Raging Bull [Blu-ray]
by Martin Scorsese
![Raging Bull [Blu-ray]](/images/Raging-Bull-Blu-ray-B001JQTSG6-L.jpg)
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Actor: Cathy Moriarty, Frank Vincent, Joe Pesci, Nicholas Colasanto, Robert De NiroDirector: Martin Scorsese
Producer: Hal W. Polaire
Producer: Irwin Winkler
Writer: Jake LaMotta
Writer: Joseph Carter
Writer: Mardik Martin
Writer: Paul Schrader
Writer: Peter Savage
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Korean (Subtitled); Cantonese (Subtitled); Mandarin Chinese (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled); Turkish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); French (Original Language); Portuguese (Original Language); Turkish (Original Language); English (Published); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 129 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2009-02-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM
Blu-ray Reviews of Raging Bull [Blu-ray]
Blu-ray Review: irritating dialog
Summary: 4 Stars
Martin Scorsese is unquestionably a great director, and this is a fine film. I used to think it was a great film, but since the last time I watched, I've seen "GoodFellas". And the latter casts a bad light on the former. Hang on as I try to explain.
"GoodFellas" has an iconic scene, largely improvised, in which Joe Pesci's paranoid-psychotic character takes objection to another mobster's innocent comment that he finds Pesci "funny". Pesci pesters him about this -- "What do you mean, I'm funny?" -- amping up the lethal tension until it's suddenly released, for no obvious reason. We don't know why Pesci is acting the way he does. But we are very much aware that we're watching stupid, illiterate, insane people argue for no good reason. And it works.
In crafting a biography of Jake LaMotta (who, as I write this, is still alive at the age of 89), Scorsese tried to get away from the clichés of Hollywood bopics, and succeeded. There are no portentous scenes, no "we have to sum up everthing that happened up to now" dialog. The film seems almost documentary, as if we're watching the events unfold in real time.
Unfortunately, in order to get this casual, unpretentious effect, Scorsese had the actors ad-lib some of the dialog -- and it just doesn't work, particularly in scenes where one character confronts another. It's hard enough for a screenwriter to pen high-quality dialog -- it's almost impossible for any actor to come up with merely /appropriate/ dialog on the spur of the moment.
"Did you f*** my wife?" "What do you mean by that?" "I mean, did you f*** my wife?" "I ain't gonna answer that." "You're my brother, I expect you to." "That's a crazy question, I ain't gonna answer." And so on, and so on, until you want to throttle both the characters and the actors playing them. As bad as it sounds "on paper", it's many times worse in the film.
And it doesn't happen just once, but in scene after scene, until it becomes an irritation. It seemed novel in 1980, but in 2010 it's a cliché. Scorsese should have used the ad-libs as a starting point and written "believable" dialog that came closer to the way the characters would likely have spoken in real life. (He could have gotten LaMotta's view, as he was an advisor.) As it is, we're not seeing the charactrers, but the actor ad-libbing.
This is the only reason I dislike "Raging Bull". It is otherwise a magnificent movie, with beautiful B&W cinematography that anyone who says "I don't like B&W films" has to see. If you're not bothered by (in my view) the poor improvised dialog, you will doubtless find it a masterpiece.
Description of Raging Bull [Blu-ray]
Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 02/10/2009 Run time: 129 minutes Rating: RBestsellers in DVD
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