Raging Bull, at least for me, is just past decent. Don't take that the wrong way - it's a really good movie but the problem with a Top 10 is that I'm waiting for all of these to blow me away. See, there are lots of problems with this approach, especially if you'd seen it before.
So for me, I've obviously seen Raging Bull before - I own it. But I always had approached it as a 'boxing' movie, not a wicked piece of film making.
Odds are, if I were to sit on this for a couple months and come back and watch it again I'd like it a lot more. This is a weird post because it's making it seem like I didn't like it. I did.
DeNiro is amazing, absolutely amazing. He won his second Oscar for this film and it's no surprise. Apart from that, Scorsese wanted to find relatively unknowns to play the rest of the parts. One being Joe Pesci - this is his first major film. And thus was born a wicked Gangster actor.
Scorsese also thought that this would be his last film ever, due to everyone hating it (passive aggressive much?). And it's got some funny stories behind it. Obviously DeNiro finding Joe Pesci and his wife (played by Cathy Moriarty) at a restaurant. He also brought this book about Jake LaMotta's life to Scorsese after reading it between takes while filming Godfather II. To train for the movie, DeNiro actually started boxing at LaMotta's club and found that he was a natural. He actually boxed in 3 real matches, winning 2 of them. Jake LaMotta went on to say that Robert DeNiro was in the top 20 boxers he ever trained.
Also, some quick trivia tidbit - albeit depressing, Jake LaMotta's son happened to be on SwissAir Flight 111 that crashed off of the coast of Nova Scotia. Small world eh?
You know, the more I think about this as I write - this movie was really good. Artistic, dramatic, beautifully shot, great acting and boxing sequences...and the birth (at least in my mind) of the Scorsese/DeNiro/Pesci Gangster trifecta...which is really the true benefit of this film.
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