1134 Raging Bull

[Michael]

Raging Bull



With this stunningly visceral portrait of self-destructive machismo, Martin Scorsese created one of the truly great and visionary works of modern cinema. Robert De Niro pours his blood, sweat, and brute physicality into the Oscar-winning role of Jake La Motta, the rising middleweight boxer from the Bronx whose furious ambition propels him to success within the ring but whose unbridled paranoia and jealousy tatter his relationships with everyone in his orbit, including his brother and manager (Joe Pesci) and gorgeous, streetwise wife (Cathy Moriarty). Thelma Schoonmaker's Oscar-winning editing, Michael Chapman's extraordinarily tactile black-and-white cinematography, and Frank Warner's ingenious sound design combine to make Raging Bull a uniquely powerful exploration of violence on multiple levels—physical, emotional, psychic, and spiritual.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital master, approved by director Martin Scorsese, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• New video essays by film critics Geoffrey O'Brien and Sheila O'Malley on Scorsese's mastery of formal techniques and the film's triumvirate of characters
• Three audio commentaries, featuring Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker; director of photography Michael Chapman, producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, casting director Cis Corman, music consultant Robbie Robertson, actors Theresa Saldana and John Turturro, and sound-effects supervising editor Frank Warner; and boxer Jake La Motta and screenwriters Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader
• Fight Night, a making-of program featuring Scorsese and key members of the cast and crew
• Three short programs highlighting the longtime collaboration between Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro
• Television interview from 1981 with actor Cathy Moriarty and the real Vikki La Motta
• Interview with Jake La Motta from 1990
• Program from 2004 featuring veteran boxers reminiscing about La Motta
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: Essays by poet Robin Robertson and film critic Glenn Kenny

[cdnchris]

Glorious special edition DVD released last week.

It's been years since I last saw it and I just finished watching it again. Thanks to the films overwhelmingly beauty and intensity, I couldn't sleep last night. I was up all night with the films images and music haunting everything in me. While I adore a number of Scorsese's films (Casino, Goodfellas, etc), I actually think Raging Bull is Scorsese's pinnacle of his career. I remember reading somewhere that before making Raging Bull, Scorsese was at the lowest point of his life, took drugs, and then was admitted to hospital. He claimed that he was not into boxing and expressed no interest in making a boxing film. But Robert De Niro constantly insisted Scorsese to make the film. While at the hospital, Scorsese finally realized that he had a lot in common with Jake La Motta and his pain, etc. Then he went to make the film, thinking it might be his last, with the big bang. I can't remember where the source was. But anyway, this explains why Raging Bull turns out far from being a boxing film. It's a film about one man's tortured soul a la Citizen Kane and a number of Fellini films, such as La Strada, Il Bidone, La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2.. And you could really sense Scorsese's pain in every frame...this has to be his most personal film. I was very overwhelmed and I have no interest in boxing, Jake, or anything to do with sports. I love how Scorsese uses Jake's relationship to his brother and Vickie to get into the depth of his soul. What happened to the actress who played Vickie? What a wonderful performance! Reserved, icy cold, calculating. I love the first shot of Vickie.. the way the camera slowly, quietly stalks her.. we ultimately fall for her whether we like or want to or not. The magic of Scorsese.

Raging Bull is among the most poetic, painful, beautiful films ever made.. and for a modern American film, that's saying a lot.

I saw this when I was really young, finally getting to it in my dad's movie collection. I remember being moved by it and was surprised that it really wasn't a boxing movie (I actually had no interest in it because it was about boxing, the sport I cared least about, and I don't care about sports, which explains my bordering figure) Whenever I found a movie in my dad's collection that I loved (Dr. Strangelove, One Flew Over..., Taxi Driver, Goldfinger, Holy Grail, etc.) I would watch everyday for a week and this was one of them. Funny thing is I hardly remember it now. I bought it on tape when I was in high school, leant it out and never saw it again (friend said he swears he gave it back to me but I think I'd know, it's not there on my shelf, the gap in the row is still there, 10 years later) I have to buy this DVD and watch it again. I've been dying to see it again, but held off on buying the DVD.

