Raging Bull is 1980 film by Director Martin Scorsese that is widely regarded as 1 of the greatest ever made. Actor Robert DeNiro stars as middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta whose opponents in the ring pale next to his opponents within himself. The script was written by Paul Schrader and is based on Jake LaMotta’s 1970 memoir ‘Raging Bull: My Story’. In this analysis, I will examine the film's symbolism and its key themes such as:
- Rage
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Jealousy
- Atonement
- Born again
- "Now I see"
Clip 1
In the opening credits, we see the main character of the film shadowboxing in a boxing ring enveloped in smoke. Jake LaMotta is struggling with demons within himself. The boxing ring is his altar and the blood he spills in it pays for the sins he commit outside of it. The boxing ring is also an outlet for his passions. His nickname, “Raging Bull,” implies a creature that is driven by its emotions and appetites. But just as passion brings about the boxer’s downfall it is also what helps him to turn his life around.
Clip 2
The story opens in the dressing room of a nightclub where a fat and retired Jake LaMotta is preparing to do a stand-up routine. He sits in front of a mirror but he is not looking at himself as he reads these lines: “and though I’m no Olivier and before Sugar Ray would say: “the thing ain’t the ring, it’s the play” so give me a stage, where this bull here can rage, and though I can fight, I’d much rather recite, ‘That’s Entertainment!’
Clip 3: Rage
Jake’s marriage is falling apart because his wife suspects him of infidelity. The explosive rage that makes him a great boxer is on display here as he and his wife get into a fight over a steak. Right off the bat we get to see 2 sides of Jake’s personality, rage and lack of discipline. This scene also introduces Jake’s little brother Joey, played by Joe Pesci, and Frank Vincent who plays the role of Salvy Batts, a member of the mafia. The clip following this one is a continuation of this scene where we get to see the brothers interact and learn that they are partners with Joey being Jake’s manager.
Clip 4: Lust
Joey introduces Jake, who is still married, to a 15 year old girl named Vikki. Jake saw her in a nightclub with a member of the mafia and became obsessed with her. Joey knew her and introduces them in this scene, which takes place at a public swimming pool. The black and white clothes Jake wears in this scene represents the conflict he has within himself in contrast to Vikki who wears all white. Also, the chain-link fence enclosing the public pool and that also separates Jake and Vikki is in the pattern of crosses going along with the religious iconography throughout the film.
Clip 5
This scene is a montage of Jake’s fights and him marrying Vikki shot to look like a home movie and also shot in color in contrast to the boxing cuts,which are shot in vintage black and white. These brief clips are the only instances in the film that Jake looks happy. This montage was an efficient way to move the film along without being distracted from the main theme, that of Jake’s struggles within himself.
Clip 6
This is the 1st of 6 meetings between LaMotta and Sugar Ray Robinson. To research actual boxing matches, Scorsese went to Madison Square Garden and saw fights with a friend. He realized that he didn’t know how to shoot boxing matches. DePalma smiled at Scorsese and wished him luck.
Director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, Peeping Tom, etc.) was the one who first noticed that the gloves in the movie were the wrong color. This is what prompted Scorsese to shoot the film in black and white.
The fights were patterned after dance styles such as the tango, the foxtrot, the mambo, and the waltz.
The fighter playing Sugar Ray is Johnny Barnes. He was 1 of many actual boxers Scorsese used in this movie.
Clip 7: Gluttony
This scene shows one of the many battles confronting Jake: his weight. In between fights he picks up a lot of weight. But also in this scene we see that Vikki is unhappy. Also, we see the politics of boxing, that despite Jake’s success he is not guaranteed a shot. Joey convinces Jake to throw an upcoming fight with a weaker opponent named Billy Fox. Later, at a nightclub, Jake and his friends are having drinks and Jake is boasting about his upcoming bout with Janiro when Vikki throws in her 2 cents, saying that she thinks that Janiro is good-looking. Jake is consumed with jealousy and he is even more determined to destroy Janiro in the following scene after this one.
Clip 8
In this scene, Joey spots Jake’s wife, Vikki, in a nightclub with a local hood named Salvy Batts having a drink. Joey confronts them and he and Salvy fight.
Clip 9
Once again, we have Jake and Sugar Ray in the 3rd of their 6 fights. This is an interesting scene because at this point in the film, Jake is battling on several fronts in his life and career. He knows that he has to win every fight to even have the smallest chance of fighting for the title, which the mafia controls. And his storybook marriage to Vikki seems to be falling apart. This fight is symbolic in that it shows Jake’s state of mind. The smoke, the groaning effects, the shimmering images as if through heatwaves all add to the surreal point-of-view Jake has at this point of career and life. Also, this match is a metaphor for Jake’s entire life in that he’s being led on blind instinct as illustrated when Jake sits on the stool in his corner and the rope covers his eyes. His life, like this match, seems to be occurring in a nightmare that is further reinforced by the camera techniques used in this match. The camera whirls around to show Jake’s perspective, as though the world is a merry-go-round.
Clip 10
Jake throws a fight to get a shot at the title. He does this reluctantly at the urging of Joey whose theory was that if the mob saw that Jake was beatable that they would give him a shot at the champ. Jake, a man with a great deal of pride goes along with Joey and afterwards he breaks down. To a man like Jake, throwing a fight is the ultimate humiliation. But, in keeping with the Biblical metaphors used throughout this film, “Before honor, there is humility.” In the scene after this one, Jake finally gets his shot at the champ.
