Robert De Niro · 1980 · Signature Roles
Raging Bull is the performance other performances are measured against, and it earns that status the hard way.
Raging Bull is the performance other performances are measured against, and it earns that status the hard way. As Jake LaMotta, the middleweight champion whose jealousy and violence destroyed his marriage and his career, De Niro is terrifying in the ring and more terrifying out of it.
The physical transformation is famous: De Niro trained as a boxer until he could fight convincingly, then gained some sixty pounds to play LaMotta bloated and broken in later life. But the weight is the least of it. What shocks is the psychology — a man who cannot tell love from possession, who tests everyone around him until no one is left.
Shot in black and white by Martin Scorsese, the film refuses to redeem LaMotta, and De Niro refuses to ask for sympathy. The Academy Award for Best Actor recognized a performance of total commitment, and it remains the high-water mark of a career built on disappearing into other people.