is raging bull worth watching for someone who can't stand boxing?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by zombie dai, Jun 19, 2022.

  1. hyntsonsvmse

    hyntsonsvmse Nick Beal

    Location:
    northumberland
    I also don't like films that glorify psychopaths who openly act above the law. Mafia films don't do a thing for me.
    The untouchables is fun where the good guys always win. It's a fantasy film as we all know that mafias aren't going anywhere and that good guys who fight them usually end up in caskets.
    All this glorification drivel about mafia honour etc. Its balderdash. They are murdering psychopaths who don't know the meaning of honour.
    I can admire the cinematic skills involved in such films but that's where my admiration stops and revulsion starts
     
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  2. zombie dai

    zombie dai people live in dreams, but not in their own Thread Starter

    that's true of many genres. it is because people are removed from the reality of the situation. for example, i heard people raving about the tv series Chernobyl and how exciting and cool it is, something far removed from the reality. superhero films, james bond films etc. can be seen to be glorifying destructive behaviour. when i watch a film with a 'car chase' i keep thinking someone's life has been severely impacted by those chasing each other brazenly destroying their car, and the things around
     
  3. zombie dai

    zombie dai people live in dreams, but not in their own Thread Starter


    given its standing and how i like the director and lead actor, it seemed a film that deserved a chance. i asked the question because i wasn't sure if my initial reaction to the opening 10 minutes or so was a fair reflection of the film. so the question as to the value was , is this a film which has a purpose, whereas, for me, boxing has no real purpose as it is built around the brutal destruction of another. the people here very kindly explained the context of the film which made it seem worth watching. i don't think i'll watch it again, but i think it was only fair to the film to see if my initial dislike was irrational. i've seen many 'classic' films and not really enjoyed them, and some of my favourite films are relatively unknown. when it comes to film, the most important thing for me is narrative. so i guess i could reword the thread, 'does the boxing fit within the narrative thread of the film', which, as people said, it certainly does. and the boxing is only in short clips, given how the film started i was worried it would be long bouts of boxing, which people assured me it wasn't.

    those who said they liked the film or didn't like the film explained the premise of the film and its narrative structure. after that it just comes down to personal preference. i think the replies i got here were very helpful and helped me to make an informed decision. as i say above, i'd much rather watch On the Waterfront or Lenny, which cover the same type of narrative, but that is personal preference!
     
  4. AC1

    AC1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Antwerp, Belgium
    If you know it's a Martin Scorsese movie starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci but your main worry is that it's only going to appeal to boxing fans then I doubt you will like Raging Bull.
     
  5. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    B-but, the Economy! All those poor stunt drivers being able to feed their starving children, all on account of Vin Deisel! :mudscrying:

    :winkgrin:
     
  6. Speedmaster

    Speedmaster We’re all walking through this darkness on our own

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Reading through this thread makes me understand a little better why all these movies I don’t care for become huge box office hits.

    On topic: if you have to ask if Raging Bull is any good and worth your time, it says something about how much you want to invest in a movie. And this one probably will ask too much of you. I’d skip it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2022
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  7. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    it's a master acting class from deniro, after that........:shrug:
     
  8. aroney

    aroney Who really gives a...?

    Seems like in most of the classic mafia-related films (Godfather, Goodfellas etc.) the "bad" guys always end up losing (lives, family, freedom and so on) anyway...
     
  9. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Disliking boxing and being bored by the boxing are two different things, and I would have two different answers depending on which it was. Boxing *enthusiasts*, for example, probably dislike Raging Bull's boxing scenes because of how unlike an actual fight they are. On the other hand, if you actively don't like boxing because of the brutality/gladiatorial nature of it, it's worth noting that Raging Bull amps those things up in its boxing scenes, which are highly stylized and look nothing like actual boxing. They're not particularly long, but meant to be brutal and tough to watch. They had to shoot it in B&W to avoid it looking like a slasher film, there is so much blood.
     
