LaMotta battling his greatest ring rival, Sugar Ray Robinson.
And hit ’em hard.” In the years to come, whether it be with an icepick or his fists, violence would serve as Jake’s first and only way to control his surroundings. Then his father handed him an icepick and told him: “Hit ’em first. But instead of understanding and sympathy, LaMotta was greeted by a vicious slap across the face from his father who told young Jake if he came home crying in the future he could expect an even worse beating. At one point Jake recollects running home crying from school after having been beaten up, his lunch money stolen by bullies.
While it does not justify his violent actions outside the ring, LaMotta’s autobiography gives you a look at the external forces that molded the monster: the extreme poverty, the abusive father, and the otherwise loveless nature of his upbringing.
I didn’t realize it but subconsciously I was trying to punish myself.” Robert DeNiro as LaMotta. “I took unnecessary punishment when I was fighting. “I fought like I didn’t deserve to live,” said LaMotta in a 1970 interview with Peter Heller. His thirst for violence and unhinged rage defined his whirlwind approach inside the squared circle, while his simmering self-hatred enabled him to withstand some of the most brutal punishment any fighter has ever had to endure. What viewers get instead, from a film that is rightfully regarded as a classic of American cinema, is a mere glimpse of all the lurid contents of LaMotta’s detailed account of a man plagued by inner rage and insecurity, a man whose self-destructive nature eventually drove everyone and everything from him and almost destroyed his life.īut it can’t be forgotten that Jake’s darkest attributes also allowed him to become the champion and ring legend he was. Nor would Scorsese likely even want to recreate such a tale for the screen, with the middleweight champion’s many heinous acts simply too repulsive for most movie-goers. While Martin Scorsese’s 1980 film adaptation of LaMotta’s autobiography, Raging Bull, was critically acclaimed for its visceral depiction of one of the darkest individuals to ever enter the prize ring, there was no way Hollywood could depict all the shocking material in “The Bronx Bull’s” deeply disturbing memoir. I thought I was going nuts, that I was losing my mind.” “And then I was hitting Pete as hard as I could and Vickie was screaming, and I was beating Vickie and then raping Viola, and I found myself crying, sobbing, and I didn’t know what the hell was happening.
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