
He starts running his own business at a night club under his name, working as a stand-up comedian at the stage. At the end, he finally throws in the towel of believing himself, he loses his faith and becomes to learn what he never wanted to learn: The Fame. The scene that he is punching and butting the wall facing him is one of the most heart rending memorable scenes of the whole cinema history. When he opened his eyes back to life, he found himself in prison. Soon, he was left alone and in a very short time he lost everything he possessed. Despite the fact that he is the best, everybody disliked him. He was disrespectful, he was uncivilized, he was very ugly, he was arrogant, he was irritable and he didn't care 'cause he believed himself. In Raging Bull, Jake La Motta was the best boxer of all, but people didn't like him. He empowers Raging Bull to make people ask to their conscience if the popular values that people choose can really cherish their values.

Director Scorsese draws benefit from the hypocrisy of fame. Not because someone better than you can defeat you, it's just because of the need to be accepted on every authority like the Council of Judges, the Media and the Admiration of People. Moreover, it is harder to stay at the top than to reach the top. Raging Bull taught us that even if you are the best at some skill, even if you are the best of all you need to create witnesses, admirers and supporters of your skill. Raging Bull is one movie that, every time you watch it you get a better taste, every time you watch it you discover something new. Also it is not reasonable to see Raging Bull only once. Accordingly, like it is not enough looking once to a painting to understand what opinion does it defend it is not reasonable and not fair to watch Raging Bull so as to see a sports movie. From a wide point of view, for instance, if you look at one of the Michelangelo's paintings at first you see a nude woman, if you look longer and deeper you realize that her nudity expresses some thought, if you look continuously and give a life to it in your imagination you discover that the women are not just their bodies. Rocky was a populist movie mostly for young viewers, and Raging Bull is a cinematic masterpiece.

It's not fair to compare Rocky with Raging Bull. Director Scorsese chose to go with black&white cinematography only to keep the young viewers away from this masterpiece of art.


Raging Bull can only be classified as a drama/biography. Despite the AFI chose Raging Bull as the #1 sports movie of all time, you can't expect to see the most breathtaking boxing match nor to witness the best crochet of boxing history. Whoever is dissatisfied by Raging Bull, I'm sure they watched it with expectations of watching a sports movie, like Rocky.
