Summary
Raging Bull opens with a stunning opening credits sequence of boxer Jake LaMotta warming up alone in the ring. The hood of his leopard-skin robe obscures his face while he elegantly jogs and jumps up and down.
A title card reading “New York City 1964” interrupts the dream-like, melancholic sequence. An older and overweight Jake is, once again, alone and preparing for his next performance—this time, it’s for a nightclub appearance. While he rehearses for his act, he recites pieces of Shakespearean tragedy (When I delve into Shakespeare / ‘A Horse, a Horse, my Kingdom for a Horse,’ / I haven't had a winner in six months”) and recollections on his own boxing career (“But if he fought Sugar Ray / He would say / That the thing ain't the ring / It's the play)” before concluding with an homage to a popular Hollywood musical song title, “That’s entertainment! That’s entertainment.”
Jake LaMotta 1941. We then cut to our third introduction to Jake, now as a young, muscular boxer who is receiving several punches to the jaw in the middle of a fight against Jimmy Reeves. Jake is losing, and after his manager and brother, Joey, and other trainers urge Jake to “knock him [Jimmy] out,” he suddenly wakes from his lethargic state and proceeds to give his opponent a severe pummeling. In the final round, blood oozes down from an injured Jimmy, who is physically removed from the ring.
As they wait for the ring announcer to declare the winner, Joey asserts that Jake waited too long to plunge on Jimmy. The ring announcer states that Reeves won the fight “by unanimous decision,” which marks Jake’s first professional defeat. The crowd breaks out into a riot over Jake’s loss; chairs are thrown and one female audience member is trampled.
THE BRONX New York City 1941. Joey is walking with Salvy, a small-time organized crime thug working under Tommy Como, the undisputed mob controller of the boxing industry in New York. Joey and Salvy discuss the Jimmy Reeves fight, and Salvy claims that the stubborn Jake will never get a chance at a title shot if he refuses to cooperate with Tommy. Joey lets Salvy know that Jake already knows this.
Meanwhile, in his cramped apartment, Jake gets into a heated argument with his wife, Irma, who didn't cook the steak to Jake’s liking. Jake wants his steak rare and demands Irma to not overcook it, stating, “Don't overcook it. You overcook it, it's no good. It defeats its own purpose.” The fight begins to escalate, and a volatile Jake upends the table, while Joey and Salvy continue their conversation outside Jake’s apartment. Joey reluctantly agrees to talk to Jake about working with Tommy—“If he’s in a good mood, I’ll talk to him.” The two men part ways, and Joey walks in on the couple’s argument. Jake pushes Irma into their bedroom, and an offscreen neighbor complains about the noise of the quarrel, yelling “What's the matter with you up there, you animals?"
While the neighbor continuously calls Jake an animal, an enraged Jake leans out the window and tells the neighbor that he'll eat his dog for lunch. As Irma yells from the bedroom, Jake haphazardly asks her for a truce (“C’mon, honey, let’s be friends”). Joey and Jake sit down, and Joey encourages Jake not to exert all his energy in “eat[ing] and drink[ing] like an animal” or getting into fights with Irma, as he has other boxing matches coming up. Jake falls silent and then laments about how his small hands—his “little girl’s hands”—will prevent him from fighting greats like Joe Louis. Joey rebuffs these comments because Louis is a heavyweight and Jake is a middleweight, so the two would never fight each other anyway. Jake continues to express his dissatisfaction with his supposed lack of opportunities, saying, “I ain’t never gonna get a chance to fight the best there is. And you know something, I’m better than them…” to which Joey replies, “You’re crazy to even think about something like that. He’s a fucking heavyweight. You’re a middleweight. It’s impossible; it’ll never happen; so why go crazy thinking about it; it’s not normal.”
Jake then abruptly challenges his brother to punch him in the face as hard as he can. Joey refuses, but after Jake incessantly goads him, Joey eventually wraps a cloth around his hand and hits his brother in the face. Unimpressed, Jake provokes Joey into hitting him harder (“You throw a punch like you take it up the ass. Come on, harder") with his bare fist. Jake’s cuts (from the Jimmy Reeves) begin to cut open, and Joey, tired of Jake’s masochistic instincts, yells “What are you trying to prove?” Jake simply casts his brother an enigmatic smile in response.