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  10. Steve Baker

    Steve Baker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbia, Maryland
    Scorsese is an artist. "Raging Bull" is one of his best works. If you don't like boxing don't watch it. If you love film, buy it. If you can get lost in the actor at the pinnacle of his ability, you owe it to yourself to watch DeNiro and Pesci. Classic film.
     
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  11. marcb

    marcb Senior Member

    Location:
    DC area
    Sorry. I misread what you wrote. Yes, we’re saying basically the same thing.
     
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  12. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    Now that the OP's seen Raging Bull, I'll say what I wanted to earlier: It's a brilliantly made film I don't really care for. This was around the time Pauline Kael started turning on Scorsese, and for good reason, IMO. Always loved this part of her review:

    I know I’m supposed to be responding to a powerful, ironic realism, but I just feel trapped. Jake says, “You dumb ****,” and Joey says, “You dumb ****,” and they repeat it and repeat it. And I think. What am I doing here watching these two dumb ****s?
     
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  13. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Scorcese's movies typically have broad, universal themes, but there's usually elements that are historical/biographical and not universal. IMO "write what you know" was and is one of the best pieces of advice a novelist/writer/director can follow, but it can also lead to a certain amount of repetition in a long career. Scorsese's characters and environments are often rooted in his own experiences, which has a larger context of the Italian-American experience in New York City. And while there are universals in that, it's also a particular thing, that occurred in a particular time and place. There are lots of ways to potentially portray a brutish, broken man rising to success and then falling in the world.... Scorsese did it within the Wise-Guy web, which is where many other of his films also exist. If one isn't attuned to it or interested in that kind of environment, I can understand why it might not be a thumbs-up them (and as we move away from that time chronologically, it may become culturally distant for younger generations).

    For me, I saw Raging Bull I think as a 2nd or 3rd year college student in the early 1990s and the thing that got me was the camera-work (which I have to say I hadn't really noticed in films much before). The fight scenes I thought made great use of light/dark and other visual stylistics. They were nothing like any "boxing match" I had ever seen, either for real or depicted in film. My only previous experience with boxing movies had been the Rocky stuff, and while I think it helps to like boxing to like the Rocky movies, Raging Bull is definitely not a "boxing movie." I also was coming off a love affair with Goodfellas at the time, so I was trying to watch anything with DeNiro and Pesci in it.
     
  14. zombie dai

    zombie dai people live in dreams, but not in their own Thread Starter

    Raging Bull (1980) - Review by Pauline Kael - Scraps from the loft

     
  15. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    "When he loses the title and gives up fighting, he opens a night club, where he’s the m.c. and the comic, clowning around with the customers. I had no idea where this cheesy jokester came from: there was certainly no earlier suggestion that Jake had a gift of gab."

    I think it's a pretty well-written review, but this misses the mark wildly. LaMotta has the gift of gab? That's what he got from those lines? I see a guy who isn't doing anything particularly well but who has such a desperate need to be loved that all he has left is trading on whatever others get from being associated with a former boxing champion.
     
  16. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    Thanks, I was unable to find that earlier.

    Btw, Kael also pointed out that another masterfully directed Scorsese film, GoodFellas, is almost completely devoid of drama (unlike the Godfather movies). It's just a series of vividly compelling sequences, held together by Scorsese's immense filmmaking skill. Which, btw, is perfectly fine with me. And I much prefer it to Raging Bull.
     
  17. zombie dai

    zombie dai people live in dreams, but not in their own Thread Starter

    Sorry, Dude: These Women Understand ‘Goodfellas’ | IndieWire

    Pauline Kael Reviews "GoodFellas"
     
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  18. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    Thanks again. :righton:

    A few years after the GoodFellas review, Kael gave an interview where it was pretty obvious she had downgraded the movie--and the above isn't an entirely positive review to begin with. Too bad. I like GoodFellas a lot.
     
