Review of Raging Bull (1980) by Jeff B — 19 Oct 2018

Jeff Barnes.

12/7/17.

Raging Bull Review.

Raging Bull's filmmaking is brilliant, enabling you to authentically experience how boxer Jake Lamotta's life felt. The script brings depth to the story by giving the characters emotion and personality. It brings you a story that enables you to really see the world through Jake Lamotta's eyes. Jake Lamotta's world is filled with many feelings including: deception, confusion, gloom, emotion, plenty of violence, plenty of rage, and a sufficient amount of anger.

There's even some sexiness added to the script. The cinematography handles the black and white, camera movements, and point of view shots, in a genuinely significant manner. There's a brilliant shaky cam experience after Jake Lamotta knocks Sugar Ray Robinson down during one of their fights together. There are also memorable still shots of some of Jake Lamotta's fights. The cinematography especially stands out when we literally see the world through Jake Lamotta's eyes when he fights Sugar Ray Robinson for the last time, and he's getting the beating of a lifetime from Sugar Ray Robinson. The acting brings melodrama to Jake Lamotta's authentically emotional life, and also there's immense method acting from Robert Deniro. There are very few flaws with the script and with the film as a whole.

Raging Bull's filmmaking is brilliant enabling you to authentically experience Jake Lamotta's life through: script, cinematography, and acting.

The script of Raging Bull gives depth to the story by creating characters that have emotion and personality. Jake Lamotta is a man who has more flaws than strengths. In fact he has so many flaws that it makes us think what positivity comes out of him. Lamotta does things that most people wouldn't dream of doing such as: beating his wife, getting involved with an under aged girl, sexually assaulting a man's wife. So what's positive about Jake Lamotta? There's plenty of positivity that comes to Jake Lamotta's negativity with the fact that it has loads of intrigue to it because he's faulty in shocking ways, because he gets involved with an under aged girl and sexually assaults a woman in front of her husband, yet he's also faulty in ways that aren't shocking because he's also deficient in ways that plenty of people are deficient. Lamotta ends up beating his wife Vicki when he suspects her of being unfaithful to him, and he beats his brother Joey when he speculates that Vicki is being unfaithful to him with his brother. The certainty that Jake Lamotta committed assault and battery reminds us of our, younger selves, because like Jake we didn't have enough sense to really manage to control anger. Jake Lamotta, however, is a grown man who committed assault and battery, so he should know better. He also hits a woman something so immoral that few men do it.

Lamotta not only introduces a 14-year-old girl to other men and goes to jail for it but he kisses the 14 year old with his with his tongue. He also forcibly kisses a woman in front of her husband. There probably have been people who have kissed other people without their permission when they were younger, because there was a boy on the news whom I had heard done it and even I did it when I was younger but it was probably because I, or a lot of people didn't have enough sense back then to know it's sexual harassment. I'm not even sure if most people kiss women in front of their husbands because I've never heard anything about it on the news or have seen it in real life. The only people who absolutely can relate to Lamotta forcibly kissing a lady is the people who have displayed sexual misconduct, such as: Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, and even our own president Donald Trump.

Jake is being oversensitive such as when he sees a man give his wife Vicki a quick kiss on the mouth. He also is genuinely pessimistic in the way that he fears that he will lose his fight to Tony Janiro because he's too overweight.

Lamotta's older brother Joey serves not just as his best friend but also as his mentor and his manager. Joey is a version of Jake that happens to be more knowledgeable but also is secretive filled with: deception, confusion, and suspicion. There's a moment in the picture where he comes off as a bit of a hypocrite when he tells him to live a little by telling him to eat like there's no tomorrow yet later on in the scene he tells him he's killing himself with the way he eats. There's a feeling of treachery and suspicion when Joey doesn't give Jake all the details of a run in he got into with his friend Salvy.

Jake Lamotta's wife Vicki is a character that fills Jake Lamotta's life with delight and also with treachery, and puzzlement. She endows him with delight in an exhibition in the picture that is authentically sexy with genuinely sexy dialogue when she takes off Jake's pants when he tells her too, and also takes off her panties when he tells her too. She endows Jake with deceitfulness when he sees her allow two men two kiss her on the mouth. She brings disorientation to Jake's life when he asks his brother Joey if he had intercourse with her and he doesn't answer the question, and then he asks Vicki the same question and she says "no" therefore, Jake is living in a world where he doesn't know who to trust.

