Raging Bull is considered an American classic, and I can sorta see why. This is for three main reasons. One is that it is a classic parable and archetype, a sad story starring a sex-and-rage-fueled Alpha Male protagonist. Secondly is the beauty of the cinematography and how the crisp black and white evokes emphasis…it’s just a damn pretty movie. And third is the directing. Scorcese really brings it home, bringing an eloquence to his usually gritty character dramas. You really see this stand out in those fight scenes, with those eerie uncomfortable close-ups and that sense of artistry that you never see in a boxing film.
And that’s all well and good, but the resonance is found more in the visually stunning nature of the shots and the idea of what this film is. And maybe that is why the movie is unsatisfying to me. Because Jake LaMotta is a *just* a jerk, and there is little that I can grasp onto with his character. I will say upfront that this is a great American classic that should be watched by everyone, but there are little Nancy-ish reasons this movie doesn’t completely shake me to my core. I think it boils down to two things (I am all about the counting in this review, aren’t I?). 1) I love a solid character drama, but when the character is unredeemable and lacking in complexity, I find little to grasp onto. 2) I love, love, love sports movies, and find their dramatic and gritty subversion to be not only pointless but sort of aesthetically counter-intuitive to the very idea of sports.
So, the first part. I love assholes in movies. Unlikable and tortured antiheroes are a staple in my book. But there has to be something engaging about them. Ray seemed like some asshole I’d meet on the street, his only engaging character quality worthy of film to be the fact that he did defeat Sugar Ray and then he did write a memoir. Other than that, he is just a normal Alpha Male character, dealing with sex and violence and egoism. But at the end of the day, Raging Bull doesn’t say much more than “Yup, he definitely is dealing with sex and violence and egoism”. What I am trying to say is that I didn’t learn anything more about Ray LaMotta from watching Raging Bull than I would have if I had just read his autobiography and bumped into him at a deli.
There are two possible defenses for this: 1) This was a biopic, and it had to say true to the source material, and I’ll leave that one be (although, for the record, Joe Pesci wasn’t *actually* Ray LaMotta’s brother, folks) and 2) movies like this offer no hero, just bare-bones, slice of life reality, and for that reason make you feel uneasy after watching them. Using that excuse, Raging Bull is the “KIDS” of the classic movie world. But I don’t agree with either excuse (and for the record, I hate “KIDS”). To address number two, there is always something engaging, something unique and cinematic about life. There is something about the human experience, despite how much gritty realism you try to pull out of it, that is can be formed into a climatic appreciation of the human condition. I understand it’s a sort of Scorcese perspective to just present the dirty and the grungy, but he has done it better and with more heart before. Taxi Driver is the quintessential exploration of the dirty and the grungy, but it had the confused sweetness of Travis Bickle giving it a heart. Raging Bull has no real heart; you do not believe in Vickie and Jake’s love, and Jake and Joey’s brotherhood is just cliché Italian, snapping at each other than kissing each other than punching each other than saying “you’re my brother, ah?” and saying fuck a lot. You don’t really sense what these characters are feeling or thinking. The film is simply watching this train wreck of a personality unfold.
As for the subversion of sports films, this is something I’ve given a lot of thought to. Bill said he loved this movie, and we have talked a lot about his “problems with sport movies” and their clichés. This movie avoids every sports movie clichés, and perhaps that is why it is so beloved in the genre and thought of as one of the quintessential sports movies. But my problem is…if I want an intense character drama, I’ll just watch Citizen Kane or Trees Lounge. Leave my sports movies alone. I love sports movies. I love their clichés. I think it’s because sports itself is a falsity, a pile of clichés, a big hubbabaloo constructed so we can have these artificial rivalries, these false senses of pride and community and these extreme moments of meaningless exaltation and victory. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But the whole industry is just an emotional illusion. Sports are like cinema, a stage for a completely artificial act to elicit some of the basest and strongest human emotions from us. And it’s awesome. And so, I like it when sports movies generally follow suit. They are formulaic, but that’s the whole point. The whole point is the plainest dichotomy between victory and failure. And believe me, I certainly *get* that athletes see them as so much more, as their lives and essence of being, and I understand that the connection there can be sickeningly strong, and that there is a profoundly gritty underbelly to the sports world. But the whole charade of artificial competition seems so goddamn silly to me that I can only appreciate it/not roll my eyes at if it’s embracing its silliness, if the underdog hits the homerun, if we win the big game, if the stadium lights burst in the end.
Again, there were certainly things I really loved about Raging Bull. Cathy Moriarity did an awesome job of playing a smoky young woman seduced by an obsessive young boxer. Both of them had very little going for their personalities, short of her intense beauty and his arrogant and demanding attitude. But I loved the way she was able to be strong and curt with him, and when she screamed, and her voice went all high-pitched and cat-like, it was in a realistic way. It was not in the comical way that movies often try to portray screaming, crazed housewives (I.E. the way Jake’s first wife was portrayed). The movie hinted that she was a unique lady, and I appreciated the depth they gave to her character. Unfortunately, it just made Ray look like a more boring character.
In other news, I also will watch anything Joe Pesci does. Dude can do no wrong in my book. And there were definitely parts that evoked emotion out of me. I was genuinely disturbed by the reality of Jake’s (albeit brief) prison scene, where his degrading and drunken fat brain is put on full display. It was eerie because there was no question on what we were watching at this point; the only light in that dark scene was on Jake embarrassingly sobbing and pounding his hands against the prison walls. I was *embarrassed* to watch it; I felt like I was watching something that I should not see. So that, I suppose, really is the mark of a realistic movie. It is certainly something to create such an unnerving and realistic story, that the viewer actually feels uncomfortable peeking in on someone’s life. So, that’s good.
It *is* interesting, in that respect, to see how Ray connects those plainest senses of victory and failure to his own life. Meaning, it’s neat to see such a bare-boned equation between the rises and falls in one personal life put into the context of sports. I mean, I’m willing to admit that it’s a good movie. It’s solid. And again, the cinematography is to die for. But there are these little Nancyistic problems that stop it from becoming an American classic in my book (called Movies That Nancy Deems Acceptable As American Classic: A Book No One Will Ever Read by Nancy Nevada Boucher).
No comments:
Post a Comment