Watching RAGING BULL For The First Time

Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana and Frank Vincent. The film is an adaption of former middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta's 1970 memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It follows the career of LaMotta, played by De Niro, his rise and fall in the boxing scene, and his turbulent personal life beset by rage and jealousy.
Scorsese was initially reluctant to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to LaMotta's story. Schrader re-wrote Martin's first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter. Pesci was an unknown actor prior to the film, as was Moriarty, whom Pesci suggested for her role. During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes was choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately 60 pounds (27 kg) to portray LaMotta in his later post-boxing years. Scorsese was exacting in the process of editing and mixing the film, expecting it to be his last major feature.
Raging Bull premiered in New York on November 14, 1980, and was released in theaters on December 19, 1980. The film had a lukewarm box office of $23.4 million against its $18 million budget. The film received mixed reviews upon its release; while De Niro's performance and the editing were widely acclaimed, it garnered criticism due to its violent content. Despite the mixed reviews, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards at the 53rd Academy Awards (tying with The Elephant Man as the most nominated film of the ceremony), including Best Picture and Best Director, and won two: Best Actor for De Niro (his second Oscar) and Best Editing.
After its release, Raging Bull went on to garner high critical praise, and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. In 1990, it became the first film to be selected in its first year of eligibility for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and the American Film Institute ranked it as the fourth-greatest American movie of all time.
Cast
Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta
Joe Pesci as Joey LaMotta
Cathy Moriarty as Vickie LaMotta
Nicholas Colasanto as Tommy Como
Theresa Saldana as Lenora LaMotta, Joey's second wife
Frank Vincent as Salvatore "Salvy Batts"
Lori Anne Flax as Irma LaMotta, Jake's first wife
Mario Gallo as Mario
Frank Adonis as Patsy
Joseph Bono as Guido
Frank Topham as "Toppy"
Charles Scorsese as Charlie
Geraldine Smith as Janet
Candy Moore as Linda
James V. Christy as Dr. Pinto
Laura James as Mrs. Bronson
Peter Savage as Jackie Curtie
Don Dunphy as Himself
McKenzie Westmore as Stephanie LaMotta
Gene LeBell as Ring Announcer for Reeves Fight
Shay Duffin as Ring announcer for Janiro Fight
Martin Scorsese as Barbizon Stagehand (voice)
John Turturro as Man at Webster Hall Table (uncredited)
Coley Wallace as Joe Louis
Johnny Barnes as Sugar Ray Robinson
Bill Hanrahan as Eddie Eagan
Kevin Mahon as Tony Janiro
Eddie Mustafa Muhammad as Billy Fox
Floyd Anderson as Jimmy Reeves
Johnny Turner as Laurent Dauthuille
Louis Raftis as Marcel Cerdan
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[@TTM9691]

With all due respect to Rocky (and Creed), those are fairy tales, great as they are. This is more than a boxing movie, this is a real life story, and you get one of the biggest game changer performances in the history of movies. NO ONE ever gained all that weight for a part before De Niro did this. His commitment to this part upped EVERYONE'S game from this point on, like a line in the sand. There's Brando in "Streetcar Named Desire" in 1951, Bette Davis in "Of Human Bondage" in 1934, and other than Meryl Streep's performance in "Sophie's Choice" a couple of years later, I can't think of any one performance that "changed the game" like "Raging Bull" did. And I haven't talked about Scorsese yet. This COMPLETELY was a the next level for him. Scorsese and De Niro followed this up with the wild dark comedy, "The King Of Comedy", definitely worth seeing. When De Niro followed "Raging Bull" with "King Of Comedy", it was again a career choice that was very imitated from that day on, and you see it in the careers of Sean Penn, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey, et al. Congratulations for getting this under your belt! It's a major movie in the history of cinema, no doubt about it. It doesn't matter how much money it made in its initial box office, believe me, it played on cable non-stop from 1980 to the present day, people rented it over and over, people stream it, it made all of its money back and plenty more. Definitely more than the movie that beat it for Best Picture, "Ordinary People".

[@deckofcards87]

I'll add that it's also the contradiction of Jake being one way in the ring and another way in his personal life, that makes for a beautiful poetic statement. Jake's brutally voilent in BOTH: In the ring it makes him a winner, while outside the ring it's what makes him a total failure and eventually sets him on a downward spiral. Its Frued-ian and I love that kind of stuff.

[@paulymar5996]

The mob had such control over the boxing game back in the 40s and 50s that guys could consistently fight and win and never get a title shot without their help. Jake and Joey were fooling themselves thinking they could do it on their own in the first half of this movie.