Lamotta is a character you feel sorry for even though he's so flawed because he doesn't have a tremendously successful boxing career, and this echoes Rocky Balboa in Rocky not being a well known boxer and being an underdog before he fights Apollo Creed in Rocky, however one could argue that Jake Lamotta's boxing career wasn't as unsuccessful as it was thought to be. There is a moment where the public believes that the judges robbed Jake in regards to his fight with Jimmy Reeves, and also a moment in the film when Jake's brother Joey believes he was robbed in one of his fights concerning Sugar Ray Robinson, and Raging Bull reiterates Rocky 2 here because in Rocky 2 the public believes that Rocky was swindled out of his first fight with Apollo Creed in the first Rocky. He is also living in a world where he doesn't know who or what to believe because he hears so much gossip.

The cinematography in Raging Bull has fairly notable moments with: the camera movements, point of view shots, and black and white as well as color photography. The best radiant camera movements in the film are when Lamotta punches Robinson in the ring and the camera spins around the ring, and also when Lamotta knocks Robinson down and there's a shaky cam mixed in with a close up experience as Robinson is down in the ring. There's also an occasion where after Joey and Vicki have a quick kiss on the mouth, and we see Vicki walk up the stairs and the camera makes a slow pan towards the room Jake and Joey are in, and the camera does this in preparation for an occasion for Jake confronting Joey.

The best point of view shot is when we see Sugar Ray Robinson's face from Jake LaMotte's perspective. We see Robinson have a fierce and ferocious look on his face before he gives Lamotta the whipping of a lifetime.

The picture not only does well with the use of black and white, which is appropriate for the picture since we don't want to be distracted by too much color in a very serious film with an abundance of gloom and anger, but also with a brief use of color.

The black in the film is not overused or underused in certainty there's a moment in the film where the black is used in a very vivid manner with being made as black as ink when Sugar Ray Robinson punches Jake Lamotta so hard that blood squirts on the announcers faces during Jake Lamotta's final fight with Sugar Ray Robinson. The white in the picture is not overused or underused with the certainty with it's even a little bit grayish such as at the beginning of the film where Jake Lamotta is boxing in a ring full of gray fog.

Color is vividly used with black and white. Red introduces the title of the film when Lamotta is in the ring contrasting with the black and white. Color is used during a montage that's full of happiness when we see Jake marrying Vicki and dancing with Vicki around a pool. Raging Bull gives a fair amount of nod to another film about a boxer turned longshoreman called On the Waterfront with its cinematography by being shot in black and white like On the Waterfront. It also gives praise to it by having a blonde bombshell as the female lead. It gives honor to On the Waterfront when Jake Lamotta at the end of the film quotes the famous "I could have been a contender" speech Terry gives to his brother in the back of the taxicab in the film.

The acting in Raging Bull is filled with an abundance of melodrama, for a film not only based on a man's sentimental life but also a sentimental book on his life. Joe Pesci as Joey makes you feel a maximum of fury when he hits a chair on stacks, and when he hits the character Salvy with a car door. Robert Deniro really transforms into Jake Lamotta by making you feel an abundance of emotion for him when he beats his wife and brother because he can't ever be sure if he found truth in the world that he lives in. Robert Deniro makes us really feel Jake Lamotta's pain when he has a meltdown when he's in jail, and he's sobbing because there's so much gloom to his essence.

There are genuinely few mistakes with the picture Raging Bull. There's a bit in the film that seems unnecessary or to have no point to it. There's a scene in the film where Lamotta pours ice and water on himself and he seems to be masturbating after he does it my guess as to why he did this is to relieve stress before his next fight. There's also a bit in the film that looks fishy when we see Lamotta kissing his wife Vicki in front of kids when she's on the floor and it looks as if he's about to make love in front of his kids. Raging Bull is a tad bit too unoriginal with the authenticity with that it's not only based on a man's life but a book on a man's life as well.

Raging Bull really stands out with all of its production most notably with: its script, its cinematography, and its acting. I give Raging Bull a 10 and an A.