Raging Bull
[In the following mainly negative review, Georgakas delineates what he sees as the "dichotomy between technical sophistication and thematic poverty" in Raging Bull.]
Anyone going to see Raging Bull with the expectation of seeing a film about boxing or the career of Jake La Motta will be disappointed. Although the film is in black and white, like the classic fight films of the studio era, and has about ten minutes of boxing action, its relationship to films like Body and Soul, The Set-Up, and Requiem for a Heavyweight is tenuous. The major theme of Raging Bull is sexual jealousy, and the film's major attraction, for better and for worse, is the virtuoso performances of Martin Scorsese, the film's director, and Robert De Niro, its male lead.
Raging Bull opens with a shot of a middle-aged and overweight Jake La Motta sitting in a hotel room rehearsing lines for a public reading which is not explained here or at the film's conclusion when we return to the same moment. A cut takes us back two decades to one of La Motta's earliest fights. This maneuver provides back-to-back shots, not possible elsewhere in the film, of Robert De Niro after he has gained fifty pounds to portray the aging La Motta and De Niro as he looked after having trained for a year with the real La Motta, learning to move and box as the fighter did in his prime. The scene telegraphs the theme of decay which consumes the film, and it's a forthright indication of the director's slap-dash attitude to narrative needs whenever tempted by an opportunity to spotlight De Niro's, or his own, technical flair.
When the film proper gets under way, La Motta is already an established boxer. Nowhere in the film will we ever learn what impelled him to become a prize fighter. Did he have a sadistic nature the sport could legitimatize? Was he racially motivated, as hinted in one scene when he talks about Joe Louis? Or was he just one more tough slum kid who found boxing the easiest path to wealth and glory? Whatever La Motta's motivations, he refuses to deal with organized crime at a time when such a relationship was all but mandated for anyone interested in big-time purses.
This is all the more odd in La Motta's case because his immediate circle of acquaintances includes a specific Mafia family. While personally at odds with some of the lower level hoods, La Motta likes and respects the local don, who is involved with sports. Later, after being the top contender for years but never allowed to fight for the championship, La Motta is informed that unless he throws a particular fight, he will never get a chance for the crown. He agrees to the fix with little visible bitterness or resistance, even though his conduct in the ring will make the fix obvious. Probing La Motta's reaction to organized crime, the dynamic of his career, or his particular style of fighting doesn't seem to interest the filmmakers. This is a bit like doing a film portrait of a famous general without being particularly interested in warfare or military hierarchy.
What does interest the filmmakers is La Motta's sexual behavior, particularly his jealousy. After losing for the first time, La Motta picks a fight with his wife in which they swear at each other, throw food and furniture around, and have a physical confrontation. Shortly thereafter he becomes infatuated with a fifteen-year old, Vicki, who will eventually become his second wife. From the start he is obsessed with whether or not she has slept with other men. After their marriage, his insecurity grows worse. Vicki cannot be out of his sight without accounting for every moment. As she begins to rebel against the constant pressure, Joey, Jake's brother and manager, assures her things will be better once Jake is champion. But, after winning the title, La Motta's jealousy escalates. He even suspects his brother of adultery and gives him a fearful beating: the episode ends their relationship.
Scorsese is relentless in his exposition of La Motta's jealousy. If Vicki kisses the Mafia don on the cheek, Jake thinks it signifies something more intimate. If she comments on a fighter's good looks, Jake is compelled to disfigure the man during their fight. All of this might be an accurate portrayal, but Scorsese never gets below the spectacular surface and glitter of La Motta's emotions. What are the roots of his incredible jealousy? And, if he is so obsessed, how does he keep tabs on Vicki when he and Joey are at a training camp (none are ever shown) or at a gym? Why does Vicki endure his paranoia for so long?
The superficiality of the La Motta portrait is most evident in the Bronx scenes. Early in their relationship, La Motta tries to impress Vicki by showing her the house he has bought for his father, but his father never appears in the film. In a home movie sequence, which is an effective and economical way of showing the passage of time and recording various rituals in the life of the couple, various friends and relatives are shown, but, aside from Joey and his wife, the La Mottas are without acquaintances, friends, parents, or relatives in the talking scenes. The paucity of supporting players would normally indicate the restrictions of a tight budget, but, in Raging Bull, the paucity appears to be in the conceptualization of the major characters.
