With RAGING BULL, Martin Scorsese's personal approach to filmmaking is taken to a whole new level. Shooting in a crisp black and white, Scorsese tells the story of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, played with incredible intensity by Oscar winner Robert De Niro. As La Motta rises through the ranks to earn his first shot at the middleweight crown, he falls in love with Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a gorgeous girl from his Bronx neighborhood. Jake's inability to express his feelings pours out in the ring and eventually takes over his life in his dealings with his brother, Joey (a brilliant Joe Pesci). Irrational jealousy over Vickie, as well as an insatiable appetite, sends him into a downward spiral that costs him his title, his wife, and his relationship with Joey. As the out-of-control fighter, De Niro delivers one of the screen's most unforgettable performances. Pesci is just as intense as Joey, who finally realizes that he is unable to tame his animalistic brother. Cinematographer Michael Chapman shoots the film with a stylish flair that fills the boxing scenes with boundless energy and adds immediacy to the arguments that erupt whenever Jake is outside the ring. Simply put, RAGING BULL is one of American cinema's masterworks.
Considered by many critics to be the best film of the 1980s, this gritty docudrama about hardheaded prizefighter Jake La Motta is so astonishingly real it seems like the champ's black-and-white home-movie reels have been spliced together. Robert De Niro's Oscar-winning performance is intense and awe inspiring, and Martin Scorsese uses his regular bag of camera tricks to add to the proceedings. The film features a stellar supporting turn by Joe Pesci as La Motta's brother, Joey.
Filmed on location in New York City.
RAGING BULL was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1990.
Robert De Niro gained 50 pounds and spent hours learning how to box in order to play Jake La Motta. It was the beginning of a trend among American actors of excessive preparation for film roles.
Excerpt: "I'm not an animal."--Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) after being thrown in jail on a morals charge at the end of his career
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78
Letterbox - 1.85
Audio:
Closed Captioned - English
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
Mono - Spanish, French
Subtitles - English, Spanish, French
Additional Release Material:
Trailers: Original Theatrical Trailer
Costume Designer
Richard Bruno:
Director of Photography
Michael Chapman: American Director Of Photography/Director
Story
Jake La Motta:
Story
Joseph Carter:
Story
Peter Savage:
Production Designer
Gene Rudolf:
Sorry, this product does not have this type of information.
Review 1:
"...A fiercely poetic study of violence. Stunningly shot in black-and-white..."
Source: Rolling Stone
p.23 12/14/1989
Review 2:
"RAGING BULL is not simply the greatest boxing movie ever made; Martin Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece is arguably the finest American film released in [that] decade..."
Source: New York Times
p.E23 08/04/2000
Review 3:
"...One of the bloodiest and most beautiful reflections on atonement in the Scorsese canon....It is still one of cinema's most breathtaking films..."
Source: Los Angeles Times
p.F8 01/05/1990
Review 4:
"...Pesci's performance is the counterpoint to De Niro's, and its equal; their verbal sparring has a kind of crazy music to it....RAGING BULL is the most painful and heartrending portrait of jealousy in the cinema..."
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
p.5 05/10/1998
Review 5:
"[A] troubling, exhilarating, masterfully made study of self-destructive masculinity."
Source: Sight and Sound
p.90 11/01/2005
Review 6:
Ranked #2 in Uncut's Best DVDs Of 2005 -- "'Ultimate' is, for once, an accurate description."
Source: Uncut
p.84-85 01/01/2006
Review 7:
5 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t is without a doubt De Niro's ultimate immersion into 'The Method', up there with Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE."
Source: Empire
p.59 09/01/2007
Review 8:
"...[Scorsese's] most ambitious film as well as his finest....The performance of [De Niro's] career..."
Source: New York Times
p.C11 11/14/1980
Review 9:
"[A] monumental biopic..."
Source: Premiere
p.107 02/01/2005
Review 10:
"De Niro has gone above and beyond. Yet nothing can match his mesmerising performance as middleweight boxing champ Jake LaMotta..."
Source: Total Film
p.5 03/01/2004