Peeling away the book’s superficial layers during a self-destructive period of his own marked by box office disappointment, a dissolved marriage, depression, and egregious cocaine use, Scorsese was able to tap emotionally into its author’s Dostoevskian complexity and moral ambiguity, traits embodied by the flawed and wounded beings that populate each of his films. Because the world of prizefighting was not intimately familiar to him, it took several years, during which the pair worked together on Taxi Driver and New York, New York, for Marty to finally see what DeNiro did in Jake LaMotta. ![]() Not as easily convinced was DeNiro’s close friend and frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese. Although he admitted that “it wasn’t a great book,” DeNiro recalled that “it had heart” and instantly recognized the possibilities of LaMotta’s memoir as “a jumping off point” for a screenplay. Robert DeNiro toted Jake LaMotta’s autobiography around Italy while making Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900, stealing downtime in between laborious setups to read the former middleweight champion’s unscrupulous life story. Very often, the discussion is rightfully concluded and/or begun by the mere mention of Raging Bull. Those whose tastes travel the shadowy back alleys of film noir just might be partial to Body and Soul, The Harder They Fall, or Requiem for a Heavyweight–excellent selections one and all. If you are my approximate age, chances are your introduction to the sweet science may have come courtesy of watching the Rocky movies as a youngster. ![]() ![]() Somewhere among the myriad topics of conversation that occupy the time and test the patience of fight fans the world over lies the debate about the greatest boxing movie ever made.
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