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  19. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    A not-very-well thought-out review, IMO. If *this* is what she's fixated on:

    " In a hurried, not very shapely concluding sequence he ties up some threads and tells us about a few of the characters in final titles—omitting, though, a high-comic piece of information: Hill was so determinedly crooked he used the new identity given him by the Witness Protection Program to start up a new life of thievery and was thrown out of the program. But then we’ve learned so little about him. It’s startling to read the title telling us that Henry and Karen separated after twenty-five years, because we realize we don’t have any knowledge of what kept them together so long."

    Then she missed the point entirely. The "Henry Hill" of the film was just a vessel for the way of life. Virtually everything he narrates is about what other people are doing. He's not really even narrating his own story; he's narrating the stories of others. We know that for as far back as he could remember, he wanted to be a gangster... and then we see all the reasons why, and the consequences of it. We're supposed to care about Henry and Karen's marriage, and wonder why she stayed with him? I dare say that Pauline Kael's life experiences - which included well-to-do parents, University at Berkeley in the 1930s and a brief period of time in NYC shortly after among the established artist class - make her unsuited to "getting" something like Goodfellas. We aren't supposed to know much or even care all that much about Henry Hill the person. Even his name is fortuitously Anglicized into something mundane and dull. It's all of the other guys who are the characters. And Hill can only participate to a limited extent, what with his being half Irish and all.

    She was a provocative and influential critic, but IMO part of what made her insights into films otherwise not necessarily widely regarded as valuable, also resulted in her simply not understanding some other films that were. Goodfellas (and the work Scorsese and Kubrick in general) is one such example.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2022
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  20. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    Btw, she loved Scorsese in the '70s--but you probably already know that. And by the time of GoodFellas, she was but a shadow of the critic she once had been. She hung it up not long after that review.

    Kubrick? She liked him before Dr. Strangelove. After that, not much.
     
  21. SRC

    SRC That sums up Squatter for me

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Goodfellas is to me not only one of my favorite, endlessly watchable films, but a great example of "sociological storytelling" as opposed to psychological storytelling. Sociological stories being about systems or institutions, how they work, and how they affect the people in them. The system or institution in Goodfellas is organized crime, in those times and places. As you said, we aren't personally invested in Henry Hill or his marriage and none of the characters have any particular "arc" like you might find in psychological storytelling. They are all born into that system, and die (in one way or another) in that system sooner or later, and the audience just sits back and watches how the system works. Scorsese at that particular time began seeing value in this kind of storytelling perhaps, as he excels in showing the audience "how things work", giving viewers glimpses into worlds that they may have no direct knowledge of. The characters' motivations are simple enough - greed, fear, etc. Kael seemed confused about why Karen and Henry stayed together so long, even though I think there are very simple answers to that which are outright stated in the film, simply and clearly.

    Goodfellas takes a far more dispassionate view on its characters than most of Scorsese's other films, which often has characters taking on punishment as some kind of religious penance. Heretically perhaps, but to me this applies across so many of his movies, with very different characters and reasonings, from LaMotta voluntarily taking on punishment in the ring for his sins in Raging Bull, to Jesus Christ being crucified in the Last Temptation. Like the Charlie character says in Scorsese's Mean Streets, “You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets.” I love these movies but it doesn't surprise me that by 1990, Scorsese maybe pulled back investing so much of his own psychological/spiritual angst into his characters, and the result was a relatively light (on meaning, but not on violence) classic film that is so well-loved for his craft and is able to be entertaining without being bogged down by existential questions.
     
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  22. Big Jimbo

    Big Jimbo Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Mediocre film. Stick with the 1950s classics “Champion” with Kirk Douglas and Humphrey Bogart’s last film “The Harder they Fall”. Best thing about this film was Jake LaMotta’s ex wife Vicki got a “Playboy” spread out of it. 53 and she was gorgeous.
     
  23. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    Throw in ' The Set Up' with Robert Ryan.
     
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  24. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    now I have to watch this again!
     
  25. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    love that movie! bought the DVD years ago...
     

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