Respect paid to director’s milestone

In hopes of paying homage to director Martin Scorsese — who may finally, after 30 years, win an ever-elusive Best Director Oscar for this year’s Howard Hughes biopic “The Aviator” — this week’s retro review will focus on arguably his best picture, “Raging Bull,” which celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this month with a special edition DVD release.

Not only has “Raging Bull” come to be known as the epitome of a Scorsese production, but the film also contains an incredible performance by one of the most prolific character actors in film history.

Robert DeNiro’s portrayal of Jake LaMotta (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar) is one of the first physically transformed roles (before the famous diets, trainers and nose jobs) that were necessary to the understanding of the character.

As DeNiro goes from chiseled champ to a 50-pounds overweight ex-pugilist, the former character seems to become a myopic vision to the audience as it meets the overweight fighter shadowboxing his once glorious self.

The film itself is an intriguing yet mystifying biopic of LaMotta. Scorsese follows LaMotta from his first fights trying to earn a title shot, to his earning of the belt and finally his last defeat at the hands of Sugar Ray Robinson.

LaMotta’s career was a great one yet was overshadowed by the period in which he was banned from the ring for throwing a fight to gain extra money from the mob.

But the film is not directly concerned with the career of the Bronx-bred fighter, but rather the dark recesses of his mind, the mind of a man that goes from rags to riches only to stumble back to the poverty that he once strove to escape.

Scorsese seems to remain objective throughout the film, but the audience can’t help but see rays of subjectivity bursting through the black and white darkness of LaMotta’s personal life.

LaMotta’s first marriage is a stereotypical Italian-American union and finally ends after LaMotta meets a sultry young blonde (Cathy Moriarty) and eventually marries her, which may or may not lead to several psychological meltdowns throughout his boxing career.

LaMotta eventually distances himself emotionally from all those who helped further his career, including his younger brother and manager Joey (Joe Pesci, in his first major role).

The once famed boxer is now a second rate night club personality, and the audience encounters him, after fading out of flashbacks, preparing for his skit, “An Evening With Jack LaMotta,” which includes readings from Paddy Chayefsky and Shakespeare.

By film’s end, LaMotta finds himself in a Miami jail, and a film that has been hesitant to provide any sort of redemption finally takes a swing at LaMotta’s undoing.

As he is locked in his cell, he begins to bang his head against the wall asking, “Why,why, why? I’m not an animal.” The man who beat his wife, disowned his love ones and is now sitting in jail for seeing young girls not an animal? … maybe not.

It’s a chance many directors couldn’t and wouldn’t take, yet as he previously did with “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver” and later with “The Last Temptation of Christ,” Scorsese redefined what was conventional in American cinema.