Raging Bull Critical Essay | Critical Review by Dan Georgakas

SOURCE: A review of Raging Bull, in Cineaste, Vol. XI, No. 1, Winter, 1980–1981, pp. 28-30.

In the following mainly negative review, Georgakas delineates what he sees as the "dichotomy between technical sophistication and thematic poverty" in Raging Bull.

Anyone going to see Raging Bull with the expectation of seeing a film about boxing or the career of Jake La Motta will be disappointed. Although the film is in black and white, like the classic fight films of the studio era, and has about ten minutes of boxing action, its relationship to films like Body and Soul, The Set-Up, and Requiem for a Heavyweight is tenuous. The major theme of Raging Bull is sexual jealousy, and the film's major attraction, for better and for worse, is the virtuoso performances of Martin Scorsese, the film's director, and Robert De Niro, its male lead.

Raging Bull opens with a shot of a...
(read more)