Such intense levels of jealousy, anger and self loathing could prove difficult to curate in fiction and still retain a level of credulity. LaMotta, despite his rapacious demeanor (or maybe because of it) has a knack for telling a story and he holds nothing back here (this can make for some uncomfortable reading in parts). His journey is fraught with paranoia, jealousy and brutal acts of violence, both inside and outside the ring. It is told with a savage honesty that crackles off the page at its best moments. "Raging Bull" chronicles the rise and fall of "The Bronx Bull", Jake LaMotta, who came from a harsh, poverty-stricken, youth of crime in the Bronx to become middleweight champion of the world, only to ultimately careen back into chaos. Not a good movie, either, jerky, with gaps in it, a string of poorly lit sequences, some of them with no beginning and no end.” Why it should be black-and-white, I don’t know, but it is. “Now, sometimes, at night, when I think back, I feel like I’m looking at an old black-and-white movie of myself. Books like LaMotta's, Jim Brosnan's Pennant Race and others, Jim Bouton's Ball Four and the non-stop genius with language of Muhammad Ali changed the landscape for sports coverage and sports writing. LaMotta's book is one of the pioneering works of a new form of sports writing that developed in the 1960's, in which the athlete themself has the a self awareness and sense of the meanings of their careers and personas which before it had usally been up to sports writers and the writers influenced by them to create. LaMotta-with Peter Maas-has a lighter touch than Scorcese, with a lot of laughter pervading some of the really tawdry and grim episodes. The book has many strange redemptive moments of its own, especially one that opens and closes the tale.
The film turns the story into a Catholic allegory which transforms the Raging Bull from the realization that "I'm not an animal" into the Man of the Theater and Language who goes on stage to recite poetry by the greats as well as himself. This is a fascinating book, in that its story is the Ur-Text for the Scorcese film, as well as being a classic in its own right as an a boxing book and a book on different levels, structures, groups & institutions of power as they play their parts in LaMotta's quest for power in the ring.
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