Later, Jake practices with Joey in the ring at a boxing club. Salvy and his acquaintances intently watch Jake, who is annoyed by their presence. Jake tells Joey, “Don’t ever bring them here again” and proceeds to brutally beat up his own brother. Salvy leaves after this, and Jake condemns Joey for trying to have them cooperate with—and become subservient to—the mafia, which would entail Jake splitting his fortune (“Help me by taking my money? Is that what you're talking about—taking my money? I'm here breaking my ass, not them. Don't ever bring them up here again, ya hear me?”).
At a neighborhood swimming pool, Jake buys a coke and spots a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl, Vickie, hanging around Salvy and other wiseguys. Jake develops an intense attraction to Vickie and begins to berate Joey with questions about her: where’s she from, what’s her last name, if she has had sexual relationships with Salvy, etc. Joey then identifies Vickie as not “the kind of girl you just fuck and forget about...You gotta spend time with her, get involved, you know…,” an insight which prompts Jake to ask Joey if he has slept with Vickie. Joey denies this, but admits to taking her out “a couple of times” and trying unsuccessfully to have sex with her. Jake says, “Naturally. She knew better...she knew you were an animal…[she knew] her whole reputation would have been ruined.” Jake then complains about the Mob—who try to impress Vickie—as he watches Vickie move toward the edge of the pool. Ignoring his comments, Joey reminds Jake that he’s a married man and urges him not to make any advances toward Vickie.
One evening, Jake and Joey, dressed in suits, examine themselves in a mirror before leaving for a night out “on business.” Irma protests the occasion (“you’re not going on business; you’re gonna suck each other off!”) and Jake and Joey ignore her. As they walk outside the apartment, Joey asks Jake, “How much abuse you want to take,” to which Jake replies, “I hit her enough.” From the apartment window, Irma yells homophobic slurs at the brothers.
At the Annual Summer Dance, Jake and Joey enter a ballroom and sit with one Joey’s acquaintances, Beansy. Jake spots Vickie, who soon leaves with Salvy and a large group. Jake follows them downstairs and watches Vickie leave the dance in a luxurious convertible.
Analysis
The first few shots of Raging Bull present three stylistically incongruous introductions to our tortured, hothead protagonist, middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta. We see a dream-like sequence of Jake shadowboxing, a documentary-esque scene of the overweight and aging Jake rehearsing in a nightclub dressing room, and an intense boxing match between Jake and Jimmy Reeves. The mise-en-scene and style of these sequences differ starkly from each other, but they each offer similar characterizations of the isolated, masochistic Jake.
The romantic, uneasy, and languorous opening credit sequence marks our initial impression of Jake, the boxer shadowfighting in the ring. The soft lighting, sophisticated production design, slow motion, and lush music combine to romanticize Jake. The slow-motion camerawork enables him renders his movement graceful, like a dancer, while the classical music imbues the scene with a stunning grandeur.
It’s a stylized, celestial image of a champion, but other elements of the mis-en-scene hint at Jake’s forthcoming self-inflicted isolation and sexual jealousy. The tight framing of the sequence firmly places the ring’s ropes in the foreground, which makes the ring look like a vast wasteland in comparison. For Jake, the ropes symbolize containment, as physical barriers often inhibit him, whether they be the ropes in the boxing ring or the bars in his jail cell. The massive size of the ring emphasizes Jake’s solitude. He is the sole figure in the sequence, which hints at his reliance on the ring to unleash his own internal conflicts: anxieties about sexual inadequacy, repression, and paranoia. While the aforementioned music evokes the dream-like and romanticized image, it also foreshadows Jake’s conflicts with Vickie and Joey. The song—“Intermezzo”—is selected from Cavalleria Rusticana, an Italian opera about two men who fight to the death over a young, beautiful woman. Thus, the song’s thematic implications foreshadow Jake’s fervent, jealous suspicions over Vickie’s possible infidelity later on in the film.
