Raging Bull (1980) on Netflix
Jake LaMotta boxes in the Bronx. He wants the championship on his own and refuses the Mafia's help. At a pool he spots Vickie, fifteen, and goes after her.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb8.1/10414,233 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1941 Jake LaMotta is a young middleweight boxer in the Bronx. He loses his first fight to Jimmy Reeves on a controversial decision. His brother Joey speaks with a Mafia connection, Salvy Batts, about a chance at the middleweight title, but Jake says no to the Mafia's help and wants to win the belt by himself. At a neighborhood swimming pool he sees fifteen-year-old Vickie and pursues her although he already has a wife.
Cast
- Frank Tophamas Toppy
- Lori Anne Flaxas Irma
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Raging Bull (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To play the older, out-of-shape Jake LaMotta, Robert De Niro spent nearly four months on a paid production hiatus going on a binge-eating trip through Italy and France, returning with his weight increased from 145 to 215 pounds.
- Martin Scorsese agreed to direct Raging Bull only after nearly dying from a drug overdose, deciding the project could help save both his life and his career.
- Scorsese decided to shoot the film in black and white partly because director Michael Powell pointed out that boxing gloves in the 1940s would only have come in maroon, oxblood or black, not the bright red that color film would have shown.
- Before he received the call from De Niro and Scorsese with the proposal to star in the film, Joe Pesci had not worked in film for four years and was working at an Italian restaurant in New Jersey.
- The Oscars were held the day after President Ronald Reagan was shot by a man who did it as an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, who had played a child prostitute in Scorsese's Taxi Driver; out of fear of being attacked, Scorsese went to the ceremony with FBI bodyguards disguised as guests.
- It was Pesci who suggested the unknown Cathy Moriarty from a picture that he saw at a New Jersey disco; De Niro and Scorsese believed that Moriarty, at 18 years old, could portray the role after meeting her several times and noticing her husky voice.
- During post-production, Scorsese threatened to take his own name off the film unless he was allowed to fix a sound reel so it no longer revealed the brand name Cutty Sark whisky in one scene.
