Raging bull review

I just watched the movie Raging Bull featuring Robert De Niro and I am not going to lie but I absolutely loved it. The story revolves around Jake Lamotta, an animal of a boxer who gains everything he wants, a beautiful wife, and a world title but ultimately loses it due to his insecurity. One of the main reasons I liked it was because of the cultural portrayal. If you have read some of my other blogs you might notice that culture has a lot of significance to me as I was raised that way. The film portrays the life of American Italians in the ghetto, from the loud cursing outside the apartments to the night life.

One thing that struck negative emotion was how he treated his family. I mean it was something that Italian Americans were said to have done all the time; curse, but still cursing in front of little children is bad parenting. Another thing was how he treated his wife. The whole time, I thought “If that was me, I’d do this...or that” which made me realize how good the movie was if it struck that strong of an emotion from me. His treatment of his brother was rough sometimes but then he still loved him overall and that’s what counts to me. I was happy when he felt like he didn’t need the mafia because I feel the mafia influenced a lot of things and refusing them in a movie would have been awesome but in the end it didn’t happen.

This brings me to talk more about his insecurity. He was so insecure that he would just rush to conclusions. His insecurity brought spasms of jealousy where he couldn’t believe his wife Vickie could stay faithful to him and would get fits of rage whenever she came home late or greeted other guys. I really don’t know how she stayed that long and trust me I would have done much better if she were mine. I thought the way he got her though was very interesting and funny. Anyways I liked the movie because it does the opposite of the other sports movies that show people rising to fame from nothing. Jake rises then falls which I thought was cool.

Overall, I really liked the movies story line, mise en scene and cinematography. I liked how the black-and-white cinematography (throughout the entire film except for the home video parts) was done and camera (subjective might I add) used innovative techniques including slow-motion (varying camera speeds), 360 degree pans during the fights, and titled camera. The lighting was deliberately made harsh and stark, to provide an expressionistic look and feel of the brutality inside the boxing ring. The music was very melancholy and it was used to contrast the darkness the movie was trying to portray. Overall they did a good job but I will talk about that in my next blog…so be patient.