3. Jake LaMotta Takes a Pounding
LaMotta’s sense of self-loathing is a key theme of this film, perhaps still Scorsese’s best work. Whether it is him pounding the walls of his cell, asking his brother to hit him, or letting an opponent slug him into a pulpy mess, De Niro perfectly captures the sense of a man who is utterly unhappy and uncomfortable in himself.
His fight with Sugar Ray Robinson, where he is beaten to a pulp but considers the fact that he wasn’t knocked down to be some sort of Pyrrhic victory is hard to watch, not just because of the physical carnage, but because we can see (as in so many other sequences) that LaMotta hates himself and is a man adrift in the world, unable to find any sort of peace.
The fact that the fight sequences of every boxing film since Raging Bull have been held up against Scorsese’s work here tells you everything you need to know about what he accomplished.
