Raging Bull and Fear in Film

When you talk about fear in film, it is typically a result of design. The characters, lighting, and camera angles are arranged in a way to intentionally strike fear in you. The character’s alone in the house with the killer they’ve been running from the whole time, or something along those lines. These scenes, even when they work effectively, are fear of what is to come. You aren’t afraid of the teenage girl walking down the hallways of her dark house, you’re afraid of what may lurk around the corner. Rarely, if ever, is the audience in fear of what is happening in that moment. One of the few instances in which I felt legitimate fear while watching a scene was, funnily enough, not in a horror movie.

Jake LaMotta, portrayed in an instantly iconic performance by Robert DeNiro, is a violent man. His work is violent. His home life is violent. His sex is violent. And up until this point, it has done well for him. But as the film Raging Bull goes on, directed by Martin Scorcese in what may very well be his masterwork, what use to empower Jake and be his profession starts to undo him. His compulsions and drives for violence and self-gratification, which initially rewarded him, slowly start to undo him. He’s no longer respected as a heavyweight boxer. He has lost his family. And his relationship with his brother has been torn asunder by his ego and pride. What was once a proud, well-respected man at the peak of physical fitness has been reduced to owning a shitty bar in Miami. He’s overweight and reciting crappy comedy monologues to himself. Soon enough his wife divorces him. Then, to top it all off, he gets arrested for sleeping with an underage girl. He’s thrown in jail like some common sleaze ball.

We have never seen Jake weak. Hell, we haven’t seen him up until this point be anything but a brute.  He is nothing now. His ego, pride, greed have nothing to hold up to anymore. All he has is his violence. His animalistic fury. And he uses it.

“WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY”

                 When I watched this movie for the first time, I cowered in my seat while watching this part. Knives held in the dark, creepy men in masks, long dark hallways. Whatever. That's all technique, not storytelling. But this is pure unbridled anger mixed with fear and self-loathing. I cannot quite articulate what about this scene sticks inside my gut so much. But it’s haunting. It’s a man at his lowest point in his life. When he is stripped of it all, this is how he acts. And that’s terrifying to bear witness to. Surely more fear inducing than any thriller or horror movie I've ever scene. It causes me to worry about man and what he is capable of. 

                An amazing scene, an amazing performance, an amazing film.