The film Raging Bull is based on Jake LaMotta’s memoir, Ragin Bull: My Story. The screenplay was written by Mardik Martin and re-written by Paul Schrader, but both Scorsese and De Niro ended up writing the final draft of the shooting script (Tait, 24). Famously, Martin submitted his first screenplay draft to De Niro, not Scorsese. De Niro then crossed out much of Martin’s dialogue and wrote in his own vernacular speech (Tait, 25). Robert De Niro studied this role for nearly six years and marked every page of the book and script with his acting notes, showing his method that closely relates to Adler’s body personification through actions, clothing, and language versus Strasberg’s cerebral “sense memory” method.
Raging Bull is bookended by two extended takes of the future overweight Jake LaMotta preparing for his performance at the Barbizon Plaza Theater. These are not flash forwards per se, but rather a narrative device Scorsese uses to frame the film. The frontality of presentation in the beginning scene is almost breaking the fourth wall; however, Jake’s line, “That’s Entertainment,” allows the viewers to understand that what we are about to see is a film portrait of Jake LaMotta as he introduces the audience to the film about himself. These green room scenes are our first and last experience of Jake, the once-sculpted athlete who becomes a washed-up, portly lounge act.
The scene begins with a tilt down of a stand-up billboard advertising An Evening with Jake LaMotta. We have seen these shots throughout the film, but before this (except for the opening sequence), they have been boxing advertisements. Instead of the name of whomever Jake is fighting, this billboard lists Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Shakespeare, Budd Schulberg, and Tennessee Williams. The fighting has been repositioned into acting with wordplay. An emotionally troubled man who struggled throughout life to properly articulate his guilt, pain, and anger now uses words to entertain others. The audio is of a city street; the script lists the location as “the corner of 6th Avenue and Central Park South” with a J cut of Jake LaMotta saying, “...and nobody can take that away from me.” We hear Jake before we can see him and immediately understand that he is defensive of where they have been and sees the world around them as one that can take unfairly.
The next shot begins with a close-up of a bare ceiling light bulb, then a light switch that has been painted over with thick paint that covers even the screws. Liquor and beer bottles are in front of a mirror that has pictures and postcards stuck onto it. Next is an extreme close-up of a part of a telephone with a 25-cent slot. Behind the phone is a wall with women’s phone numbers written on it. Some have been scribbled out. The 857-area code says we are in Boston. We still have not been introduced to De Niro as LaMotta. Then a coat rack with some cheap wooden and wire hangers. A single man’s coat hangs at the end. Finally, we move to a medium shot of De Niro as LaMotta giving a performance to himself in the mirror. We are confused and perhaps even terrified of the appearance of De Niro as we struggle to place him with his new heavier appearance.
The audio of the previous shots is important as well. We get to hear the cadence and accent as well as the content of what is being delivered. Compared with the script, this closing scene starts much later than what was written, eliminating much information about LaMotta. The scene seems to start mid-sentence and already deviates from the written script. Instead of “some guys,” De Niro chooses to say “some people,” elevating La Motta’s character, even if just by a tad. De Niro Begins, “Some people weren’t that lucky, like the one that Marlon Brando played in On the Waterfront - an up and comer whose a down and outer. You remember that scene with the back of the car with his brother Charlie, a small-time racket guy. It went something like this…”
De Niro begins the monologue from Brando’s performance in On the Waterfront to himself in the mirror. The performance itself is particularly monotone. Scorsese and De Niro shot this sequence over 19 times with varying degrees of performance but choose this one as it was De Niro’s flattest deliverance. In the Raging Bull commentary, Scorsese says that this was the take they used because he didn’t want over-identification with Marlon Brando’s version of it (Scorsese).