I just remember the movie had this overwhelming effect on me, the character really reached me, even though he was a real dick. Plus this is the movie that made me fall in love with De Niro. I remember I didn't even realize it was him at the end when I first saw it, trying to figure who this fat ass was on the screen and how he fit in, then I was like "ooohhhh!" And it's also the first movie that made me really appreciate black and white photography (I think I was just coming out of that phase where everything had to be in colour.) I want to see how it works now that I'm much older.

[lord_clyde]

This is a film I've found just gets better the older you get. I watched it shortly after discovering Scorsese (that is I watched Goodfellas and Taxi Driver) and I remember I thought it was good, but overrated. Watching it five years later the film is a completely different experience, and it has since replaced Taxi Driver as my favorite Scorsese film.

[Polybius]

One of the best films ever made.

The wedding montage, with all of the home movies, intercut with his various fights is one of the single most satisfying and beautiful sequences in any film I've ever seen.

[Antoine Doinel]

The Guardian revisits the making of the film.

[exte]

The Guardian revisits the making of the film.

The article is excellent. Any chance in hell one can read the drafts by Mardik Martin?

[swo17]

UHD and BD July 12

[Finch]

This was touched upon in the Rumours thread by others, but LaMotta is such a horrible human being that I've never been able to truly connect with this film, other than to admire the craft on display, especially Schoonmaker's editing.

[therewillbeblus]

For the record (I assume you're referring to my comments?) I don't think anyone is a horrible person (yes, the pedantic identity-first language reframe from me again...) but that in this particular film Scorsese doesn't invite us into gleaning much from LaMotta outside of a surface-level character study. There's a lot of merit to this choice- in refusing to force charity to create falsely-drawn dimensions in someone who, with action, was self and externally-destructive (not that he doesn't have multiple dimensions, but it's a guessing-game, and one that is drowned out by the harm here); yet I'm a little hazy on what the point of it all is from the film's denouement, which seems to posture at the idea of forgiveness. DeNiro is great at playing a man who buries his feelings and personality into surface-level emotions of anger and jealousy and doesn't earn a psychological evaluation. Though that's not the same thing as saying he's a horrible human being, just that he's not given the opportunity to be dissected, which is respectfully in step with the shell he presents with and likely presented with during his lifetime (I'd be interested to know how this connects, if at all, to Italian-American cultural consciousness from Scorsese et al., which might be discussed in the commentaries- I could see how the material would maybe be closer to his heart in this respect, even if I feel it fails to reach wider audiences)

[Finch]

TWWB, I didn't mean to single you out. I should have mentioned that it doesn't escape me that Scorsese doesn't excuse La Motta as a person, but I'm just genuinely having a hard time getting past his obnoxiousness. Objectively, it is a fantastic film; subjectively, I feel little desire to revisit it.

[therewillbeblus]

Oh I didn’t feel singled out, just wanted to clarify my position on it- which is admittedly more confused at what’s under the surface than anything. I hear you, I never feel inclined to revisit this for similar reasons of repulsion, and there’s certainly an acknowledgment that LaMotta is a man who has been neglected and unsupported into developing skills that could ignite a behavior change- whether or not the film should be respected or criticized or neither for refusing to forge a tangible thread of sympathy (i.e. Kane’s sled) is an interesting debate.

[EddieLarkin]

Moshrom made this comparison years ago and it's still one of the best examples of terrible audio fiddling on his blog:

https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/la ... 980%29?m=0

It's great to see that Criterion are listing the 2.0 track and not the 5.1 for their release, but it's critical they don't merely use the downmix MGM may have on file. They would need to go back to the old DVD or possibly even their laserdisc.

