Martin Scorcese's Raging Bull (1980) includes complex and compound ideas of toxic masculinity and depictions of not only boxing culture but also Italian-American culture. Jake LaMotta is depicted as a protagonist and one would think we are supposed to be cheering him on. But as his life moves forward in the film he becomes quite a distasteful character. The masculine icons in the New Hollywood era start to become more dark and twisted, a flawed main character.
Something that I enjoyed from this film was how Scorcese dealt with sound. He talks about it in The Art of Scorcese interview by saying there is "too much sound" in movies today. Quite frankly, I agree. Often times I feel that the sound is intrusive to the viewing. Scorcese includes moments in the ring during matches where the scene transitions into slow motion and the sound fades out. The silence in the ring is important because it takes place during a big moment of action; a very physical, and exhausting action. I might even argue that it makes the viewers think about what is happening. What is going through his head? Is he getting tired? Is he giving up? It allows us to fill ourselves with questions and actually think about what we are watching instead of passively viewing.
I think in addition to the points you made, the silences give us the sensation of being part of the fight by getting us into the mindset of the boxers, blocking out excess noise and becoming hyper focused on beating the opponent or at the very least not going down. For me another question your analysis raises is how sound/silence plays into whether we keep rooting for Jake or not, to tie back to what you said in your intro paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you mentioned how Jake LaMotta is not the 'ideal' person even though he's the main character. It's cool to see how this film didn't follow the trend of showing a nice person that Old Hollywood had established.
ReplyDeleteI really like the mention of how Scorsese portrayed Toxic Masculinity and Italian American culture. Much like how he portrays LaMotta himself, Scorsese really doesn't hold back in showing the negative aspects of these things. I feel like Scorsese kind of drew parallels in his portrayals of both LaMotta and these negative aspects of society.
ReplyDeleteI loved Scorsese's unique use of sound. In most movies today, like Scorsese said in the interview, sound occupies the entirety of the film. Sound and music help the audience know what to feel. However, in Raging Bull when he uses silence it makes the audience think for themselves and make their own interpretations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that sound is one of the most artfully created elements of this film. It really goes far in creating LaMotta as the tragic hero that Scorsese depicts him as. I think one of the things that New Hollywood successfully did was create complex character studies so that characters are no longer the simple one dimensional protagonists of classic Hollywood era as seen in "Singin in the Rain" or "The Gold Diggers of 33."
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