👋 Hello again, blog!
🎥 The film we will be talking about today is titled Raging Bull. This film is based on the real, professional boxer, Jake LaMotta. This film was made during the reign of New Hollywood and was influenced by the French New Wave and German cinema.
🙅 I didn't really like this film because it showed domestic violence and possessive behaviors towards women as if they were property. Some people, though, liked how this film focused on a character with so many imperfections and personality flaws. In "The Art of Martin Scorsese" by Jim Leach and Martin Scorsese, it was mentioned how some people reacted to Scorsese's film in ways that weren't expected. One unexpected reaction was laughter during a horrific moment. He believed it was a nervous reaction. I was reminded of this while discussing Raging Bull. Someone had said how they thought there were some humorous parts. I didn't really think those moments they mentioned were funny, rather I thought they were sort of cringy and gave me second-hand embarrassment.
😲 There were some moments, though, where this film was kind of impressive. The main one was how Jake LaMotta never let his 'manliness' be dismissed. Even though he was beaten up pretty bad in one of the boxing matches, he said how he never truly went down. The acting in this film was extremely well done! I really felt disgusted and enraged of the character Jake LaMotta since the actor's acting was so real. This was probably because of their practice of method acting.
👀 I would recommend this film to someone who likes boxing. If you shudder at the sight of blood, I recommend you stay away from this film for your own good.
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During a film there are many things going on. I believe what we focus on is what we look for in the film. I didn't realize any comical parts in the film either but then again I wasn't looking as closely as I could have. The method acting really helped here but I also think that it made it look dramatic, especially in the ring.
ReplyDeleteI like how you brought up the effectiveness of method acting in this film. An actor's job is always to convince the viewers that they really are experiencing all the physical and emotional ups and downs that their character goes through, but I completely agree that DeNiro as well as the rest of the cast really take it to the next level in "Raging Bull".
ReplyDeleteI also did not like this film for the exact same reasons I did not like the toxic masculinity and the domestic abuse taking place. I love how you mentioned the things the film did well and how that connected to the characteristics of New Hollywood and I also like how you mentioned method acting. DeNiro is such a great actor that he made us hate him with this role which shows the commitment he put into really understanding his character.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel like the disparities towards female characters was more intentional than that; Scorsese does a great job of creating anti-heroes and people who are more than just good or bad. Nobody in this movie is particularly a person to root for, and that's what makes the character depth so strong and realistic.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the character's embrace of toxic masculinity was hard to take but I just found it interesting how completely Scorsese built his cinematic universe so we understood the character's motivations.
ReplyDeleteBilly- This film gave me mixed feelings as well. I think that the watching experience can be different based on who is watching it as well how many times a person may have seen it. The most impressive scenes to me were the moments in the ring. I think that when our class talked about realism it made me think about how the boxing scenes were far from real but still gave a realistic feeling of what a boxer may experince.
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