[MitchPerrywinkle]

I ended up rewatching this two years ago for its 40th anniversary (and on a big screen). It has some of Scorsese's most virtuosic filmmaking and the entire cast is extraordinary (Pesci's transformation from exasperation to genuine hurt provides the film the closest thing to a clear-cut emotional arc), but the subject matter and central character still indeed make it a difficult watch. I'm very curious to see how the supplements will go about dissecting the film's exploration of toxic masculinity and expanding upon, as TWBB singled out, the script's spare sketches of psychological motivation (the interview with Moriarty and Vikki LaMotta sounds potentially fascinating in terms of giving further insight as to how and why the latter came to be romantically entangled with someone whose onscreen avatar is predatory at best, insanely jealous at worst).

[colinr0380]

While this looks like a packed release, it would have been great if they could have gotten Confessions of a Psycho Cat (NSFW) on there too, which was a film in which La Motta put in an acting appearance.

[black&huge]

This was touched upon in the Rumours thread by others, but LaMotta is such a horrible human being that I've never been able to truly connect with this film, other than to admire the craft on display, especially Schoonmaker's editing.

I guess Henry Hill and Jordan Belfort were the ones to root for, then?

[therewillbeblus]

They gave you more to connect with, while the films respectively did not condone their behavior either. Hill's repelling character makes Goodfellas work less for me than most people too (it's not even what he does that repels me as much as his pigheaded attitude and thin characterization), but at least we are invited in to what it was like for him to grow up and admire those who were free from the constraints he felt ubiquitously drowned in during his youth. Everyone knows what it's like to glorify elders, or to have idols, and it just so happens his were dangerous- but that's very personal to Scorsese and the film essentially plays out like Raging Bull might if we were given a backstory to LaMotta's neglected character. Not that the film does much to showcase Hill's characterization from there, but the subjective narration forgives this because it's told through the delusional eyes and mind of Hill who sees shiny things and uses defense mechanisms to rationalize his behavior. That's a huge cry from the more 'objective' camera in Raging Bull, or at least the form that doesn't quite literally engage us with the mind of the protagonist! If it did, that wouldn't be a criticism some of us are citing, which is rather specific in what's omitted rather than ranking the dignity in each of these characters.

As for Wolf of Wall Street, it's basically the same as above, except the ill behavior is played as a reflexively provocative comedy. Scorsese brilliantly indulges this angle and then zooms out objectively in a few key sequences to jarringly pop the balloon of our subjective laughter and reveal realist horror. Again, he's using the film's technical form and narrative to engage us in acknowledging moral issues and also how we suppress knowing ourselves or working on ourselves with superficial yet 'real' constructs (here, drugs, another personal season of Scorsese's life that he acknowledges both the allure and tragic consequences of). These examples don't ask us to root for these characters, but they do provide an 'in' to invest in our examination of them and, by proxy, ourselves as the viewer digesting this material, whereas Raging Bull offers less of this process because opportunities to do so are eliminated. That may be intended, and maybe when I see the film again I'll feel differently- it's been years- but that's where I stand right now.

[hearthesilence]

Moshrom made this comparison years ago and it's still one of the best examples of terrible audio fiddling on his blog:

https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/la ... 980%29?m=0

It's great to see that Criterion are listing the 2.0 track and not the 5.1 for their release, but it's critical they don't merely use the downmix MGM may have on file. They would need to go back to the old DVD or possibly even their laserdisc.

I hope they get this right. I wonder if it's even worth contacting them now just to be sure? (Better to learn they messed up now than later, right?)

[Finch]

I like Goodfellas a bit more than Raging Bull, mainly because the former at least has some black humour to off-set Hill's odiousness. I've not seen Wolf of Wall Street and I'm not in a rush to. I love Bringing Out The Dead and Taxi Driver (great NYC location shooting, especially at night and Herrmann's last score), and I have a lot of time for Age of Innocence, King of Comedy, Mean Streets, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, and Silence (though I'd have preferred Driver in Garfield's part). The upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon is the only large scale studio film I'm looking forward to this year.

[jsteffe]

Moshrom made this comparison years ago and it's still one of the best examples of terrible audio fiddling on his blog:

https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/la ... 980%29?m=0

It's great to see that Criterion are listing the 2.0 track and not the 5.1 for their release, but it's critical they don't merely use the downmix MGM may have on file. They would need to go back to the old DVD or possibly even their laserdisc.

