Raging Bull
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Synopsis
With this stunningly visceral portrait of self-destructive machismo, Martin Scorsese created one of the truly great and visionary works of modern cinema. Robert De Niro pours his blood, sweat, and brute physicality into the Oscar-winning role of Jake La Motta, the rising middleweight boxer from the Bronx whose furious ambition propels him to success within the ring but whose unbridled paranoia and jealousy tatter his relationships with everyone in his orbit, including his brother and manager (Joe Pesci) and gorgeous, streetwise wife (Cathy Moriarty). Thelma Schoonmaker’s Oscar-winning editing, Michael Chapman’s extraordinarily tactile black-and-white cinematography, and Frank Warner’s ingenious sound design combine to make Raging Bull a uniquely powerful exploration of violence on multiple levels—physical, emotional, psychic, and spiritual.
Picture 9/10
Martin Scorsese's seminal film Raging Bull returns to The Criterion Collection through this new 4K UHD edition. The film is presented on a triple-layer disc in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The 2160p/24hz ultra high-definition presentation with HDR10 comes from a new 4K restoration scanned from the 35mm original camera negative. The release also features a standard dual-layer Blu-ray disc offering a 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation for the film.
All around, the new restoration itself is incredible. Outside of areas where damage is intentional (like the home movie sequence midway through), I don't recall a single blemish or flaw ever drawing attention throughout the film's runtime, neither scratch nor mark. The base scan has captured every fine detail, with the digital presentation doing a terrific job of rendering it all here. This presentation also offered better nuance in the grayscale, which gives the picture a cleaner photographic look compared to the previous releases of the film. This also holds true for the Blu-ray edition, but the wider dynamic range offered here also helps bring out more subtle detail in the shadows, as found in sequences involving the jail cell near the film's end or in La Motta's club. It also gives sequences illuminated by single light sources, like some of the shots in the passageways of the stadium locations, a fantastic boost.
The base scan has also captured film grain wonderfully, and Criterion's encode does an incredible job rendering it here. Well, most of the time. Oddly, I found the grain present during the opening slow-motion title sequence, where De Niro's La Motta is dancing around in the ring, featured a heavier digital appearance, looking blockier and buzzier than grain should. This, unsurprisingly, lowered my expectations for the rest of the presentation almost immediately. Thankfully, it's an isolated instance because once we get into the main feature, the grain resolves more cleanly, leading to a beautiful film texture. As to why it had a more digitized look during the opening, I can't say other than the encode may have had issues with the sharper, heavier grain. Still, interestingly enough, the high-definition presentation on the Blu-ray did a far better job rendering it there, despite minor noise creeping up elsewhere in that presentation. At the very least, this 4K presentation renders the film's grain far more robustly on the whole.
Minor shortcomings aside, this is a gorgeous-looking new presentation, the best I've yet seen the film on home video.
Audio 7/10
Criterion includes the film’s original surround soundtrack, presented here in DTS-HD MA 2.0. Criterion does not include the 5.1 remix found in previous editions.
As pointed out elsewhere on the internet, the dialogue sounds incredibly low compared to music and sound effects, leading me to crank the volume to hear the dialogue. I also had the same issue (to a lesser degree) with the 5.1 surround soundtrack on previous releases, so it could be just how the soundtrack is intended to sound. Even then, it gets a little frustrating when the film jumps into the ring and the volume levels around the cheering crowd, the punches, flashing bulbs, and just about everything else are significantly louder and blast through the room.
Ignoring that aspect, the effects and music all sound terrific, those bursts from the flashing bulbs throwing out sharp punches themselves. The mix does a solid job of placing the viewer in the middle of the ring, and the music cues are spread out gorgeously. Dialogue sounds clear after you’ve cranked the volume (or maybe adjusted settings on your receiver to enhance dialogue), and there are no signs of filtering.
It’s fine in the end, but adjusting the volume around the dialogue would have been a benefit.
Extras 10/10
There are only a handful of newly produced features here, but Criterion has ported over most of the material produced for previous releases, including their LaserDisc edition. First up from that edition is the original audio commentary featuring director Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker (MGM did license it from Criterion for their Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray). The two, recorded separately, talk about various aspects of the film. Scorsese talks quite a bit about the production coming together following his initial hesitation doing it and covers everything up to the film’s decent, if unimpressive eventual release. The track also features a little discussion about the period they waited for DeNiro to gain weight (DeNiro was inspired by Roger Livesey’s performance in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, despite the use of a fat suit and doubles in that film) and how members of the crew had issues with making the film, unsure why they were making a film around this awful man without being able to see the big picture.
