Raging Bull- film at its finest

Raging Bull is not a movie about boxing. It is a movie which uses the boxing ring as merely a setting to better expose Jake LaMotta for what he is: a stubborn, aggressive, and insecure man.

Raging Bull is a film about Jake LaMotta and Jake LaMotta only. As a result, Scorsese faced a challenge in keeping the audience enthralled with this frail character. But as we have seen in some of his recent movies such as The Departed, no one can captivate an audience quite like Scorsese. The movie jumps around in time, at first starting after Jake’s boxing career, then progressing through it, before ending with Jake’s post-boxing demise. The audience was never tricked, however, as throughout, at every moment in time we see LaMotta, we see his problems. The use of irony in the film was brilliant as well as Scorsese was able to depict the most unstoppable fighter in the world as someone who had more problems than you or I. With this irony, Raging Bull comments on the vanity of human glory. Regardless of how much success one can have in the ring or in the public spotlight, the money or the fame is never enough. They can never be enough to satisfy you, but as we see with LaMotta, they can come to own you. 

So that’s why Raging Bull is now one of my favorite films of all time.