2. RAGING BULL (1980)

This movie is the reason why people respect De Niro. Sure, he's done some great stuff in other roles, but he's almost always playing a mobster; and since we assume by now that De Niro really is something of a wise guy, it doesn't seem like much of an acting stretch. But this role is different. Yes, he slaps his wife around - so it's got that mafioso feel to it - but the man is so vulnerable in this role that you just have to watch in awe. First, he transforms himself from a rock-hard boxing champ into a nauseating dollop of lard over the course of the film. He gained an enormous amount of weight for the part and, since we see him without his shirt at both the zenith and the nadir of his life, it's all too real. Second, his character is so dysfunctionally paralyzed by jealousy that he comes off looking psychotic; when he finally gets over that stage of his life, we are faced with the horror of his depressing autumn years spent delivering horrendous jokes at an irrelevant night club. Phew, it's all pretty depressing.

Raging Bull is the story of the boxer Jake LaMotta. The film follows the arc of his life from his youth to middle age, traversing his engagement and marriage to his wife, Vickie, and his boxing career. Although LaMotta was a famous and successful boxer - and this film depicts in tremendous detail some of his bouts - the far more interesting story of his life concerns his raging insecurity and pathological jealousy toward Vickie. His closest friend is his brother, Joey, played wonderfully by Joe Pesci, but Jake's paranoia is so great that he comes to suspect even his brother of a dalliance with his wife. The boxing scenes that have made this movie so famous are not an end unto themselves so much as a vehicle for the emotional fury of this man. Nevertheless, they are still some of the best boxing sequences you can find on film today.

De Niro pulled down a Best Actor Oscar for this film and well deserved it. The film is complete, however, because the supporting cast is so strong. Pesci was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and this may be one of the last times he ever acted in an understated way; the rest of his career was a descent into cosa nostra absurdity, beginning with Goodfellas and scraping the bottom in the Lethal Weapon series. This film captures De Niro, Scorsese, and Pesci all on the upswing of their careers.

Notes:

  • Nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress

  • Won 2 Academy Awards: Best actor and film editing

  • Scorsese used the sounds of wild animals during the fight scenes to make the fights sound more primal

  • De Niro gained 50 pounds for the opening and closing scenes

  • Placed #24 on the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Movies" List