The Italian neorealist film that inspired Robert De Niro’s ‘Raging Bull’
He doesn’t always get it right, as anyone who’s seen the ‘Fockers’ movies will know, but Robert De Niro has given some of the greatest movie performances of all time. It’s hard to choose which one is his peak. To some, it’ll be his turn as a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II. Others may prefer his turns in Heat or The Deer Hunter, but for most cinephiles, his best work has come under the direction of his old pal Martin Scorsese.
In terms of director-actor pairings, there are perhaps none greater than the two native New Yorkers. They helped give each other their big breaks with Taxi Driver, in which De Niro portrayed the damaged ex-soldier Travis Bickle. Even as recently as 2023, when De Niro appeared as the conniving William ‘King’ Hale in Killers of the Flower Moon, these two legends of the game continue to get the best out of one another. However, when it comes to the very best, you can’t really argue with the work both men put in in the seminal 1980 boxing flick, Raging Bull.
Inspired by the life of Jake LaMotta, this story of ambition, folly, and violence was tailor-made for a De Niro/Scorsese crossover. The actor famously wouldn’t do the film unless Scorsese was on board, even when the auteur refused multiple times. De Niro’s transformation into the troubled fighter is truly remarkable and still held up as one of the finest acting performances by anyone ever. He was showered with awards following the film’s release, including an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’, and it remains a key pillar of his legacy.
To get into character as the real-life middleweight champ, the actor studied LaMotta’s memoir, Raging Bull: My Story. This wasn’t the only piece of media that informed the film, however. One film played a major role in shaping Raging Bull, particularly its fight scenes. This was Rocco and His Brothers, a 1960 drama from Italian director Luchino Visconti.
Set in Milan, the story follows the titular Rocco, played by Alain Delon, and the rest of his family as they attempt to eke out a living in the faltering industrial city. One of his brothers, Simone, played by Renato Salvatori, takes up a career in the ring, which only leads to more misery when he develops a dependency on alcohol. It’s these fight scenes that had the biggest impact on both Scorsese and De Niro when the time came for them to ring the bell.
According to Marc Eliot, author and visiting Professor of Film at Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala, “by placing the camera inside the ring Visconti offered a tutorial in how to film a prize fight, well studied by Scorsese, who copied the technique for Raging Bull, and borrowed from Delon’s Rocco to help shape De Niro’s tough-guy portrayal of Jake LaMotta.” In his own piece on the movie for his charity The Film Foundation, Scorsese called Visconti “one of the greatest artists in the history of cinema”.
Anyone who knows Scorsese knows that he is a student of the game. The fact that he and De Niro were able to turn scenes from a neorealist drama into one of the greatest sports movies ever made is a testament not only to their skills but also to their vision and understanding of how cinema works at a fundamental level.
