Raging Bull

Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film lifts the middleweight Jake LaMotta inside the ring and takes him apart outside it. The bouts are not staged for sporting legibility. The ring was built at different sizes for different fights, so you cannot hold a map of the contest in your head; instead of making boxing readable the film writes LaMotta’s state of mind into the space. The sound works the same way. The editor Thelma Schoonmaker says the sound editor Frank Warner burned his effects at the end of every picture, not to stop anyone else using them but so he would not reuse them himself. The shoot was split in two. By Scorsese’s account production closed for nearly four months with the crew still paid, while Robert De Niro ate his way around northern Italy and France; the scenes with the heavy LaMotta came last, near Christmas 1979. Joe Pesci was found living above a Bronx restaurant, Amici, after De Niro saw him in The Death Collector. At the 53rd Academy Awards the film took eight nominations and won two, Actor in a Leading Role for De Niro and Film Editing for Schoonmaker. Best Picture, Directing, Cinematography, Sound, Pesci for Actor in a Supporting Role and Cathy Moriarty for Actress in a Supporting Role stayed nominations.