Raging Bull

As the 4th best movie of all time according to AFI, Raging Bull (1980) follows the life of Jake Lamotta and his ups and downs as a boxer. Jake starts out his boxing career winning fight after fight, and finding a rival in Sugar Ray Robinson. After purposely losing a fight, Lamotta is given a chance at the title, and he becomes the middleweight champion of the world. Along the way, he leaves his first wife for Vicki. After he loses the title and quits boxing, he opens a nightclub called Jake LaMotta's. Soon after, his wife Vicki leaves him after almost 11 years of marriage. He goes to jail soon after and does a little work in the stand up comedy business. The movie ends with a quote from the bible: "So, for the second time, [the Pharisees] summoned the man who had been blind and said: 'Speak the truth before God. We know this fellow is a sinner.' 'Whether or not he is a sinner, I do not know.' the man replied. 'All I know is this: once I was blind and now I can see." This quote is a part of a dedication to director Martin Scorsese's film teach Haig P. Manoogian.

This movie was wonderfully done. What struck me most was that Scorsese chose to film in black and white even though colored films had been around for decades. The only color used in this movie was during the montage of his relationship with Vicki, going through pictures and silent video of their relationship.

Robert DeNiro does a fantastic job of portraying Lamotta. Based off of Lamotta's autobiography, he seems to portray him like he was, not putting him in a better light or glorifying him in any way. While I thought this was a really good movie, it was not inspiring at all. There did not seem to be anything uplifiting at the end and there no kind of message to leave us with or a lesson to learn. It was a great story of an incredible boxer, but it did not leave me with any good feelings. Even so, that is not really the movie's fault, it simply followed Lamotta's life, and I would still highly suggest watching this at least once in your life.