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Raging Bull
While watching Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, I couldn’t help but think of Pip, the protagonist in Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations. As a teenager, Pip becomes convinced that all of his friends and family are inferior to him, and resentment eventually overtakes him to the point that he believes that his loved ones are too selfish and foolish for him to associate with them. Eventually, Pip comes to the realization that the only one in the room with any problems was him, and it leads to a profound revelation in which Pip begins to finally grow up. In Raging Bull, Jake La Motta takes a similar journey. The difference between him and Pip, tragically, is that Jake never comes to realize that he’s the one with the problem. For his entire life, he accumulates resentment and paranoia against all of his loved ones that eventually lead to rage and violence. He is never able to bring himself out of this mind frame and recognize that he is his own worst enemy; as a result, he is never able to mature and recognize his potential as an adult. Raging Bull is Martin Scorsese’s best film, because it eclipses his ability to draw poignant characters that force the viewer to consider their own flawed humanity and, against all odds, the endurance of the human spirit. And like most of his greatest films, it stars Robert De Niro, that great American actor so unrivaled in his ability to project any human emotion from a vast assortment of characters. For as much boxing that is in Raging Bull, and for as brilliantly as it is choreographed, this is not a sports film, but a look into a man who was complex in his simplicity. The films tell that true story of Jake La Motta (played by De Niro), a middleweight boxing champion in the 1940-50s, but it would have been just as effective as fiction because, an in most of Scorsese’s films, the director concerns himself with creating characters in which the viewer can look into and see a mirror of themselves. Scorsese shoots in black and white, symbolic of Jake’s inability to see anyone around him as a true person but rather as a friend or an enemy. For Jake, there is no in between; the world around him is either supportive of him, or it is his adversary. Those potential friends or foes include Jake’s brother Joey (Joe Pesci), his wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) and tough-guy Salvy (Frank Vincent), all of whom seldom change faces within the film, but nevertheless shift in Jake’s mind periodically between loyal and disloyal, based on his own level of paranoia. Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader don’t concern themselves with establishing Jake’s childhood or what inspired him to pursue a career in boxing. His first scene, in which he is already boxing for the middleweight division, tells us everything we need to know about the man, and it proceeds from there. As Jake La Motta, Robert De Niro juggles rage, passion, and tenderness as someone determined to make it to the top. De Niro brings such power into this role that I had to remind myself that I was watching an actor. De Niro’s interpretation of Jake (the actor spent a great deal of time with the real Jake La Motta to prepare for the role) is as a man who is obsessed with boxing and becoming the middleweight champion. Everything else is secondary and only there to fulfill his needs: His brother Joey manages for him and offers moral support; his wife Vickie fulfills his sexual desires. He needs both desperately to survive in his ideal world and mission, and yet he treats both with so much disrespect that it is clear that both are only staying around because of their love and commitment to him. Consider the scene when Jake and Vickie are at the bar, and her notices her greet Salvy. Because they are childhood friends, Salvy kisses her on the cheek, and we think nothing of it. But note the way that the camera lingers on Jake’s face, as the suspicion against his wife builds. Jake is insecure and lacks confidence, but instead of recognizing his problem, he assumes that because he hates himself, everyone else hates him too. This leads to paranoia of infidelity and disloyalty from not only Vickie, but even Joey, who Jake eventually accuses of sleeping with his wife. Jake’s obsession with the possibility of his loved ones plotting against him eventually triggers his violence against both his wife and his brother. At first, Joey and Vickie go along with Jake and support his insecurities. After all, they love the miserable cuss and have dedicated their lives to helping him become the middleweight boxing champion. Joey becomes particularly entranced with his brother’s world and gets entangled in Jake’s paranoia to the point that he actually begins to believe the boxer’s accusations against his wife. Joey even goes so far as beating Salvy to a pulp. Eventually, once Jake turns his gun on Joey, Joey realizes that Jake has become delusional and intolerable, and he washes his hands of his brother. Joe Pesci’s performance is one as carefully calculated as De Niro’s. Here is a man with his own growing up to do, but he is hindered by Jake’s need for his constant support. If Jake needs Joey for moral support, then Joey needs Jake because his role as supporter is the only life he has ever known. Eventually, both Vickie and Joey are able to recognize their need for change and, unlike Jake, they accept it and move on. Raging Bull’s key moments come in our realization that Jake has isolated himself from the only two people who care about him. There is a moment when Jake, overweight and drunk, tries to reconcile with Joey, who is clean-cut and dressed in a suit. Neither men have spoken for years, but we clearly see that Joey has moved beyond Jake and has matured into an adult. Yet even as we understand that Joey has grown up and Jake has not, Jake still places the blame for his life’s failures on everyone around him, because he feels that they did not help him when he needed them. At one point, he punches the wall of a prison cell and screams, “Why?” over and over again, and we understand that Jake is nothing more than an adolescent trapped in an adult’s body. He has been relying on others for so long that he has never grown up and become self-realized. He has all the rage of a bull, but he only has the emotional maturity of someone who refuses to look at himself in the mirror and behold of his flaws and mistakes. In my review of The King of Comedy, I noted that Scorsese’s biography films “[chronicle] his subject matter, usually extremely flawed human beings, with such painstaking detail that the effect is breathtaking and never forced … We see our faces on the people we are watching, and our external viewing is turned inward.” By watching the contrast between Jake La Motta and the two people who loved him the most, we as viewers are reminded that there comes a time in all of our lives when we realize that we have to grow up. It is our choice to accept the changes that we must make to do so, and Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci, and Schrader encourage us to make the right decision by telling us the story of someone who was so driven by his own passions that he never could see that the only enemy in the room was himself. Cast: United Artists Presents a
Chartoff-Winkler Production. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written
by Paul Shrader and Scorsese, from the book by Jake La Motta.
Rated R, for boxing violence, language, and brief sexual situations.
Running time: 129 minutes. Original United States theatrical release
date: December 5, 1980. Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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