The “absolutely dreadful” moment that led Martin Scorsese to ‘Raging Bull’: “It was very bad for me”
Martin Scorsese might have won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with Taxi Driver, but by the time he’d released his follow-up film, New York, New York, things weren’t exactly looking up.
The filmmaker didn’t expect the musical to be received negatively, but there he was, facing middling reviews from critics who’d previously applauded his other work, making him wonder if that was it for him; he really wasn’t sure what had gone wrong, but now things seemed to be heading south.
It’s stories like this one that remind us of the power of persevering, though, because if Scorsese hadn’t been faced with such a disappointing reaction to his Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro rom-com, then he might not have made one of his finest masterpieces.
Falling into a pit of despair, the filmmaker entered a rather dark period of his life defined by drugs and depression, which saw him not only reeling from the failure of New York, New York, but also going through a divorce following a short-lived marriage to Julia Cameron. He wasn’t himself at all, and he leaned on cocaine to try and get him through it all.
Soon, however, he found the real cure to his malady, which was going back to filmmaking, and with the assistance of Robert De Niro, who recommended a certain book by Jake LaMotta to him, the director poured himself into Raging Bull.
In Martin Scorsese: A Journey by Mary Pat Kelly, the filmmaker detailed this tumultuous time in his life, which ultimately led him to a period of creative genius, explaining, “The motives for making a movie are very important—why you make a picture, why you go through the process. It’s a terrible journey each time you do it; it’s really a hard thing to do. And you have to have clear motives, and they have to be good motives. Between New York, New York and Raging Bull, in my personal life and also in my career, I was very disappointed.”
He also pointed out how critics were probably being too harsh on his endeavour, adding that even when nobody liked New York, New York, he was of a different opinion: “And I said, ‘Wait a second. This picture is not dreadful. I mean, there are some problems with it, but…’ I became very disillusioned with the whole process. Everything was very destructive, and it was very bad for me.”
But, of course, just because he couldn’t find success with this one, he had with the various movies he’d made before, so he could definitely make another great picture. New York, New York didn’t have to be the end, so he decided to channel the emotions he was feeling into a movie that mirrored his experience, only his focus wouldn’t be a drug-addicted filmmaker, but a boxer.
“In the fall of 1978, everything clicked together, and I kind of woke up and said, ‘This is the picture that has to be made, and I’ll make it that way. These are the reasons why it has to be made, for me anyway’,” Scorsese explained.
His aim became thus a self-reflective exercise to figure out what a self-destructive person does, from what that lifestyle is like, and how they affect the people around them, to their becoming someone who “finally eased up on himself and on those other people and somehow made peace with life. I used Raging Bull as a kind of rehabilitation”.
The film went on to win two Oscars, one for De Niro and one for editor Thelma Schoonmaker, while Scorsese wound up nominated for ‘Best Director’, proving that by throwing himself into the project, he’d gotten his spark back.
