Amazon.com reviews for
Raging Bull (1980)

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Raging Bull (vhs):

Amazon.com Essentials: Martin Scorsese's 1980 Raging Bull has been identified in recent years as one of America's greatest films, and understandably so. Robert De Niro won a richly deserved Academy Award for portraying fighter Jake La Motta, an extremely difficult New York boxer who has to contend with his own temper and jealousy, as well as the Mob and the boxing establishment. Joe Pesci is very good as La Motta's long-suffering brother, and Cathy Moriarty made a strong screen debut as the brawler's glamorous wife. The highly contrasted black-and- white film has a richness, texture, and even sensuality about it that, together with Scorsese's amazing editing (with his Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker) and De Niro's focused, tragic performance, is unforgettable. The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, plus closed captioning, Dolby sound, theatrical trailer, and optional French and Spanish soundtracks and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh

Raging Bull (dvd):

Amazon.com Essentials: Martin Scorsese's brutal black-and-white biography of self-destructive boxer Jake LaMotta was chosen as the best film of the 1980s in a major critics' poll at the end of the decade, and it's a knockout piece of filmmaking. Robert De Niro plays LaMotta (famously putting on 50 pounds for the later scenes), a man tormented by demons he doesn't understand and prone to uncontrollably violent temper tantrums and fits of irrational jealousy. He marries a striking young blond (Cathy Moriarty), his sexual ideal, and then terrorizes her with never-ending accusations of infidelity. Jake is as frightening as he is pathetic, unable to control or comprehend the baser instincts that periodically, and without warning, turn him into the rampaging beast of the title. But as Roman Catholic Scorsese sees it, he works off his sins in the boxing ring, where his greatest athletic talent is his ability to withstand punishment. The fight scenes are astounding; they're like barbaric ritual dance numbers. Images smash into one another--a flashbulb, a spray of sweat, a fist, a geyser of blood--until you feel dazed from the pummeling. Nominated for a handful of Academy Awards (including best picture and director), Raging Bull won only two, for De Niro and for editor Thelma Schoonmacher. --Jim Emerson