend the film, in which La Motta is a has-been eking out a living emceeing at nightclubs, the only part of his bulk that isn’t De Niro is his nose.  As co-star Joe Pesci puts it in one of the DVD’s excellent bonus features, this was not a gimmick.  It was so that he could really know what La Motta went through.  A fat suit would just not be authentic.  He even went so far as to make certain to smoke the exact same brand of cigar as the real La Motta.  His compulsive quest for realism paid off, not just with a well-deserved Oscar, but also with a spot-on performance.  De Niro is Jake La Motta on that screen.

Also remarkable are Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty, both of whom give outstanding performances as Jake’s brother and wife, respectively.   The dialogue between De Niro, Moriarty, and Pesci is entirely believable, and much of it came from improvisation born out of extensive rehearsal.  Both received nominations for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.  But it was Scorsese who chose to use these relatively unknown actors in the first place and who gave them the freedom and trust they needed to create their characters.

Also nominated was Director of Photography Michael Chapman, whose camera work is exquisite.  The vast majority of the film is in black and white, except a few scenes of La Motta’s home movies.  For these, Chapman developed the film to look faded, washed out.  He even hired Teamsters with no background in film to shoot the footage, so that it would look authentically amateurish.  But it’s the black and white photography—usually box office suicide—that defines the look of Raging Bull, whether it’s in the newsreel-quality of the fight sequences or the beautifully lit scenes throughout the film.  Perhaps Chapman’s finest moment is when Jake hits rock bottom in a jail cell, years after fading from importance in the public eye.  The cell is lit with mere shafts of light; La Motta is literally and figuratively shrouded in darkness.  It’s brilliant work, and yet Chapman is quick to say that his excellent effort on the film was merely a realization of Scorsese's vision.

As gorgeous as the film looks, its sound is also stunning.  The sound effects were created by Frank Warner, whose innovative sound editing is a crucial element of the artistry of the film, adding multiple layers of meaning to Jake’s aggression.  Whether fighting another boxer or his brother, La Motta’s fury is accompanied by ingenious sound.  When he charges Sugar Ray Robinson, we hear an elephant’s trumpet.  As he paces around the ring, demolishing his opponents, deep bass drums and the howls and screams of jungle animals blend with the relentless hammering of fists.  When he is pulverizing his brother Joey, Jake’s pummeling is underscored by the terror-inducing screech of dry ice on a sheet of glass.  None of these noises is distracting to the film; every one perfectly complements the moment.  In the last fight between La Motta and Robinson, Warner takes the sound out almost entirely.  Everything slows down.  The lights dim, and aside from the hint of a breath, there is silence.  When Robinson goes in for the kill, the sound floods back in, and its effect is overwhelming. 

The only other person besides De Niro to go home with a statue was Thelma Schoonmaker, Raging Bull’s editor.  She clearly earned the Oscar, as the film does not have a single wasted shot.  The pacing is perfect; the camera never cuts too soon or lingers too long.  It’s in the dizzying fight sequences that Schoonmaker really dazzles, though.  With very few exceptions, the camera does not cut to the crowds during the fights.  We are in the ring with the fighters; we very nearly feel every punch. 

And yet Schoonmaker gives credit even for this to Scorsese.  Unlike most boxing films, where three to five cameras are set up to film the scene and the editor chooses the best angle from moment to moment, Scorsese shot each fight one shot at a time, in order, with only one camera.  The fights were so carefully considered and thoroughly storyboarded that there was no guesswork for Schoonmaker.  She simply followed his detailed instructions for every frame.

And his instructions were different for every fight.  He choreographed each with a different feel, like the dance scenes in a musical.  One fight is a waltz; another is a mambo.  When he defeats Sugar Ray for the first time, the ring is large and brightly lit to match the elation of the moment.  When they rematch and La Motta loses, the ring is much smaller and smoke hangs heavily in the air.  The heat is oppressive; the air quivers like a desert mirage.  It is as if the fight were taking place in the pit of hell, which is how the real-life La Motta described his feelings that night.  To capture that emotion, Scorsese placed literal flames just below and in front of the camera.  It’s that kind of attention to detail that Schoonmaker says made the film what it was—and all of that came from Scorsese.  That seems to be the consensus opinion of every single artist involved in the film’s creation.