I hope they get this right. I wonder if it's even worth contacting them now just to be sure? (Better to learn they messed up now than later, right?)

Yes--you should email Jon Mulvaney about it just to confirm. They probably have it on their radar, but it won't hurt mention it to them to be on the safe side.

[EddieLarkin]

Sadly, Criterion are regularly identified on the blog as one of the worst offenders for turning good audio to bad. If they did source the proper untouched 2.0 track then chances are they would proceed to make it sound as crappy as the 5.1. For Criterion, making a film sound like it was recorded underwater is worth it to remove every possible trace of "hiss".

Still, it can't hurt to let them know.

[Mr Sausage]

Just to make a more obvious point: as loathsome as Henry Hill is, he’s also surrounded by people who are so much worse than him, and his shocked reactions allow a measure of identification. But it’s a ballsy movie for how it starts with a moment of such repugnant, uncontextualized violence and still sets itself the task of seducing you until the world that contains it.

As for Raging Bull, its been a long time since I’ve seen it, but aside from finding its examination of a type compelling, I loved its extreme representation of the Catholic ideas of suffering, penance, and purgatory. Humans balancing their own monstrousness with ever more extreme forms of self-flagellation, trying to achieve absolution through immolation in purgatorial fires. It really runs to the limit this Catholic idea that sin can be balanced by self punishment. I found it powerful in its extremity.

[therewillbeblus]

That’s a good reading, I haven’t seen the film in many years but I’ll keep it in mind when I revisit this disc

[tenia]

Still, it can't hurt to let them know.

I was pleasingly surprised to see the BFI including "unrestored" alternatives for some of their recent Japanese movies re-releases once they were alerted about the new sound restorations' shortcomings. Hopefully, Criterion might be sensitive to those suggestions too AND able to get ahold of the better tracks (or avoid turning good tracks into bad).

[colinr0380]

As for Raging Bull, its been a long time since I’ve seen it, but aside from finding its examination of a type compelling, I loved its extreme representation of the Catholic ideas of suffering, penance, and purgatory. Humans balancing their own monstrousness with ever more extreme forms of self-flagellation, trying to achieve absolution through immolation in purgatorial fires. It really runs to the limit this Catholic idea that sin can be balanced by self punishment. I found it powerful in its extremity.

As perhaps best shown by the self-hatred on display in the scene of pummeling the jail cell wall first with fists and then with head, as if to beat the devils out, which ends up suggesting that the entire boxing career is a kind of form of finding transcendence through self-mortification, or getting the beating that La Motta may feel he generally deserves in a more socially acceptable manner.

(I have a suspicion that Shinya Tsukamoto does an intentional riff on the themes of Raging Bull in his film Tokyo Fist, which has an equivalent scene of self-destruction but amusingly modifies the main character slamming his head into a concrete wall by having his girlfriend stop him from doing so, turn him to face her and then begin to helpfully deliver punches directly to his face for him, seemingly as a way of helping him out! Which seems somewhat cathartic for them both!)

[Mr Sausage]

Or the fight with Sugar Ray Robinson, when he stands against the ropes and eggs on Robinson to beat the shit out of him while he refuses to defend himself in the most punishing scene in the film. After it’s over, LaMotta keeps saying “you never got me down Ray”, which is both the ego preservation of a competitor and a statement by LaMotta that he has successfully paid for his own sins through mortification. Boxing is his spiritual balance, his soul kept centred between two extremes of brutality: sin and purgation.

I think the very next shot after the Robison loss is a superfat LaMotta indeed lying down. Without boxing to allow him a form of penance, his sins have just accumulated in his body until he’s a bloated monster. It’s the logic of body horror. LaMotta’s physical degeneration is a symbol of his own spiritual state. And when he’s dragged into the hell of that basement prison cell, he tries to work off his sins the only way he knows how. But it’s not enough.