The track ends up being most involved when the two touch on the more technical aspects of the film, which is, thankfully, most of the track. Scorsese explains his reasoning for doing the movie in black-and-white (before listening to this commentary, I had always thought it was because of how it would look, but it sounds to have been more out of a fear of how color film stock of the time held up) and even talks about lenses and the various in-camera effects that were used. There’s even discussion around using older flash bulbs to get the desired look of them going off. Schoonmaker then focuses on constructing individual sequences and how she was to accomplish what she could due to the footage just giving her so many options to work with. The film’s style and editing have been aped so much since, and it can be easy to forget how much of it was unique at the time. Still, the track offers a terrific reminder of the creativity and fumbling that went into everything to get the dynamic look of this film.
Criterion then ports over the two other commentaries recorded for MGM’s 2005 DVD special edition, the first featuring director of photography Michael Chapman, producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, casting director Cis Corman, music consultant Robbie Robertson, sound-effects supervising editor Frank Warner, and even actors Theresa Saldana and John Turturro; the second featuring screenwriters Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader along with boxer Jake La Motta in discussion with his nephew Justin Lustig. Outside of La Motta and his nephew, participants across both tracks were recorded separately.
I recall not expecting too much from these tracks when I first listened to them back in 2005, but they are both quite good and maybe even better than Criterion’s original track in some areas. The second track is very technical, focusing significantly on the fight choreography, how specific effects were pulled off (including sound), the music cues, and so forth. Similar topics from the Scorsese/Schoonmaker track do come up, like why black-and-white was used in place of color. However, the topics will usually be expanded upon by the participants here, like how the use of black-and-white made everyone more aware of the film’s “color design” so that various shades of gray didn’t overlap or work against each other. You also get more about the editing and how the music was selected, and there are details around screenings alongside stories from the set, including what certain crew members did during the four months they had to wait for De Niro to gain weight (one did nothing and got paid for it). It’s also fun listening to Turturro pop in to talk about his blink-and-miss-him appearance in the film, the actor sounding surprised he’s even there to talk about it.
The best and most extensive part of the track is around the film’s sound design, with Frank Warner showing up about 80 minutes in to explain how it was all accomplished. Though Warner doesn’t share his trade secrets about how he created some of the film’s sounds (even Scorsese doesn’t know), he does explain the process in layering them and how he tried to make them as believable as possible. It’s such a fascinating and engaging subject here, Warner diving thoroughly into things, that it’s a shame this wasn’t broken out into a separate feature, only coming up again in an included documentary around the making of the film. Excellent stuff all around.
Also quite good is the third track featuring La Motta and the film’s screenwriters. La Motta is incredibly forthcoming throughout the track as he talks about incidents depicted in the film, clarifies where things were fictionalized (like how he met Vikki) or toned down, and shares his thoughts about the performances (calling De Niro a “superstar”) and the film itself. La Motta even goes about “psychoanalyzing” himself, explaining why he thinks he did the things he did. Mardik Martin then talks about the initial adaptation of the book and the difficulties that went into that (like Scorsese, it’s clear he wasn’t all that impressed with the book). In contrast, Schrader talks about punching up the script, a difficult task he admits until he found what he felt would be the film’s center: the relationship between La Motta and his brother. This, of course, called for some liberties (which La Motta will touch on in the track) but helped bring everything together. Schrader also talks about a couple of scenes that didn’t make it.
Though similar topics will naturally come up repeatedly through all the tracks, I’m still rather impressed at how little repetition there is, with multiple points of view being shared. It’s tough to say which is the better track of the three, as they are all excellent and are in no way a chore to get through. Really, in the end, they’re all worth listening to.
The commentaries are the only features available on the 4K disc. They can be found with the high-definition presentation of the film on the included standard Blu-ray disc that also houses the rest of this release’s special features.
The first in the video features are Criterion’s two new additions, the video essays by Geoffrey O’Brien and Sheila O’Malley, respectively, titled Pour Everything In (25 minutes) and Gloves Off (18 minutes). Each one looks at a particular aspect of the film, with O’Brien’s pretty much focusing on the film’s narrative structure, including how it jumps through periods, followed by the film’s editing and visual style. He even breaks down the sequence where La Motta first meets Vikki to show how the scene comprises an “album of moments.”
