"You didn't get me down, Ray!"
✯✯✯✯ 1/2 Top 350 Entry
There comes a specific moment in every great film I watch where everything just clicks into place for me. Everything seems perfect, everything seems right. The film becomes an undeniable masterpiece. It took Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull 92 minutes to reach this point. But just about everything after those 92 minutes I can only describe as pure and utter ecstasy.
There comes a specific moment in every great film I watch where everything just clicks into place for me. Everything seems perfect, everything seems right. The film becomes an undeniable masterpiece. It took Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull 92 minutes to reach this point. But just about everything after those 92 minutes I can only describe as pure and utter ecstasy.
While it isn't necessarily the best boxing film I've seen, Raging Bull is undoubtedly one of the most gorgeous that I have seen. The luscious black and white cinematography perfectly helps set the tone and feel the overall story maintains, and helps add a sense of realism to the 1940's era in which the film is set. I couldn't help but feel that the film dragged throughout the first 90 minutes, and more than once managed to trip over its own plot. The story tried multiple times to pick up on the action, but was hindered by frequently oscillating sound effects (the dialogue is dead quiet while the fights are ear-shattering). This got fairly annoying after awhile, and it's sadly used quite frequently in movies today.
One theme I've noticed about Scorsese's filmography of the 70's and 80's is his focus on misogyny, or rather anti-misogyny. Some of his well-known characters are so drawn into their own psyche and masculinity that they treat their women as switches, if you will. That is, they are either having sex or being completely ignored. Some people may write this off as pro-masculinity or pro-misogyny, but it rather displays Scorsese's own disdain for the practice in society. The male characters who are guilty of misogyny are often depicted as depraved individuals who don't seem to view and appreciate women for who they truly are: human beings. This just goes to show how much Scorsese really thinks outside the box when writing his own films, and just how much he really cares about benefitting the progression of society.
Despite my minor qualms, I can't deny that Raging Bull is a classic masterpiece. The cinematography, the music, Robert De Niro's acting, the story, and Scorsese's own auteurstic directorial abilities come together to form a beautiful piece of cinema that has been cherished for decades. For the most part, it is a superbly fantastic film that managed to grab me and yank me into its story for the final half hour. Even worse, Raging Bull absolutely refused to let me go as its intense and heartbreaking finale was playing out before my eyes. It is one of Scorsese's best films, and one of the best sports dramas I have ever seen.