Dec 12, 2008 Comments (5)
Raging Bull
“You never got me down, Ray.”
Sometimes the opening frames of Raging Bull remind me of the linear roll of a marble in To Kill A Mockingbird’s opening sequence. Both opening sequences share the perfect music (Raging Bull’s theme is Intermezzo from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana, by Pietro Mascagni), incredibly visualized soundscapes, beautiful black and white cinematography, and a refined sense of gritty production design.
A row of shapes sits in judgment, while old-timey flashbulbs pop and die with the slowness of the tragedy that is about to unfold. What do those photos look like?
Robert DeNiro’s Jake La Motta is a coiled human animal, caged like a note on sheet music; fierce, balletic and balanced to its function. The ropes of the ring are framed like bars of music. Indeed, “give me a stage where this bull here can rage…that’s entertainment.”