Clip 11: Jealousy
Shortly after winning the title, he questions his brother, Joey, about Vikki. Word got back around to Jake about the fight Joey had with Salvy the day Joey caught Vikki in the nightclub with Salvy. Joey won’t tell Jake about the incident. Jake doesn’t trust anybody, not even his own brother. This scene illustrates how Jake’s sense of reality has been distorted by jealousy.
Clip 12
Jake is out of control. He confronts Vikki about whether she is having an affair with his brother. Vikki fuels his rage with her own frustration by suggesting that they did have an affair, also making a lewd reference to the size of Joey’s manhood, not thinking that Jake would actually take her literally, which he does. This scene further illustrates Jake as being enslaved to his impulses, doing things that he will later come to regret.
Clip 13: Atonement
After brutally beating his little brother in front of the man’s wife and children, Jake faces his arch nemesis, Sugar Ray Robinson, for the 4th time, alone. He suffers a savage and bloody beating that results in him losing the title he worked so hard to win.
This scene represents the fall of Jake as a boxer, it’s all downhill from this point. The fight in this scene is Jake receiving all the punishment his conscience makes him feel like he deserves because of the beating he gave his brother and wife when he accused them of having an affair. In this fight, Sugar Ray is the sum of all of Jake’s sins. The rope holding Jake up is a cross on which he is crucified and bloodied under Sugar’s barrage of punches. Reinforcing this symbolic ritual of crucifixion are Jake’s cornermen working on him as if they are preparing him for an execution; the cornerman applying the vaseline to Jake’s face does so as though he’s making the sign of the cross. On the documentary, the sound editor said that he went for unusual sound effects for all of the fights, but for this one, particularly. When Jake is on the ropes waiting for his punishment, the crowd noises die out and a lion’s roar is cued to match Sugar launching himself at Jake. Also, the sound of winds howling replace the roar of the spectators at ringside. Visually, cinematographer Michael Chapman surrounded the ring with thick smoke to make it look like Hell and used the lights to transform Sugar Ray into a god-like silhouette.
Clip 14
Jake is now retired and owns a nightclub where he flirts with the female customers. This clip comes just before a short innocuous encounter with a couple of young ladies. They are fans of his and to confirm that they are not underage, they each give him a big girl kiss on the mouth.
Side note* After shooting the 1st act of the film, Scorsese suspended shooting for several months so that DeNiro could gain weight to play the film’s 2nd act after Jake retires from boxing. The transformation resulted in DeNiro going from a chiseled 150lbs to almost 215lbs.
Clip 15: Born again
Without boxing as both a way to maintain his weight and also as a way to regulate his moral excesses, Jake’s life spins out of control and he is charged with serving alcohol to a 14 year old girl in his nightclub. He goes to prison where he confronts the demons inside of himself and comes out of prison broke but spiritually reborn. He makes up with his brother Joey.
This is the darkest and most powerful sequence in the entire film as we see Jake succumb to all of his excesses without the discipline and balance of boxing, his little brother, or his wife. As the film started with him in the boxing ring alone, in this scene he is also alone with himself to confront the question why? His unlit cell represents not only his isolation as a human with his own distinct emotions and appetites but also the darkness of his inability to see that out of all the men he faced in the ring that he has always been his worst enemy. Also, another note about his weight gain. Prior to his retirement, the training he underwent for his fights kept his weight from getting out of control. I interpret his weight gain as the total lack of discipline. Besides helping to keep his weight under control, the discipline of training and boxing and the beatings he took in the ring was a way of him repenting for his sins outside the ring. Jake, the boxer, is like those in the old testament of the Bible who offer animal sacrifices to God for their sins. After going to jail and dying, in a figurative sense, Jake comes out of this type of death as a man reborn. He realizes now that he can no longer sacrifice his body and flesh for atonement and that, now, he must seek forgiveness from those he has hurt. His eyes are open and he can see that his true enemy is, and has always been, himself.
Isaiah 1: 11-16
“I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,”
In the scene in the parking lot, Jake cries and begs Joeys forgiveness. This is a very powerful scene and marks the final stage in Jake’s character arc, going from a man living on pure appetite and instinct (like his nickname, Raging Bull, suggests) to a broken man in touch with his humanity; from a man used to paying for sinning with his blood to a man who now pays with tears and asks for forgiveness. Also, in the background in this scene there is a cross, which serves as a sign of forgiveness.
Clip 16: “Now I see!”
This is the final scene, Jake is full circle from where he began in the 1st scene where he’s in the dressing room rehearsing his lines. In that scene, he is not looking at himself in the mirror but in this scene he is looking at himself in the mirror, reading the famous lines from “On The Waterfront” where Brando and his brother are in the backseat of the taxi. Here are Brando’s lines from that film “Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Wilson." You remember that? "This ain't your night"! My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money. You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charley.” After reciting these lines, Jake, dressed in a tuxedo, shadowboxes and leaves the dressing room. Charley, in this scene, is himself; he has accepted responsibility for the mistakes he made in his life.
The film ends with the epigraph from the book of John chapter 9 and verse 25: 24 The Jewish leaders[o] summoned the man who had been blind a second time and told him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”
He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
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