Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1980

The Contenders:

John Hurt: The Elephant Man
Robert Duvall: The Great Santini
Robert De Niro: Raging Bull (winner)
Peter O’Toole: The Stunt Man
Jack Lemmon: Tribute

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1980

The Contenders:

Coal Miner’s Daughter
The Elephant Man
Ordinary People (winner)
Raging Bull
Tess

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1980

The Contenders:
David Lynch: The Elephant Man
Robert Redford: Ordinary People (winner)
Martin Scorsese: Raging Bull
Richard Rush: The Stunt Man
Roman Polanski: Tess

Ten Count

Film: Raging Bull
Format: DVD from personal collection on kick-ass portable DVD player.

My original plan today was to knock out two films--Raging Bull and Million Dollar Baby, but I’ve discovered exactly why the person who gave me MDB gave it to me: it doesn’t work. So I’m stuck with just Raging Bull on the day. Fortunately, there’s enough film here that it can handle being reviewed on its own. I’ve seen most of this movie before, but never all at once and never in order.

But first, a story. More than a year ago, on a podcast concerning the film Bronson, James Blake Ewing of Cinema Sights compared that film to Raging Bull, saying that the Bronson character reminded him in many ways of Jake LaMotta. In his mind, the difference was that Raging Bull has more interesting characters around the main character. Having now seen this film in full and front to back, I’m not so sure I agree. LaMotta’s brother is interesting, but I don’t give a rat’s about anyone else, except LaMotta himself, and even there not for the reasons you might think.