Word: motta
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Raging Bull. Robert De Niro and Director Martin Scorsese reveal little of the psychology that drove Boxer Jake La Motta, but much about their own passion and intelligence for making movies. A technical knockout...
...Jake La Motta in his autobiography...
...Motta was an animal, a bull in the ring and a pig outside, and Scorsese is true to both Jakes. The boxing sequences (which amount to barely a dozen minutes of the movie's two hours plus) are as violent, controlled, repulsive and exhilarating as anything in the genre. Scorsese layers the sound track with grunts and screams, animal noises that seem to emanate from hell's zoo. The camera muscles into the action, peering from above, from below, from the combatant's point of view, panning 360° as a doomed fighter spins toward the canvas...
...become evident that much of Raging Bull exists because of the possibilities it offers De Niro to display his own explosive art. He trained as a boxer for months, until La Motta, who coached him, believed the actor could be a contender; he gained 50 lbs. in two months to play the aging Jake. As Jake in 1941 or Jake in 1964, as comer or loser, as raging-bull boxer or battering-ram husband, shouting obscenity or whispering apology, De Niro is always absorbing and credible, even when his character isn't. When the film is moving on automatic...
...billed, in French-speaking Montreal, as le face a face historique: the historic confrontation, a pairing mentioned in the same breath as Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier, Joe Louis vs. Billy Conn, Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Jake La-Motta. In one corner, Sugar Ray Leonard, 24, the World Boxing Council welterweight champion, a virtuoso boxer with stunningly swift hands and a made-for-television smile. In the other corner, Roberto Duran, 29, the former lightweight titlist, a Panama City ruffian with manos de piedra (hands of stone) and a menacing countenance...