By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Martin Scorsese’s bloody, blistering masterpiece Raging Bull starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Cathy Moriarty.
Let’s begin this week with a little tale. I was with a bookworm colleague of mine recently and, never turned on by the niceties, I asked him what the worst book he’d ever read was. He answered that he’d never read a bad book. Seeing that he reads at least one a week, I told him that he was full of shit. His argument was that if he wasn’t enjoying a book, he’d simply put it down and move on to the next one, so he’d never actually read a full book that he didn’t like.
The reason I’m telling you this is because it took me twelve attempts to watch Raging Bull for the first time. I would fall asleep, I would get distracted, I would turn it off promising to go back to it…hell, I even tried fast forwarding through the many excruciatingly long silences. Nothing worked.
Boys and girls, this is a movie that includes some of the most stunning direction and cinematography ever laid down on film; career best performances by the great Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci; and a soundtrack to equal any other. Yet I couldn’t sit still for two hours and get through it. I tortured myself. Why couldn’t I do it? Everyone loves Raging Bull…what’s wrong with me? Am I different? Less of a man perhaps?
Then it suddenly dawned on me. The problem wasn’t me at all. It was the film. Raging Bull is, quite simply, shithouse. Don’t tell Pythagoras, but it turns out that the whole doesn’t always equal the sum of its parts. This film has everything, and it still doesn’t work. In fact, worse than that, it’s one of the most boring films that I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
What a total waste of an amazing array of talent. There’s no story there. Jake LaMotta was a nasty piece of work, so what do I care if he loses everything? He was a good fighter, maybe even a great fighter, but that in itself doesn’t warrant a film directed by Martin Scorsese. You don’t see Francis Ford Coppola signing on for Anthony Mundine: The Movie.
But I eventually got through it…and for what? To see that Jake La Motta eventually turns fat and does a lame routine in a seedy bar? I honestly couldn’t care less. That said, the whole experience has taught me the valuable lesson that you just have to let some films pass you by. Hallelujah! Now I might never have to sit through the first half of Blade Runner ever again…
Want to read more from The Butcher? Check out his angry missives against The Castle, Amelie, The Social Network, Argo, Gravity, A Clockwork Orange, Scarface, The Artist, Only God Forgives, One Battle After Another, Birdman, Lethal Weapon, Blazing Saddles, Strictly Ballroom, Donnie Darko, Psycho, 12 Years A Slave, Red Dog, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Breathless, Elizabeth, Miracle On 34th Street, The Full Monty, There Will Be Blood, Les Miserables, The King’s Speech, Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Magnificent Seven, Gone With The Wind, The Right Stuff, 81/2, Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, The Shawshank Redemption, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Wizard Of Oz, Jaws, Black Swan, Gladiator, Chopper, I’m Not There, Interstellar, Marvel Studios and Citizen Kane.