The film’s second introduction to Jake is a jarring transition from the elegant melancholy of the opening credits, but it provides crucial exposition for Jake’s trajectory into an older, burn-out loser preparing a lackluster nightclub performance. The second introduction illuminates Jake’s physical transformation from the young, fit, and graceful boxer in the credits to the older, grotesque, and oily entertainer—who appears anything but graceful.Whereas the mis-en-scene for the first introduction feels impressionistic, the second introduction adopts the drab, conventional look of a documentary (harsh and unpleasant lighting, high contrast photography, a heavy use of medium shots).
The stylistic juxtaposition between these two sequences is simple yet powerful. In the previous scene, we assume the boxer to be Jake, or at the very least a critical character in the film, and now we see our protagonist in a much more dire, pitiful state. We don’t get any context for either scene, but the stark transition between the introductions prompts an understanding that Jake has endured some fall from grace. In turn, we feel an immediate empathy for Jake—or, at the very least, an interest in seeing how he ends up in these circumstances.
While the first two introductions stylistically oppose each other, they unite different themes of the film. Both scenes unveil the theme of performance: Jake warms up for a boxing match in the opening credits, and he rehearses in the dressing room for the second introduction. These two preparations for distinct public performances rely on an isolated, solitary man, and Jake is utterly alone in both scenes. Also, when Jake recites his monologue, he harkens back to the younger version of himself shadow-boxing in the ring—“I remember those cheers, they still ring in my ears…” Jake concludes his monologue by spreading his arms and declaring “That’s entertainment,” a phrase that reduces all performances to the same, banal level. These spoken lines bridge over to the third introduction of Jake: young, healthy, and losing a fight against Jimmy Reeves. By extending the soundbite of “That’s entertainment” to the younger Jake receiving two brutal punches to the face, Scorsese links the violence of boxing with its entertainment value, thereby criticizing the public’s penchant for a sport of such immense brutality.
The third and final introduction characterizes Jake as a capable and ruthless fighter. The scene employs a frenetic style: rapid cutting, a fragmented rhythm, unexpected angles, and frequent steadicam shots disorientate the viewer, making it hard us to find our perspective in the ring and understand the brutal events of the fight as they unfold. Even though we see Jake brutally beat Jimmy, the fight still marks Jake’s first professional loss, which introduces the motif of frustration in the film. Jake may have knocked Jimmy out, but he still loses—an event symbolic of Jake’s recurring failure to feel fulfilled even after he uses violence to release his inner demons.
The motif of frustration becomes more apparent in the following scenes, where Jake laments his insecurities to Joey. Jake has very basic emotions; he complains about his “little girl’s hands,” which supposedly prevent him from fighting heavyweights like Joe Louis. Jake directly associates his hands with weakness and femininity (“little girl’s”), which underlines why he immediately bullies Joey into punching him: he wants to both punish himself for his feminine features and prove his tolerance for pain. Here, we get a first glimpse at Jake’s capacity for masochism. Throughout the film, Jake induces others to inflict pain on him out of the need to prove his own dominance and hyper-masculine authority. Jake also clearly obtains some enjoyment from his masochistic tendencies, as exhibited by his smirk after his cuts reopen.
Critically, Part 1 also introduces Jake’s misogynistic short temper. Jake gets a heated fight with Irma; he flips the table over and throws silverware because of an overcooked steak. Afterward, he threatens to eat his neighbor’s dog. As Joey enters the apartment and Jake makes a half-hearted truce with Irma, he looks calm, good-natured, nonchalant, and prepared to converse with Joey. His argument with Irma cements the pattern of Jake’s domestic disputes, which only escalate in their intensity and degree of violence throughout the film. He begins in a volatile mood, ready to explode at any unprompted moment. Then, when someone vaguely questions Jake's authority, he bullies them and demonstrates his paranoia, as evidenced by his insistence that Irma purposefully overcooked his steak. When Jake’s victim protests his interrogation, he erupts into physical action, and when he feels he’s finished with this abuse, he appears unfazed by the entire ordeal. This pattern of domestic violence later resurfaces in his tumultuous relationship with Vickie.
