Raging Bull - Initial Reaction and A Closer Look

I will say off the bat that I really enjoyed Raging Bull. I didn’t think that I would like it at first because I generally (aka always) don’t like sports movies, but it wasn’t just a film about boxing. I think Robert De Niro did a fantastic job portraying Jake La Motta. I really got the impression that Jake was his own worst enemy. I can’t think of any part in the movie where I actually sympathized for him. He had such a great life going for him – success in boxing and a family that he loved – yet he gave it all up. But for what? That’s something I still can’t seem to answer. What the heck was it that caused Jake to let go of everything good in his life? Maybe he thought that he didn’t deserve it. I really don’t know.

This film was definitely a good one to watch for the purpose of studying editing. First of all, there’s the fact that the entire film was in black and white. I can’t really figure out why Scorsese decided to do that, though. Maybe its because it gave more of a “gloomy” feel. Or maybe that’s how Jake saw the world around him – in black and white.

I also liked the close up shots, mainly in the love scene between Jake and Vicky. It really caused me to be drawn into the lives of the characters. This was also the case when Jake was fighting. It was almost like the close-up shot got me into the head of Jake La Motta. What the heck is going through his mind when he is fighting? Sometimes I thought that he didn’t even care if he killed the other fighter, or even if he killed himself. The final fight scene where he let the other fighter hit him was very effective. The slow motion shot caused me to think “what the heck is he doing? Why isn’t he fighting back?!” That question was answered, of course, when he told the other fighter, “you couldn’t get me down.” It was almost like a pride issue. Jake wanted to know that he was in some weird way…unbreakable.

As far as continuous versus disjunctive editing – I would say that Raging Bull included both. The film was basically the sequence of a few decades of La Motta’s life (continuous), but at the same time there were a lot of abrupt scene changes (disjunctive). There was also the scene that basically fast-forwarded through 10 years, and it almost seemed like we were watching home videos. I really liked that because it gave me a sense of reality. It also made me think “hey maybe things will work out for Jake after all.” Obviously that didn’t happen. I would consider that sequence to be disjunctive, but I’m not sure if that’s correct!

And then there’s the acting/character development, which I don’t feel like spending much time talking about! All I’ll mention is that Vicky’s character was…interesting. It really bothered me how indifferent she was to EVERYTHING around her (or at least that’s how she came off). But I think that that made the film even more intriguing because she wasn’t the typical housewife/trophy wife. Even though Jake was clearly nutso, I feel like Vicky didn’t do anything to change it. She didn’t even try. At some points I couldn’t blame her, but at other times I just wanted to scream at her for not snapping some sense into him. That’s what wives are supposed to do, right? :)

Overall, good film. Good editing. Liked it.