Raging Bull (1980)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.
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What critics compared Raging Bull to
It has the over-the-top brutality of “Raging Bull,” without matching Martin Scorsese’s artistry.
While lacking the grace and ethereal beauty of the matches in “Raging Bull,” “Southpaw” comes off pretty much as the real thing.
Although there are plenty of echoes of past boxing films, from the grit of Raging Bull to the heart of The Champ (both versions) as well as the Rocky pics , Champion, Somebody Up There Likes Me and others, this movie has a beating heart of its own.
Think Rocky rather than Raging Bull, and don’t spend time wondering how soon screenwriters Kurt Sutter (TV’s Sons of Anarchy) and Richard Wenk (The Mechanic) will reference The Great White Hope.
Of course, how that idea gets executed is what makes the difference between Raging Bull and Grudge Match .
Put more simply, there’s a lot of punching in “Southpaw,” which combines the training narrative from “Rocky,” the visceral ringside energy of “Raging Bull” and the rank melodrama of “Million Dollar Baby” to make something, if not new, then at least stylish in its derivativeness.
Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine depict this in two different sports and eras, but they come to a similar conclusion: masculinity is a performance.
One senses Safdie wishes to make something closer to the psychological devastation of Raging Bull…
…rather than the evocative and intimate close-ups that have defined masterworks like Raging Bull…
If you’re thinking about pugilists like LaMotta (of RAGING BULL) fame or Muhammad Ali, then you’re in a different arena.
From its opening scenes, Safdie appears to be reaching for the harrowing psychological intensity of films like Raging Bull or Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.
…like Raging Bull, it finds simple, poetic beauty in the ring…
Anderson is in love with his camera, and a bit of a showoff in sequences inspired by the famous nightclub entrance in "GoodFellas," Robert De Niro's rehearsal in the mirror in "Raging Bull" and a shot in "I Am Cuba" where the camera follows a woman into a pool.
The now-notorious final scene is a direct homage to the end of Raging Bull.
Watch for the final sequence, in which Wahlberg does his own interpretation of Jake LaMotta from Raging Bull; youll either laugh or shake your head at the shamefully obvious parody.
Eventually, after a spectacularly botched drug hustle that results in the death of freebasing wildman Rahad Jackson (Alfred Molina), Dirk returns to Jack's house and resumes his career, glimpsed in a final shot as memorable as it is shockingly funny (think Raging Bull with a "Living Thing").
Despite the fact that the central story can be summarized as “Raging Bull” with pornography instead of boxing, “Boogie Nights” is a true ensemble film.
After six movies in the “Rocky” series (including “Rocky Balboa”)—let alone the recent “Grudge Match,” which obviously played off them as well as “Raging Bull,” and even a Broadway musical based on the first picture—one might have thought that we’ve seen enough of Sylvester Stallone’s Philly pugilist, but “Creed” proves that there’s life in the old Italian Stallion yet.
It compares to the early fights in Raging Bull, where Michael Chapman's camera lurks like an animal.
Of course, the debate usually settles down between Robert De Niro's "Raging Bull" and Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky."
Rocky and Raging Bull have, for decades, defined how boxing is approached cinematically.
"Creed" is no "Raging Bull" -- it's a little too long and throws in an unnecessary disease to gin up the emotional content of the third act -- but it's surprising proof that iconic franchises that started in the 1970s can be revived in all the right ways.
Coogler directs some of the best fight sequences since Scorsese’s Raging Bull, including a first fight that plays like one take.
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Boxing has often been the subject matter of many films but few have captured the good and the bad of the sport as clearly as The Fighter, which can stand up to comparison with classics such as Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Mark Robson’s The Harder They Fall.
The primal thrill of great boxing movies - Body and Soul and The Set-Up, Rocky and Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby and Somebody Up There Likes Me - cannot be denied.
(The anti-Rocky, Raging Bull garnered precious few kudos back in 1980; great filmmaking aside, theres nothing feel-good about Martin Scorseses portrait of Jake LaMotta.)
