De Niro’s Jake La Motta is neither the protagonist nor an antagonist. He is simply the main character and we see the events of his life based on the autobiography of the same name. The story follows Jake’s successful fighting career and his relationships with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) and his second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty). He has ups and downs, flies into fits of paranoid jealousy, and hurts the people around him. No real story arc except for life and age as it happens.
But the real genius here is De Niro’s acting is the outstanding cinematography. Filmed in black and white, many of the ring shots are works of art. While it won the Oscar for editing, it somehow lost out to Tess for cinematography. Somehow, maybe because one of the two cinematographers on Tess had died and the voters heart strings were tugged. (The other passed before the year was out). Or maybe they just loved the sexy scenes of barely legal Nastassja Kinski. Roman Polanski is a creep. Hey look, it’s Nicholas Colasanto! You know, Coach from Cheers. I’ve never seen him in a film before.
The movie is based on the autobiography of the real-life LaMotta whose career spanned the 1940’s until the middle 1950’s. Upon seeing the film he asked his second wife, depicted by Moriarty, if he was really that bad. She responded “You were worse”. He beat his wives (married seven times), was involved with organized crime, and served time for introducing men to an underage girl at his bar. He died in 2017 at age 95.
Raging Bull is a captivating story with excellent acting performances and photography that rises to high art. One has to watch it again simply for the slow motion fight scenes.
“He ain't pretty no more.”
No comments:
Post a Comment