Film Sequence - Raging Bull (Martin Scoreses, 1980) - Essay Example

He became very rich and then wasted all his money. Later on in life he became a stand up comedian in which he didn’t succeed in a great way. Even more, he was imprisoned for taking advantage of an underage girl. After their previous endeavor, “Taxi Driver”, Scorsese, De Niro and Screen writer Paul Schrader were drawn and seemed exited by the life of the tortured, rough and devastated character. The techniques used in this film were unique and captures the imaginative power of the director.

The movie offers a strong portrayal of the visual language and the composition of the shots. The opening credits of the movie shows the titles with a slow motion shot of the boxer jogging and warming up in the ring. It is a similar to the opening shots of To Kill a Mocking Bird. Raging Bull opening sequence plays Intermezzo from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana, by Pietro Mascagni. It has an amazing soundscapes, a no color cinematography and expert production design. Jake La Motta is portrayed in the opening scene exactly in a way notes are portrayed on a music sheet.

He is feared, angry and the ropes of the ring look very much like the bars of music. Scorsese’s poetic meditation on La Motta’s fights in the ring is an important motif in the films romantic glorification of the sport and a tribute to its classic photojournalists. The film also displays elements of Christianity, specially a parallel of the fall. La Motta is shown capable of great things but his own wrong doings and failure to correct himself keeps him away from achieving much. (Martin Scorsese, Men of the cloth, Men of the Streets).

Another important field had been Scorsese’s use of slow motion cinematography penetrates through the film and it is that absurdity which makes the critics find the film so compelling. Intertextuality means the way artworks can copy, pay tribute or enrich others work and here Scorsese imitates Life Magazine snaps in the movie. Establishing shots such as a low angle one which focuses on the symmetry of fire escapes in a Bronx building shows the artistic side of Scorsese. Camera work in this film had been of exceptional quality, with shots like a 360 degree swish pan which was used to show the state of Sugar Ray receiving the punches, which shows feelings inside the opponents mind.

In the last part we see Jake getting beaten up, where the cameras close in on the hits and the blood. Slow motion is used to highlight the blood. Scorsese uses chiaroscuro lighting which creates energy and to portray the disturbed search. The energy is the desire, the camera is the hope and the lights are the worries that will be produced and the desires stripped. Scorsese’s use of wide angle lens, on close-ups, is well pictured. This would not have come out in longer lens. The great sense of separation is produced by this.

Certain shots like the high angle, over the shoulder shot as La Motta hits Robinson, the camera zooms to a medium close from a long shot. The camera then takes the flash of a photojournalist and the flash fades. Scenes like these left a lot of scope for the audience to interpret. A point of view shot is used when the character is shown looking at something, so the shot is alternated with the view and the reaction of the observer. Slow motion