Martin Scorsese
Toro Scatenato

Robert De Niro is certainly not a boxing enthusiast. Martin Scorsese, on the other hand, absolutely hates boxing.

However, Bob became so passionate about the biography of Jake La Motta (Raging Bull – 1970) that he repeatedly proposed to Martin the project of making a film with himself as the protagonist, of course, but Martin always refused.

He didn't give up; as the saying goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." De Niro kept coming back for more "rounds," and the opportune moment came after the fiasco of New York New York, which was a flop both at the box office and with critics. Martin didn't take it well. He fell into depression, locked himself in his house, and embarked on a diet of various pills and cocaine until he wasted away, reaching 49 kg. De Niro took him by force and brought him on a vacation to an island. In reality, it was a working vacation because they started working seriously on the project.

Far too seriously. Because the greatest boxing movie of all time (so they say, and so do I) doesn't just happen by a stroke of luck.

Take, for instance, the boxing matches in the film. Eight boxing matches that are eight lessons in directing. Each shot with a different style, with the camera not only in the ring but even in between the two fighters. Blood and sweat. A pounding heart. A drenched film.

The film lasts 120 minutes. The boxing matches in the film last 20 minutes. It took 16 weeks of shooting to make the film. Of these 16, 10 weeks were just for the boxing matches. Each shot was planned and drawn on the storyboard. Thelma Schoonmaker only had to "merely" limit herself to editing the sequences and winning the Oscar for Best Editing… but I didn't do anything! She said with false modesty. (Have you gotten an idea of what kind of work it took just to shoot those 20 minutes?). With a pause of several months, during which Scorsese marries Isabella Rossellini and De Niro gains 30 kg from eating the impossible, between the French Riviera and Italy, to play La Motta who hangs up the gloves and becomes a (mediocre) cabaret artist. It's rumored that Bob was bitter about not winning the Oscar for Best Leading Actor in The Deer Hunter. This time he will win it easily; it will be a KO in the first round, trust me.

Shall we talk about the opening credits that entered the history of cinema? Jake is in the ring, wearing his leopard-print robe, boxing in slow motion among smoke and haze. Around the ring, journalists, photographers, people. Music by Pietro Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana, one of the most beautiful arias ever, because when an Italian writes the melody, it can be sublime.

The film covers 30 years of Jake La Motta's life, the raging bull, the untamed bull, the boxer who never goes down. 30 years of life between his 20s and 50s. La Motta will die at 97, marry six times, and say of himself: “I've never fallen, neither in the ring, nor with alcohol, cigarettes, and women”. A demon. A bruiser, a crude vulgar, violent, chauvinistic, jealous, and also half-stupid person, a rather despicable being in truth. Why is it so? It is not explained.

Raging Bull isn't really a movie about boxing. We don't see training, boxing techniques, technical discussions, and so on. We see the man, half-animal, we see America between the 40s and 70s, or better, snapshots of family life of our protagonist and the Italian-American community in general. A community to which Bob and Martin belong; these are also their stories, their experiences. Memorable and incredibly violent sequences, worse than in the ring… the brother played by Joe Pesci who, as usual, goes mad and almost beats to death a small-time mafioso who was showing off with Jake's wife. Or the tension so thick it could be cut with a knife in sequences where Jake "interrogates" his wife about possible infidelities or just because she said some boxer is cute…

Why black and white, Martin?

For two reasons: because I always saw boxing matches in black and white and because if I had done it in color, the quality of the color wouldn't have withstood the test of time and the new technologies to come (think about how forward-thinking Scorsese was).

I saw the film yesterday in the theater in the original version. Special event only on May 8 – 9 and 10.

Go.

But I've seen it so many times…

Go.