That's because we've already seen many of the boxing movies – from "The Set-Up" and "Somebody Up There Likes Me" to "Rocky" and "Raging Bull" – that "The Fighter" draws on.
Russell, cast, and crew supply local color till it's coming out our ears, but Micky's story is no threat to, say, Million Dollar Baby, let alone Raging Bull.
Instead of stylizing Micky's fights "Raging Bull"-style, Russell goes for naturalism: using TV cameras and setups to capture the big bouts, even employing the real HBO analysts who covered Ward's matches in real life and having them recite the actual commentary they said the first time around.
To which I can only say, name me one boxing film, besides " Raging Bull ," whose story line isn't somehow a welter of clichés.
It's as if "Raging Bull" suddenly morphed into "Rocky."
And its fondest fans can point to exceptions — “Body and Soul,” “The Set-Up,” “The Harder They Fall,” “Raging Bull” and even the first “Rocky.”
Still, Warrior is closer kin to Raging Bull , Million Dollar Baby , and The Fighter than to Rocky and its ilk.
It may not be MMA’s “Raging Bull,” but it’s good enough to compare to “Rocky” or “Body and Soul” and not embarrass itself or its sport.
The characters of Warrior don’t fight in a ring, but a cage, as the film is something of a Rocky/Raging Bull hybrid set within in the more distinctly current world of mixed martial arts.
And in recent years there have been some excellent ones too, including Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (a little off the subject of boxing, but close enough), Ron Howard's Cinderella Man and David O. Russell's The Fighter .
To be sure, it isn’t the WWF equivalent of boxing-film heavyweights such as “Raging Bull” or even “Million Dollar Baby.”
The pathos of personal ruin is an established trope, and the trick, as demonstrated by John Huston in “Fat City” and by Martin Scorsese in “Raging Bull,” is to stop it from sliding into the sentimental.
Whats more, hes possessed by Martin Scorsese: Honesty and grit suffuse every shot, whether the cameras following Randy through the belly of a supermarket (à la Goodfellas) or capturing, in dispassionate closeups, the real blood spilled in fake wrestling matches (à la Raging Bull).
If you've never seen, for starters, the "Rocky" movies or "Requiem for a Heavyweight" or "Somebody Up There Likes Me" or "Raging Bull," you might be forgiven in thinking "The Wrestler" was an original.
There have, of course, been exceptions to the rule in films like Raging Bull and Cinderella Man, but for films like this to succeed, they need to be about more than boxing and have fleshed-out characters that the audience can come to care about through good writing and development.
Concentrate on those scenes, try to ignore the schmaltz in between, and the whole experience isn’t really any worse than, say, “Rocky IV.” (Compared to any “Transformers” picture, it’s practically “Raging Bull.”)
As boxing movies go, Real Steel is almost like Raging Bull.
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Ford includes one great boxing ring flashback that apparently inspired Martin Scorsese during the making of Raging Bull (1980).
Right off the top of my head I can name three wonderful boxing pictures ( Rocky , Raging Bull and Million Dollar Baby ).
The best boxing movies—Robert Rossen’s “Body and Soul” (1947), John Huston’s “Fat City” (1972), Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” (1980)—have a special redolence that is as easily recognizable, and as richly satisfying, as the leather-and-manure aroma of a stable.
Million Dollar Baby is getting tremendous early buzz from critics for good reason; it's destined to stand up for decades and be compared with Raging Bull as the best boxing movie of all time.
True to the unspoken desperation and disillusionment that toughens or chews up career-undercard boxers, tinged with post-feminist complexity and rich with classical metaphor, "Million Dollar Baby" has only one competitor for the title of best boxing movie since "Raging Bull" -- Karyn Kusama's fervent, genre-transcending "Girlfight," also about a female fighter.
Then, in a single slow-motion moment, it turns into a very different kind of movie - closer to "The Sea Inside," another of this week's releases, than to prizefighting pictures of the "Rocky" and "Raging Bull" varieties.
The film starts out along the lines of such great boxing films as Raging Bull and the recent Girlfight , as it highlights the competitive world of female boxing.