This scene is interesting because there are varying levels of performance within the performance. First, we have De Niro playing Jake LaMotta. Secondly, we have LaMotta playing Brando, and thirdly, De Niro’s performance of LaMotta playing Brando would be a reflection of Brando's performance of playing Terry Malone. The reflection of LaMotta in the mirror could also be seen as a way for the rules of voyeurism to be even further protracted. When LaMotta says, “It was you, Charlie.” It is unsure of who you is to us. Is LaMotta referring to his brother, to himself, or to us?
In the opening of the film, LaMotta also recites Richard III from Shakespeare. He exclaims, “A horse, A horse, my kingdom for a horse!” in a thick Bronx accent. Shakespeare’s Richard III also ties to LaMotta’s intriguing character, yet most of the comparison stays between Brando’s Terry Malone and De Niro’s LaMotta. The main reason for this could be because of the connection between De Niro and Stella Adler. Elia Kazan once said that De Niro was “more dedicated” than Brando and James Dean in terms of the method (Tait, 21).
The evidence is clear to see. In an interview with Michael Parkinson, De Niro explains that some actors are cerebral, and some are body, and that for himself, he tries to bring through the character with the use of clothing, props, and body language (TubiViral). In the final scene, De Niro’s unbuttoned collar, disheveled bowtie, thick cigar prop, and busted prosthetic nose all create an image of Jake LaMotta. Still, the most striking is the extent of weight that De Niro willingly gained (68 pounds) to make his character come alive. Where Orson Welles would add padding, De Niro went on an eating tour of Italy and, after a while, struggled with eating three square meals a day (TubiViral).
De Niro felt that the whole key to Jake’s personality lay in his obsession with weight. In his research, De Niro learned that LaMotta had gained and lost over two thousand pounds throughout his career (Tait, 23). To achieve a perfected performance of LaMotta, De Niro also spent time trying to achieve more weight effects; he states that he would use tactics such as breathing heavily, cotton in the nose to make the brokenness seem more pronounced, and cotton in the mouth to create a “bulk of fat” there. He would also wear clothes too small to “accentuate what has to be accentuated” (Tait, 30).
The weight gain was not the only place that De Niro committed to the method and to De Niro’s desire to “always think of ways to express self thru body…” (Tait, 30). De Niro also trained to be a boxer and studied with Jake LaMotta himself. In the ring, De Niro boxed over 1,000 times and was able to take on his opponents. De Niro felt he needed to earn the right to be in the ring with the other performers, who were real-life boxers. In his notes, De Niro writes affirmations to himself about his boxing ability: "I know I’m a fighter, I have the right to be a fighter + act like one physically + in every way” (Tait, 29).
After the monologue, Martin Scorsese makes his walk-on appearance as the club manager. Because of the camera angle and framing, his head and most of his body are cut off from view. The following dialogue is completely different from the written script, and it is clear the use of improvisation for the scene. The club manager asks how he is doing and lets Jake know he has five minutes left in the green room before performing. There is some slight camera work to reframe De Niro. It is the only camera movement in the entire scene. While they talk, Jake begins to finish buttoning up his collar and straightens his bow tie, his cigar still in his mouth. In fact, the cigar stays in De Niro’s mouth for the entire conversation.
After the stage manager leaves the room, De Niro takes a measured look at himself and a puff on his cigar before standing and finishing buttoning his dinner jacket. Once satisfied, he hunches over, palms on his knees, and speaks to himself in the mirror, “Go get em, champ.” He then begins his pre-fight ritual. Starting slowly with a one-two uppercut, Jake LaMotta grows in intensity and speed. The rapid movement impacts his diaphragm and impacts his grunting as he punches the air. This lets us know that there is still the spirit of a fighter with skill and strength left in this man. LaMotta dances around the room, light on his feet and almost like a dancer. The weight rocks the camera, and the camera has a buoyancy that reacts to the shifting floorboards. “I’m the boss; I’m the boss; I’m the boss,” Jake keeps repeating, amping himself up between the physical gesture before the screen cuts to black and the end credits begin.
