Wow, great film. Though I do not understand why a movie was made about Jake La Motta's life. He was an asshole, totally unlikeable but still very interesting. Some scenes felt like just another DeNiro/Pesci/Scorsese gangster flick but I guess this movie was the first. Another thing that bothered me was the makeup, there's a scene where DeNiro is kissing Moriarity and her face squishes his nose. It seems like that will be one movie that HD will actually hurt. But a great movie overall.

I think you answered your own question.

I love this film for DeNiro's performance. I didn't see it untl fairly recently (about a year ago) and I don't know why I waited so long.

Easily on my top five all-time list.

Simply stunning.

Got it blind having never seen it but always having it on my watch list.

Damn good acting, but I only paid attention to it halfway as I was reading. I knew it would be a movie requiring several viewings to truly appreciate.

On a side note, I could have sworn I saw photos somewhere from the movie of LaMotta taking his blows in color with red blood going everywhere. Was this stuff cut out or just shot in B/W to avoid ratings problems?

This was one of those movies that took me several viewings before I could appreciate and like it. I like the film from a technical standpoint and De Niro was great. But I really couldn't empathize with Jake La Motta at all. He seemed like a thug in and outside the ring. Although the commentary track he does make me understand him better.

The beginning of the book has LaMotta saying that he would have wanted a movie based on his life to be in B/W. And for the longest time, I just assumed that Scorsese didn't give any thought of making the movie in color until I saw the featurettes last night. It looked like there originally were plans to make it in color.

There are a number of stills from LaMotta/Robinson VI that does show the massacre in color. I've seen them in Empire and Entertainment Weekly. Too bad none of them are on this DVD.

Pfft, movies don't need sympathetic characters to be fun to watch. Also, the people that surround him are the sympathetic characters (ie. his wife and brother suffering from his violent ways).

I think you can admire many things about him including that he tried as long as he could to get everything on his own without the help of the mafia. He also fought with a lot of heart and many of his fights were within weeks of eachother.

there are many color publicity stills taken on set that are floating around, but they are not frames from the motion picture. what ive heard scorsese say is that one reason he shot it in black in white was in "protest" to the poor quality of color film stocks at the time. it apparently was very susceptible to fading and degradation. probably coincided with the beginning stages of scorsese's noteworthy endeavors into the restoration of cinema classics.

Or at least one viewing where you're actually watching the movie.

I met and talked with the real LaMotta for a while one afternoon a few years ago, and he can be sort of a jerk. I'm sure if I got to know him a bit better, he might have been a bit less abrasive, but he seemed like one of those guys who doesn't really care if he is nice all the time(or at all) or not.

Really? In the featurette "Inside the Ring" they say they discussed color but decided on black and white fairly early on, for a number of reasons. They go into enough detail I won't waste space here recounting all the details.

In the featurette I mentioned above, it's mentioned that the fading of color print stock was a concern, but it was the last of the reasons given for shooting in black and white.

Slightly related topic: If memory serves, because they were filming in black and white, chocolate syrup was used in place of stage blood because it photographs better in black and white.

Scorcese didn't like the look of the bright red boxing gloves, and his D.P. said that the way to fix that problem was to shoot in black and white.

I think this is the kind of movie every guy in his early 20's should watch with his buds while drinking some brews.

Uh, no. The D.P., Michael Chapman, wasn't involved in that discussion.

The story Scorsese tells in the featurette is about watching some 8 mm test footage of De Niro sparring. Something about the color didn't seem right to Scorsese, and British director Michael Powell, who was watching the footage with him, pointed out that the color of De Niro's gloves was wrong. The gloves were bright red, whereas gloves from LaMotta's period were a darker oxblood.

"It suddenly hit me --- the color," Scorsese said. "You know, I love color movies. I'm obsessed with color. But when he said that, 'The gloves are wrong,' it hit me. That's when we decided. I said, 'Let's make it black and white.' And so that was the main part of it: the look of the picture."

Scorsese's cinematographer, Michael Chapman, then says he liked the idea of shooting "Raging Bull" in black and white because they all associated boxing with black and white, because of photos in Life magazine and watching Friday night fights on TV in the early days of television. "I'd never shot a movie in black and white, so I said 'Yes, I'd love it,'" Chapman said.

Wow. What a difference subtitles make. Check out that scene that has Jake sparring with Joey in the gym where the thugs walk in. Frank Adonis' character quietly says, "I heard this fucker didn't win the fight". And for the longest time, I always thought he said, "I heard he hit this fucker with a pipe" which refers to an attack that LaMotta was linked to in his early days before boxing!

before this thread goes any further, the correct spelling is...
Scorsese

I just watched Raging Bull for the first time tonight.

It's a great character study of an American asshole. A man filled with jealousy, rage, and anger. The main players do a great job with the characters - the acting is top notch - this is probably DeNiro and Pesci's best performances of all time. They take us along a depressing, jagged ride from the middle to the bottom...never quite reaching the top. I guess I'll put it this way...Raging Bull is a fantastic movie that I wouldn't have a problem never watching again.

The last fight scene that pits LaMotta against Robinson is one of the most brutal scenes I've seen on film.

You listening, your mother sucks fucking big fucking elephant dicks, you got that?

I don't know why, but I always laugh my ass off at the scene were DeNiro beats the shit out of Pesci at the dinner table. Maybe because we see DeNiro enter the house from afar in a fit of rage and Pesci doesn't know what hit him.

I love that the movie is shot in B&W. It goes with the time period quite well.

Yeah, that scene was really great. Especially how the scene opens with Pesci telling his kid he's going to stab him with his knife if he doesn't stop playing with his food.

That no good wife of his had a lot to do with his downfall.

The opening sequence is so memorable.

I used to like this movie...but then I read the book it's based on. Scorsese and his screenwriter(s) get so many key details wrong they seem to have missed the point of the book entirely in order to turn it into another DeNiro show-off acting showcase. For one thing, the key relationship in the book is between Jake and his best friend, not his brother. It was the best friend (Peter Savage, who co-wrote the book) whom he accused of making it with his wife, not his brother. There's a whole different dynamic between brothers than best friends and Scorsese (who never had a brother) missed that entirely. Also, the reason for Jake's rage, the rage that fueled his boxing career, is clearly delineated in the book and once that reason disappears, the rage goes and his boxing career declines. That's not in the movie and it's the key to understanding LaMotta.

I know this kind of thing doesn't bother anybody else, but it infuriates me.

I think anybody who has the 2 disc DVD knows this...and..yes ok, leave your anger at the door. It was great film regardless. That'd be like us bitching about how in HEAT not everything was like how it happened to all those involved in the actual cops vs. robbers tale that was real.

"I'm gonna open his hole like this. Please excuse my French. I'm gonna make him suffer. I'm gonna make his mother wish she never had him - make him into dog meat... He's a nice, a nice kid. He's a pretty kid, too. I mean I don't know, I gotta problem if I should fuck him or fight him."