Raging Bull

The film Raging Bull had me raging by the end. I have an on-going list of negative words that describe how I feel about Jake LaMotta. This list includes chauvinist, despicable, wicked, disgraceful, etc. Both he and his brother treated women with disrespect. They viewed their relationship with their wives as an ownership. Their wives were their property. These men had extremely demeaning ideas about what being married meant. To them it meant the wife was completely subservient, never spoke, was only good for sex, and she could never leave the home to hang out with friends. They, as the husbands, on the other hand were allowed to engage in extra-marital relationships and had the ultimate and total right to beat their wives if they even spoke to another man.

Alright, that being said, I really did enjoy the film. The fact that it had the above effect on me is proof that it was done well. I particularly enjoyed the slow transition in the middle of the film. It was the only time color was used in the film and everything seemed to be slowed down.

The sequence went like this:
1. Vickie with Joey
2. Vickie and Jake getting married
3. Dancing by pool
4. Joey getting married
5. Getting a house
6. Having kids

This sequence was the only time when everyone seemed truly happy. It was also the only time I felt completely at ease about the film’s happenings. Jake was not freaking out about somebody cheating on him and he was not interested in cheating on anyone. He and Vickie were in their “honeymoon stage” where marriage was relatively easy and everything was new, exciting and romantic. The use of color was important because I think it symbolized that everyone was attuned to others. The self centeredness throughout the rest of the film really keeps the whole demeaning another person idea going. The color shows that people were really paying attention to one another, rather than themselves—everything was clear. The rest of the film made me angry, but this was one redemptive sequence. I think it is important to know that even though there are these little clips of happiness within real life, it never stays—people go back to being self centered, just as Jake went back to thinking about himself and how people were out to screw him over.

However, life clips like this could be lengthened with some change. Perhaps the Bible verse at the end should have been in color rather than black and white…