For thousands of year mankind has
often resorted to physical violence to solve disputes and for entertainment. Violence
is something which human beings could be naturally drawn to.
Watching people engage in physical combat or violence is the perfect form of entertainment to some people. That is why Boxing and prizefighting have been so popular throughout time.
Boxing is called the “Sweet Science”. It can be graceful, beautiful, and eloquent.
Jake LaMotta was a middleweight boxer from the Bronx who was the exact opposite of grace and beauty. LaMotta was brutal, rugged, and almost masochistic. He led a dark life of abuse, physical, mental, and substance wise.
In 1980, the film Raging
Bull was released. Robert
DeNiro portrayed LaMotta with Martin Scorsese directing. The film received
universal critical acclaim with DeNiro even winning the Academy Award for Best
Actor. But the film itself did not win anything. Scorsese didn’t win Best
Director, and Best Picture went to a film called Ordinary
People.
Ordinary People is a film about a broken family. The movie centers around a family suffering because of one of their sons deaths. The brother attempts suicide, his mother is a colossal wreck, and the father is trying the best he can to support and hold them all together.
It is easy to relate to the characters in this movie because family problems are something that we all have. Overall the movie is good, with great performances and good directing from Robert Redford.
But, the theme of my blog is about great films being overshadowed by good, sometimes even mediocre ones.
Raging Bull is seen today as a classic movie. In 2007 The American Film Institute ranked the film as the 4th best movie of the last 100 years. It was also ranked by the AFI as the best sports related American movie ever. Ordinary People on the other hand has received no such recognition. It was widely praised upon release, but has not received “classic” status. The film was a good one and that’s all. Raging Bull pushed boundaries and is still critically lauded to this day.
Even with all of the accolades though, Raging Bull is a very difficult film to watch.
With incredible violence, profanity, and sexual themes, the film is incredibly graphic. DeNiro’s performance itself was incredible, he gained nearly 40 pounds to play LaMotta in his later years and he gave a hauntingly dark show of acting. There are scenes of abuse and the extreme use of blood can be unsettling. But it is more than necessary and not done in a way to overcompensate for anything or to create shock value.
The extreme violence throughout the movie mirrors LaMotta’s life, and how he beat himself up more than anyone else ever could have.
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| Jake LaMotta, Wikimedia.com, 1952 |
The Academy ended up not
giving Raging Bull its due here because of the substantially
graphic material which was portrayed. The Academy chose the safer film once
again. And once again when you look at the cultural impact Raging Bull has had, it is safe to say the academy was wrong.
Sources
Imdb.com
Youtube.com
Photo credit- no author, wikimedia.com
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-raging-bull-1980
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