Jake Lamotta Raging Bull Themes

The sports film genre remains one of Hollywood’s most prolific and popular forms. Famous films such as Rocky, Field of Dreams, and Space Jam are but a few of the many notable examples of the genre. Director Martin Scorsese’s take on infamous boxer Jake LaMotta, the 1980 biographical film Raging Bull, remains as one of the genre’s most highly acclaimed films, and also one of the genre’s most challenging. The film does not follow the inspirational uplifting feel highly known for in the genre. The film has highly violent scenes that are not relegated to just the boxing ring. The film has extreme profanity. The film has a highly serious tone. If anything, the film behaves as a bit of a tragedy. The main character Jake LaMotta becomes victim to his own self-imposed flaws; extreme jealously, animalistic anger, and strong insecurities over control in his life. Yet, the film’s challenging material is one of the reasons why the film remains so praised. A key factor in illustrating the film’s tragic messages is through Scorsese’s mashing of …show more content…
The rudimentary style, taking notable visual cues from Italian Neorealism, functions to showcase high realism in the ongoing drama in LaMotta’s life. One notable instance of this style operates in the kitchen scene that occurs after the montage of Jake LaMotta’s “successful” period in the mid-1940s. The editing restricts most of the shots of the scene to very simple shot-reverse shots of dialogue between Jake and Joey LaMotta. As well, certain periods in scene linger on, primarily when Jake questions his wife’s off-hand comment on his upcoming competitor’s “good look[s]”. The sparseness of the pacing objectively presents the drama of the LaMotta’s life and his masculine insecurity, with a realness that the viewer can more readily cling on to, or in some other scenes be appalled