The usefulness of the extended take is that it leaves the viewer to their own perception of what is being shown to them. Without forced perspective through POV or multiple cuts, the actor, props, setting, and wardrobe are all that is left to communicate to the viewer. Raging Bull is an excellent example of this Rorschach-like effect. To many, the On the Waterfront monologue is a confirmation of Jake LaMotta’s inability to take responsibility for his actions. Slash Film writes: “In Raging Bull, the mirror signifies how Jake is his own worst enemy. Ironically when facing his reflection, Jake cannot see himself for who he really is. All he can see is his own self-delusion that the entire world is against him. Jake cannot face the truth that he destroyed his relationships with his own barbaric anger” (SlashFilms, 1). Similarly, Screen Rant also had a similar opinion, “Scorsese using the Marlon Brando quote is a clever way of acknowledging the superficial parallels between Raging Bull and On the Waterfront, but it also evidences the way that LaMotta sees himself. Years later, he’s reminiscing about his past and thinking himself a victim of cruel fortune or some malicious scheme of his brothers, and that twisting of the classic quote is an exceptional way to highlight the sort of person that Raging Bull’s LaMotta is (Screenrant, 1).
While I agree that LaMotta is paranoid and always needs to defend himself against phantoms out to him, the idea that he is blaming someone else for his failures rings untrue to me. De Niro stated that at the end of the film, Jake LaMotta’s weight gain releases a certain obsession he had had his entire professional life. Now relaxed and overweight, he is freer to be himself. This relaxation can become a key feature to a redemptive arc. Without being at war with himself, he is finally free to make peace – as he had attempted to do with his brother – with others and within himself, and If this is a redemptive piece of film work, the key to the scene is in the mirror. As LaMotta makes eye contact with himself, he is, at least, indirectly blaming himself for his failures. I also believe that while a poignant comparison to On the Waterfront, the ending scene can be a clarification of an earlier reference to the film. When Jake LaMotta meets Vicky for the first time, he shakes her pinky through the wire fence – reminding me of the infamous glove scene in On the Waterfront.
The issue of compassion was up front and center for both Scorsese and De Niro and can be seen in the ending credits with the blind man proverb. In the lawsuit brought against De Niro by Jake LaMotta’s brother, Robert De Niro was asked about his intentions for portraying Jake the way he did. Robert De Niro responded that while the intent was for it to be factual, they also intended to create a film that was “…about people that were in some ways looked down upon and Jake was not a favorable looking character. A lot of people didn’t like him. That is what interested us about it, and we did the film with much feeling and compassion for him and his brother and his wife and all concerned to make it right… To show their side, to show real people, not just stereotyped, which you see in all other movies. We did lots of work, and it took us years and years to work on this thing, the fight, which we tried to make as factual and as accurate as possible” (Tait, 32). De Niro ended his statement with the following, “…I said it once, and I’ll say it again, nobody would have made a movie as good about them with such love and feeling for it.” (Tait, 33.)
WORKS CITED
Scorsese, Martin, Director. Schoonmaker, Thelma, editor. Raging Bull. Commentary.
Tait, Colin. “Robert De Niro’s ‘RAGING BULL’: The History of a Performance and a Performance of History.” University of Toronto Press, vol. 20, no. 1, 2011. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24411853.
TubiViral. “Robert De Niro on Acting - Michael Parkinson Interview [1981].” YouTube, 2 May 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUQEiJBRN-Q.
Gray, Niall. “Raging Bull Ending Explained.” ScreenRant, Aug. 2022, screenrant.com/raging-bull-ending-explained.
Madden, Caroline. “Raging Bull Ending Explained: Jake LaMotta Loses It All.” /Film, Feb. 2022, www.slashfilm.com/756636/raging-bull-ending-explained-jake-lamotta-loses-it-all.
Scorsese, Martin, et al. Scorsese on Scorsese. 1989, ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA1222428X.
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