There is fervent debate among Martin Scorsese’s fanbase over which film qualifies as his best. Every Scorsese fan has their own idea of what the director’s finest film is. Anyone could make a strong case for Goodfellas as Scorsese’s most entertaining film, or Taxi Driver as his most intense, or Mean Streets as his most personal, but there’s a pretty ironclad case to be made that Raging Bull is his masterpiece.
It’s his most beautiful film, with the greatest emotional connection to its audience. The tragic tale of Jake LaMotta explores the worst in humanity, in sumptuous black-and-white. Here are Raging Bull’s 10 Most Iconic Moments, Ranked.
Joey Fights Salvy And His Friends
Due to Jake LaMotta’s jealous rage and suspicious nature, he tells his brother Joey to keep an eye on his wife when he’s out of town. Joey finds Vickie at a bar, having a seemingly innocent night of drinking with Salvy and his friends, who introduced Vickie to Joey and Jake in the first place.
Joey angrily drags Vickie out of the bar and gets into a savage fight with Salvy and his friends. The fight moves out onto the sidewalk and Salvy’s friends desperately trying to hold Joey back as he repeatedly slams a cab door into Salvy’s head.
Vickie Tells Jake She’s Leaving
The final half-hour of Raging Bull explores the events following Jake and his family’s move to Miami. Vickie finally leaves Jake for good, announcing it to him through a car window.
She tells him that she’s already spoken to a lawyer and she didn’t want to tell him until everything was finalized. Vickie boldly tells Jake that she’s going to divorce him and she’s going to get full custody of their children, before driving away, leaving him truly alone.
“What Are You Trying To Prove?”
In one of four incredible on-screen collaborations, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci shine throughout Raging Bull as brothers with a seriously dysfunctional relationship. In an early scene, Jake asks Joey to punch him in the face. After some hesitation, he wraps up his hand and throws a punch.
Jake insists that Joey keep hitting him, daring him to throw a punch with his bare knuckles, until Joey eventually asks his brother, “What are you trying to prove?” It cuts right through to Jake’s core.
Jake Meets Vickie
When Jake spots Vickie for the first time, he doesn’t see her as a human being; he sees her as a prize to be won. So it’s symbolically appropriate that when Joey introduces Jake to Vickie, she’s standing behind a crosshatch fence. Although they’re just a couple of feet apart, conversing, there’s a clear distance between them.
Even as they begin an affair and eventually get married, that distance will remain. Robert De Niro and Cathy Moriarty play the scene beautifully, showing both the early sparks of romance and the warning signs of a doomed relationship.
The Montage
After Jake’s fight with Sugar Ray Robinson is ruled in Robinson’s favor, Raging Bull sweeps through a few months of Jake’s career alongside his marriage to Vickie. Grainy home movies in desaturated color are contrasted with blood-spattered black-and-white fights.
In each fight, Jake looks more and more disillusioned, contrasted with the familiar comfort of suburban life and barbecues. Home movies are a false construction of family life; they’re nostalgic, and therefore inherently idealized through rose-tinted glasses.
LaMotta Brutally Defeats Janiro
When Martin Scorsese directs a biopic, he finds his subject’s greatest weakness and focuses on it: e.g. Henry Hill’s drug addiction in Goodfellas, Jordan Belfort’s greed in The Wolf of Wall Street, and Jake LaMotta’s jealousy in Raging Bull.
In the lea- up to Jake’s fight with Tony Janiro, his wife Vickie makes an off-the-cuff remark about Janiro being “good-looking.” When Jake gets into the ring with Janiro, and Vickie is in the audience, Jake brutally beats him to a pulp. He busts his nose open in a gruesome moment of slow-motion and incapacitates him in no time.
Jake Attacks Joey
In a really harrowing scene that marks the beginning of the end of Jake and Vickie’s relationship, he finds out that his suspicions were valid and she’s been having rampant affairs, including one with his brother, Joey. So, Jake heads straight over to Joey’s house and beats him up in front of his wife and two young children.
When Vickie tries to stop him, Jake knocks her out before storming out of the house. This intense tragedy is followed by a much quieter scene in which Vickie calmly packs up her things, ready to leave, before changing her mind.
Overcooking The Steak
Following the opening boxing match, Raging Bull doesn’t take long to establish that Jake LaMotta’s rage isn’t confined to the ring. As LaMotta chastises his wife for overcooking a steak, leading to a violent outburst, his toxic masculinity is exemplified.
Steak is the ultimate symbol of masculinity, because tearing apart animal meat is a primal way for men to establish dominance. He has severe anger issues, which escalates disagreements quickly.
LaMotta Loses His Title To Sugar Ray Robinson
“You never got me down, Ray.” Jake LaMotta’s final fight with Sugar Ray Robinson is one of Raging Bull’s most intense sequences, as Jake loses his title to Robinson in a quick succession of brutal punches.
Martin Scorsese is famous for pairing his scenes with the perfect musical accompaniment, but he makes extremely effective use of silence in this one, putting the audience in Jake’s shoes as he helplessly watches Robinson gearing up to pummel his face. The scene ends with Jake’s blood spraying all over the faces of the spectators in the front row.
“I Coulda Been A Contender.”
Raging Bull has one of the most famous endings in movie history. Bookending the story with the framing narrative of an aging, overweight Jake LaMotta preparing for a one-man show in his dressing room, this movie doesn’t have a happy ending.
Instead, Jake makes the best of a sad ending and reflects on the mistakes he’s made as he looks at himself in the mirror and recites Marlon Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” monologue from On the Waterfront. The heart of this movie is Jake’s strained relationship with his brother, Joey, and that’s what the Brando monologue is about.