And yet when the film was initially released, it was not well received.  Critics were put off by the violence.  Blood gushes from cuts on the fighters’ faces.  It drips from the ropes.  It rolls down La Motta’s back as he is sponged off by his handlers.  Of course, it’s extremely important imagery.  It highlights Jake’s continual struggle with violence, in and out of the ring.  It also points to the bloodlust on the part of the audience inherent in watching these types of sporting events.  But like many great works of art, it was not fully appreciated for quite a while.  It took a decade for critics and audiences alike to really embrace Raging Bull.  As Scorsese says in one of the DVD’s bonus features, “It’s nice that it was recognized.  At least I lived to see that.”

But even if critics and audiences have embraced Scorsese, Oscar gold continues to elude him.  Before 2004 he was nominated for Best Director four times, for Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, and Gangs of New York.  And while every loss has to sting, the two that stand out as the most heinous oversights are Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Made ten years apart, these two movies are the best examples of Scorsese’s greatness as a director.  And they are far and away better than any other film released in their respective years.

Yet, in both cases, Scorsese was defeated by incredibly WASPy films.  Ordinary People and Dances with Wolves are both by pretty-boy, first-time actors-turned-director, centered on characters from the upper echelons of society—the ruling class.  Even Dances, which seems to be about a Caucasian adopting the ways of the Native American is still mainly about the nobility of one white man.  And he goes back to white society at the end, taking the white woman with him.  Scorsese’s genius was always his empathy for the lower rungs, the people who lost out to the rich, handsome white people in real life.  That he himself lost to them is bitterly ironic.

Of course, that’s not the final irony.  This year, The Aviator was nominated for Best Picture, and Martin Scorsese received his fifth nomination for Best Director.  Even though it won five Oscars (for Cinematography, Costume, Art Design, Editing, and Supporting Actress), it lost the two top prizes.  The conventional wisdom going into the ceremony was that Clint Eastwood would likely win for Million Dollar Baby, which turned out to be right on the money.  But there was a groundswell of support for Scorsese; many argued that, to right the wrong of Raging Bull’s loss in 1981, he would finally get the Oscar he has deserved and been denied at least twice before.  By the way, Miramax, the studio behind Aviator, was counting on that sympathy.  In recent commercials for The Aviator, the music in the background is “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Mascagni.  If you don’t recognize the name, you might recognize the music.  It’s the theme that plays beneath the opening titles of Raging Bull.

That strategy didn’t work, but there is something enormously frustrating here that occurs to me, beyond the fact that Scorsese has lost yet again.  This year, Scorsese lost to a gritty, bleak film about the unspeakable brutality of boxing.  Let that sink in for a second.  I’m not trying to take anything away from Eastwood or Million Dollar Baby.  He deserved it as much as anyone on the list this year.  But Scorsese’s fifth loss for Best Director was to a film that owes its very existence to Raging Bull.  It’s exactly the sort of dark picture that Scorsese used to make.  It’s as if the Academy is saying, “We don’t have a problem with a film like Raging Bull; we just don’t like you, Marty.”

Then again, what would it have really meant if he had won for The Aviator?  It would have meant that he was finally rewarded for not making a Scorsese film, but for telling the story of the biggest, most powerful white guy of them all.  The Aviator is really well made glitz.  Nobody could have made it a better movie, but tons of other directors are suited to tell the story of that character.  Does that mean it was an undeserving film?  Not at all.  And an Oscar this year would have meant that the greatest living film director (and, yes, I place him above Spielberg) had finally won recognition for beautifully, amazingly demonstrating his gifts.  Regardless of his characters, he’s still, shot for shot, better than anyone out there.  And Howard Hughes is certainly no Chicago white kid or disillusioned hippie playing cowboy.  But the irony would always have been that he finally got his recognition for bringing more attention to those who already had it, rather than for making the kind of film he brought us so early on and for which he was never fully appreciated by his industry.  No one would have begrudged him the win—least of all me.  In terms of technique, Scorsese may be more talented than ever.

But if the Academy didn’t honor him for making the very kind of film they usually award, then they’re never going to do it.  So Marty, if you’re reading this, stop trying to impress them.  Don’t dilute your vision to make them happy.  I imagine it will be faint comfort right now, but the list of worthy directors who never won an Oscar is long and illustrious: Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks— none of them ever won.  You’re in excellent company.  Besides, I miss the hungry little asthmatic that used to take these potential assassins, vulgar brutes, and third-rate gangsters to heart.  While nobody who truly cares about you and what you’ve always worked for can resent you for making the kind of large-canvas, Hollywood product that initially inspired you to make movies in the first place, I will always wish you would at least take a vacation in the gutter one more time before it’s too late.

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