Raging bull
1980 USA black and white 129 minutes
Release date: November 14, 1980
Academy Awards:
Best Actor -> Robert de Niro
Film Editing -> Thelma Schoonmaker
Academy award nominations:
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor -> Joe Pesci:
Actress -> Cathy Moriarty
Director -> Martin Scorsese
Cinematography -> Michael Chapman
Scorsese, while filming, thought that Raging Bull would be the end of his career in America.Source / More (Book)
Robert De Niro accidentally broke Joe Pesci's rib in a sparring scene. This shot appears in the film: De Niro hits Pesci in the side, Pesci groans, and there is a quick cut to another angle.
Robert De Niro met with La Motta and became very well acquainted with him. They spent the entire shoot together so De Niro could portray his character accurately.
De Niro gained over 50 pounds to play the older La Motta, and Pesci lost weight for the same scene
Michael Mann, director of Heat and Ali on Raging bull: The humanity of the picture is as extraordinary as Marty's execution, with its near-perfection in the economy, staging, blocking and compositions.Source / More (Web)
For years, De Niro had nagged Scorsese about making a movie based on LaMotta’s autobiography. While Scorsese was in the hospital recovering from a period of excess, De Niro told him that he should make the movie because he knew the material: that of a self-destructive personality.Source / More (Book)
The film was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.
The movie enabled LaMotta to earn a living through autograph signings and personal appearances. The veteran of six marriages now lives in Manhattan.
Giacobe (Jake) LaMotta compiled a record of 82 wins, 19 losses and 4 draws with 30 wins by way of knockout.Source / More (Web)
This week 18 years ago Goodfellas premiered (September 12, 1990)
November 17, 1942
Scorsese, an asthmatic child, was raised in New York's Little Italy (USA) and spent most of his early years frequenting movie theaters. After he tried unsuccessfully to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood, Martin graduated from New York University as a film major in 1966.
In 1968 he made his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, and then agreed to work as an assistant director and editor on the musical documentary Woodstock (1970).
Scorsese won in 1973 critical attention with Mean Streets and even more with Taxi Driver (1976), a brutal, uncompromising film that starred Robert De Niro as a lonely, psychopathic New York cabbie. Martin chose for his next project, Raging bull (1980), black-and-white cinematography to render stark realism to the story of boxing champion Jake La Motta.
In 1986 Scorsese made a conventional Hollywood movie, The color of money but two years later he sparked controversy with his film adaptation of the novel The Last Temptation of Christ. He returned to more familiar subject matter in GoodFellas (1990) and Casino (1995) but turned to unexpected material with The age of innocence (1993).
By making Kundun (1997) Martin was barred from entering Tibet. His latest film The departed was his biggest financial success to date and it won Martin's only Oscar.
It has been announced that Scorsese will be working on The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and on Silence, the story of Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in feudal Japan.
2007 Won Oscar for: The Departed (2006)
2005 Nominated Best Director for: The Aviator (2004)
2003 Nominated Best Director for: Gangs of New York (2002)
1994 Nominated Best Writing for: The age of innocence (1993)
1991 Nominated Best Director for: Goodfellas (1990)
1991 Nominated Best Writing for: Goodfellas (1990)
1989 Nominated Best Director for: The last temptation of Christ (1988)
1981 Nominated Best Director for: Raging bull (1980)
Lester Keyser -> Martin Scorsese (1992)
Mary Pat Kelly -> Martin Scorsese: A Journey (1996)
Lawrence S. Friedman -> The Cinema of Martin Scorsese (1998)