The staging of specific fights provides a key to the director's real interest. As exhibitions of boxing, or as elements of a story, they are ineffective; as exhibitions of cutting room skills, they are lessons from a master. Each bout is set up as a separate entity, like a two-minute vignette or miniature one-acter, complete with titles to indicate time, place, and opponents. Realism gives way to expressionism. Close-up punching shots are punctuated by flashing ringside cameras or cuts to the crowd. As fighters fall, the canvas tilts. The sound is hyped up, and slow motion allows us to view a nose collapsing under a punch, or blood splurting like a geothermic eruption. The spectacle of the ringside environment and the punishment taken by the fighters is emphasized, but the analysis is extremely cold and technical. There is little feeling for the men involved, no sense of different fighting styles, and scant appreciation of La Motta's special stature. Jake is the Bronx Bull, the people's choice, only because we are so told. We don't really see or feel it before, during, or after the fights.
The shallowness of the portrait is further manifested in the dialogue. Scene after scene is either a shouting match with lots of profanity, or a moment in which violence or insanity threatens to move from the potential to the actual. Even when well done, such as the scene in the Copacabana when Joey beats up a mob flunky, we are focused on the grubbiest aspects of human behavior. It is as if the scenes were written for acting class, rather than for incorporation into a narrative structure. They allow the actors to shout and weep and move dramatically as often as possible. De Niro is superlative at this kind of acting, but the brilliant pieces do not add up to a coherent whole.
As the film proceeds to its conclusion, the already thin narrative disintegrates. Upon retiring from the ring, Jake opens a night club in Florida where he is the host and house comic. He gains about fifty pounds, stays at the club long after closing time, and finally loses Vicki. Eventually he is charged with serving liquor to a fourteen year-old and introducing her to men for illicit purposes. The evidence shown on the screen indicates his innocence; yet the key scene in this episode shows La Motta physically manhandled at a jail and thrown into an isolation cell, where he literally bangs his head and fists against the cement wall as he mumbles, "I am not an animal. I am not an animal." With no indication of how the affair ends, we next see La Motta in New York, where he is a host at a strip bar. After putting a new girlfriend into a cab, he happens to see his brother in the street and he tries, with little success, to patch up the quarrel he initiated long ago.
Another cut takes us to the scene which opened the film. La Motta is starting at a mirror, repeating the famous I-could-have-been-somebody scene from On The Waterfront. It's a precious moment. De Niro is playing La Motta, who has to come close to sounding like Brando—but not too close, for it is La Motta, not De Niro, who is trying to mimic Brando. This moment unintentionally reveals the vacuous nature of Raging Bull. The quoted scene is crucial to On the Waterfront: it is the moment when Brando realizes that he has been betrayed by his brother, and by the code he has lived with. In Raging Bull, the moment is just homage to another film. La Motta has been somebody, and Joey has been a helpful and loyal brother. Or perhaps we are to understand that this is a mirror instance of the other, that it is the fighter who has betrayed his brother. If that is so, what has happened to the animal La Motta used to be? And how is it that he is suddenly giving a reading from classic and contemporary authors? Before this scene, we would have been surprised to know the man could read.
Despite the many inadequacies of the narrative and characterizations, Raging Bull almost succeeds. The reason is Robert De Niro's performance. One has to be impressed by an actor who would put on fifty pounds in order to feel and look like a corpulent ex-champion. Before that, he trained so hard with the real La Motta that La Motta thought the actor had attained the skills of a ranking middleweight contender. One might argue, however, that the whole challenge of acting is not to become a fighter or a slob in order to play such characters, but to convey illusions. De Niro's literal approach to particular aspects of La Motta's personality might have caused him to lose sight of the man's overall complexity. In this regard, the less flamboyant performance of Joe Pesci as Joey is noteworthy. Whenever Joey is on screen, one feels that he is a credible, multidimensional human being.
From start to finish, Raging Bull exhibits a dichotomy between technical sophistication and thematic poverty. There are numerous quotes within the film, and some framing devices usually associated with Fassbinder. The boxing tableaus, while failures as depictions of championship boxing, are effective protests against the brutality of the sport. Period details, slow motion, and period music are handled extremely well. Ultimately, one becomes aware of viewing a film that is anxious to make the viewer aware that, while it is supposed to look like a film made in the late Forties or Fifties, it could only have been made decades later. This kind of conceit and the devices used to elaborate it will either annoy or engage viewers, depending on their esthetic inclinations. In either case, they have little to do with boxing, human pyschology, or even a good story.
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