O’Malley's essay focuses on the performances and how the actors, specifically De Niro, Pesci, and Moriarty, play off each other, changing tones at the “drop of a dime” but still staying in sync. She also looks at how each actor effectively portrays their respective characters, lumping a lot of praise on both Moriarty (who plays up the character’s survival techniques) and, of course, De Niro, whom she addresses as playing a “subject without subjectivity,” a character who is also unable to verbalize what he is feeling.
Indeed, plenty has already been written about either subject in this film, so there are probably no new surprises here. However, both pieces concisely and effectively explain how revolutionary the film was for its time, and they may be especially beneficial for those coming to the film for the first time.
The remaining features are then made up of material produced for previous home video releases of the film or dug up from the archives. The prominent feature out of all this is the making-of documentary produced for MGM’s special edition, “Raging Bull”: Fight Night, running 81-minutes total and divided into four sections covering the film’s pre-production, the filming of the boxing scenes, the filming of everything else, and then the film’s post-production and release. It also features interviews with Scorsese, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, actors Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, and Frank Vincent, director of photography Michael Chapman, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, screenwriters Martik Martin and Paul Schrader, and effects supervisor Frank Warner.
Even if there is again some crossover of subjects between this and the three commentaries, there is still enough unique material to be found here while also offering the perspective of the lead actors, De Niro even explains what drew him to the book and pushed him to get a film made. There’s also an excellent breakdown of the fights and the film’s title sequence, along with more anecdotes around its ho-hum release, the film only gaining momentum and reexaminations in the 90s. The studio-produced making-ofs from the early days of DVD could be hit-or-miss, most of them feeling like promotional pieces for a film you more than likely already bought, but MGM was one of the few studios that would take more than a surface-level look at a film’s production. This one, like most of the ones they produced for the Bond films, provides a thorough deep-dive. Worth viewing even if you listened to all of the commentaries.
Following those documentaries are several other little features produced for the 2010 Blu-ray, the first of which can be found under a section called “Scorsese and De Niro.” There’s a 13-minute piece about the working relationship between the two, going back to when they were kids and eventually working together. They also mention wanting to work together again (they would finally work on The Irishman). Also found in this section is a 10-minute interview featuring Scorsese talking about his love for film and how he would catch movies on television or go off to the theater to see whatever was playing. He then talks about working in the industry and how much more difficult it can be now to make a film. From the archives, Criterion next includes 14 minutes’ worth of audio excerpts featuring De Niro participating in a Harold Lloyd Master Seminar at the AFI in 1980. It would have been recorded around the release of Raging Bull, and De Niro talks about rehearsing with Scorsese and how Schrader’s script gave him a solid framework to work with. Amusingly, he mentions he’s working on another film with Scorsese alongside Jerry Lewis, which receives a laugh from the audience.
In an excellent touch, Criterion manages to port over their 5-minute interview with Jake La Motta that was recorded for their LaserDisc edition of the film. The former boxer talks about his childhood and his various bad choices before talking a little about the film that he admits he didn’t like initially. Again, as he would be in the commentary, La Motta is very frank and incredibly introspective, recognizing his faults and discussing them here. Intercut with the interview is a sampling of footage from his actual fights.
The 11-minute Remembering Jake then features footage from a monthly meet-up of boxing veterans, where many reminisce about their times in the ring and share stories about La Motta (this was also found on the MGM Blu-ray), which is then followed by an 8-minute excerpt from a 1981 Belgian television interview featuring Cathy Moriarty and Vikki La Motta. Moriarty talks about how she came to be cast in the film, not knowing anything about La Motta beforehand. At the same time, Vikki La Motta explains how the real-life Jake was worse compared to his portrayal in the film (something the boxer freely admits to in his appearances on this disc) and how the film successfully captures the redemptive arc. A terrific find and inclusion.
The disc then closes with the film’s theatrical trailer. Criterion also includes a 37-page booklet that first features an essay about the film by Robin Robertson and another by Glenn Kenny, focusing on this particular period in Scorsese’s career and how Raging Bull came out of it. Both are excellent reads.
It’s made up mostly of older material available elsewhere, yet this still manages to be the most comprehensive edition of the film yet, even including excellent new academic material through the two new video essays and the booklet’s content.
Closing
The film looks incredible in 4K with HDR, and the comprehensive set of features provides the most satisfying look into Scorsese's classic film yet.
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