as i said before, i thought the storytelling had been done better elsewhere the biopic of the comedian lenny bruce is another good example
Not exactly. The arc of his boxing career - and thus to a large degree his life and persona - is a big part of the story. They are interconnected in a significant way by the fight scenes and the action in the ring. If they weren’t, I doubt Scorcese would have used them.
It doesn’t help if you can’t stand boxing. Another strike would be if you don’t enjoy black and white movies. If you don’t even like Robert DeNiro, go to a bar instead.
I've seen Raging Bull once and I thought it was kind of boring. I am in the minority, but I think Ordinary People deserved the Best picture nomination (Which I have watched many many times)
You don’t seem to understand The Godfather and The Godfather Part II - they’re basically metaphors. Goodfellas is a great film or more aptly a great spectacle, but not too deep. Scarface is trash. Ironically, the assumptions in your post are kind of toxic.
There was a point in America when the police and FBI didn’t even realize La Cosa Nostra existed. I’ve read that some mafia members thought The Godfather was a fairly accurate depiction.
Those two movies were up for best picture, along with Elephant Man, Coal Miner's Daughter and Tess. And I think you mean Ordinary People deserved the best-picture win.
It’s just occurred to me: although I own a dvd of this film, I’ve never watched the whole thing. I’m familiar with the famous scenes and lines but I’ve yet to experience the film as a ‘continuous narrative’. Well, that’s a task for later in the week … Boxing is the only sport I can tolerate watching (that’s if you can call it a ‘sport’), but I’ve always understood it’s about ‘a boxer’ rather than ‘boxing’.
I honestly see the whole genre as toxic, and I see more people who don't see the metaphors as much as they're drawn to the bang-bang. The only gangster film I have ever seen any value in is Once Upon A Time In America, which is gorgeous and evocative. I truly don't see any benefit in society learning anything from films exploring thug lifestyle, so there will always be pushback from me on this subject, whether you see my viewpoint as "toxic", or "considered".
Gangster films are my favorite genre, but I've never been able to get into Once Upon a Time in America, though I've tried numerous times. The interesting part for me is exploring moral ambiguity, honor among thieves, family as a higher sort of law, and twists that pit allies against each other. But OUaTiA handles these in such a sterile way that it's not interesting to me.
I would rate RAGING BULL as one of those classics that appeals to people otherwise disinterested in that particular sport like THE HUSTLER; BULL DURHAM; I TONYA, etc. RAGING BULL is more akin to GOODFELLAS than ROCKY. A movie similar to RAGING BULL, if not quite as brutal, is COBB, starring Tommy Lee Jones as the aged and ultra-competitive pre-Ruthian baseball superstar.
hmmmm. one who "zones out" during the film, does not deserve to reap the rewards. Move on, I suggest. it's deniro and scorcese!! it's cinema.
The boxing shots may be done well but some of the parts are stupidly unrealistic and nowhere near what happened.
Given the OP's initial views after having watched part of the movie, why should we convince him that it worth watching if he doesn't like boxing? Yeah, the story is about more than this most manly sport-- I like boxing, one of my neighbors was the world champ-peen before WWII-- Fritzy Zivic- known as a dirty fighter, but by the time I knew him, he was called "champ" and a local hero. I got a compilation reel from an old school boxing promoter who owned a lot of footage going back to the bare knuckles stuff. It's a brutal sport. Maybe there are other movies that the OP would prefer to see. Though I do like boxing, I don't see the need to convince the OP to watch the film.
This thread has gone a bit all over the place, but for what it's worth, I absolutely love Raging Bull, and I cannot stand boxing. That is, I can absolutely watch the boxing scenes in the film and enjoy them as part of the story's brutal narrative, but you'd couldn't pay me enough to actually watch boxing on TV normally, I think it's awful. Here's a quote from Roger Ebert that says something about the film better than I ever could: That gives a decent sense of the underlying premise. But on top of that, the acting, direction, editing, and cinematography are amazing - all award-winning and well deserved.
But, not here. I've been watching the evidence play itself out over a number of years. It's not a fit subject for forum discussion, unless it involves Ukraine and Russia, apparently. I'll leave the others to extol the blessings of pugilism at their leisure. The OP just wanted to know if a boxing movie is worth it for anybody who can't stand boxing; as somebody who can't stand boxing, I offered my viewpoint. Nothing more relevant to add.
