Raging Bull is an intense, uncomfortable film and it’s right where it belongs. The movie revolves around a boxer named Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro), who struggles with his paranoia, his wife, brother and only finds normality when he is in the ring. His rise to the top in the rankings breeds his fall from grace outside of the ring.
Having never seen Raging Bull, I went into the film with a very open mind. What I got out of this classic is just a brutal tale of a man struggling to keep his life together. De Niro’s portrayal of Jake La Motta (who is a real boxer) is nothing short of brilliant. He puts real emotion, real struggle into La Motta and what comes out of that performance is a character driven film. Of course, Scorsese’s ability to create a character driven film is his directorial signature these days (see Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed for details). Unlike Scorsese’s other films, this one truly revolves around only one man; and again it’s nothing short of brilliant. Scorsese and De Niro create this central character that is likable sometimes, but mostly uncomfortable to follow through his struggling years to obtain normality in his life. This is the same ‘uncomfortableness’ that you’ll find in De Niro’s Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, as you’ll keep watching though you fully understand that you’re about to witness a train wreck.
Other brilliant things about this film include a fantastic performance from Joe Pesci, who plays La Motta’s brother Joey. Pesci, like many of his other roles with De Niro, plays a great opposite. He’s the one keeping La Motta’s life together, even though he’s verbally and physically abused at times. He’s the catalyst to La Motta’s downward spiral when they brutally part ways (not to ruin it for you). His own intensity that he brings to this type of role (loud, cursing type of character) is tame compared to his later roles with De Niro, but it still adds to the overall uncomfortableness of the film.
Characters aside, if there are any budding filmmakers out there then this is the perfect visual instructional guide to how to capture visual perfection when directing/shooting films. Scorsese’s ability to shoot a small boxing ring and make it seem epic/holy is breathtaking. In 1980 this film introduced some clever techniques with lighting, slow motion and framing that truly made the boxing scenes great. Outside of the boxing ring you also get some great Scorsese scenes that involve long amounts of dollying and craning, which just reinforce how positively genius he and his cinematographer are. They take you into the situations in the film without breaking away for edits, which ultimately is impressive considering how many times they probably had to go through scenes. For example, when La Motta interrupts Joey at dinner to accuse him of ‘some things’, you get a nice continuous camera shot during the physical struggle between the brothers. It’s nice to see, though uncomfortable to go through.
This film is the very definition of ‘classic’.
Now, what about the Blu-ray portion of this release? It’s absolutely gorgeous, and you can thank a great HD transfer and the fact that it was filmed in black/white. Two elements of high definition that generally shine or fail are the blacks/whites in the film. If you have a bad transfer generally both give off a digital break-up. You see some graininess in the blacks and over saturation of whites, when the HD is done poorly. In the case of Raging Bull, you get perfection in the picture. Scorsese’s classic gets the royal treatment with proper HD transfer and care. Fans of the film will appreciate the care that 20th Century Fox took with this MGM film. You’ll especially appreciate it when you get some of the more dramatic scenes in the ring. For example, towards the end of the film when La Motta is fighting Sugar Ray Lewis for the fifth time you’ll see a great slow motion scene with Lewis. This scene includes some dimmed lighting in the back of Lewis and some fog. There is no graininess in this scene, which is a visual miracle, but it shows how much care was taken in the transfer. So, in short, you get some great visuals in HD with this Blu-ray release.
As for special features, the 30th anniversary of this film is loaded. Featuring three commentary tracks, three featurettes, a great Johnny Carson excerpt, a behind-the-scenes featurette, vintage newsreel footage and a theatrical trailer, you’ll be satisfied with what you get. The highlight of this release for me was the ‘Marty & Bobby’ featurette, which had new interviews with director and lead actor. It gave a little bit more insight about the process of getting the film made and the process of how the film was made. The passion and story behind everything with this movie in this featurette makes it one of the strongest in the set of features included. 20th Century Fox didn’t skimp when it came to releasing a worthwhile Blu-ray and it shows in the features.