How accurate was De Niro's portrayal of LaMotta in Raging Bull?

I dont think you can really hold the war years against anyone because the title was frozen but I definately think from 45/46 on Jake was better than anyone holding the championship during that period i.e. zale, graziano, and cerdan. Theres no doubt in my mind neither zale nor graziano wanted any part of Jake. Give credit to cerdan for fighting Jake but all the incentives were in Cerdans favor: he got the champions purse, the challengers (if Jake won), a $20,000 bribe (although this may have gone directly to the mob) and lucrative rematch clause.

Beyond that theres no doubt that LaMotta was rated right at the top of the division for years before his shot and while he did lose some fights (not many) consider those losses: Marshall moved up to lhw almost immediately after that fight, Basora was avenged 3 times, the final being a one sided beating resulting in a stoppage, and Robinson was already acknowledged as one of the greatest fighters in history at that point. The Fox fight was a fix (against a lhw btw) and the cecil hudson fight appears to be a bit of an abbheration with many at the time think Jake threw it (and he sort of did by trying to make himself look bad to draw in guys who had been ducking him only to miscalculate and lose the decision). I dont think Belloise would have beaten LaMotta, he was a banger and LaMotta gobbled those guys up and Abrams was nothing after 1942. When he got out of the service his record was 4-5-1 and three of those losses came against nobodies with losing records. Theres no doubt that Jake was deserving of a shot years before he got one so yeah, hes got room to gripe. Its pretty inexcusible that Zale had nearly 20 fights after the war and never once defended against his top contender or that Graziano wormed his way into a title shot based on wins over welterweights like servo, cochrane, arnold, and davis. All guys that woulda been called mismatches if matched with Jake at the time.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not doubting LaMotta was frustrated and hard done by the racketeers and managers who controllled boxing, but that's a familiar story. To this day it persists in different form.
But I wouldn't rely on a man like Jake LaMotta to have written the definitive historical account of what actually went down. Not by a long shot.

 

Speak for yourself. I’ve never been a ******, wife beater, pimp, or thug. You want to said he was a great fighter in the ring, fine but dont makes excuses or gloss over the terrible things he did outside it.

 

Im not. There are several parrallel accounts that confirmed the basic details of what of what happened and the players on the opposite side who didnt plead the fifth, like Lew Burston, were largely discredited when caught on the stand lying about various aspects of the story. But if you dont believe it you dont believe it. I dont care one way or the other. Ive researched it extensively and Im satisfied with the basic framework of what happened.

 

I'm not saying ANY of the above, I am a Christian man, who learned EVEN before my own years of debauchery, that We Condemn NO One, EVEN the Worst Among US... JUDGEMENT is GOD's, Mine, yours and everyone's... my duty is too Forgive, Understand (the reason's Why/maybe) and HOPE for ALL Mankind...

Jake was shot into revised status after the movie and his greatness favoured by it, but at the same time he came from an Overall Period of GREATNESS by the Hundreds.

 

Wtf has happened to this place?

 

He wasn't merely "not so great", he was a reprehensible piece of ****.

Raped at least two girls. One of them was his friend's girlfriend who kept crying and saying "stop it, I'm a virgin". Jake raped her and basically said "oh she's bleeding, I guess she wasn't lying about being a virgin after all".

He was a serial woman beater, including a girlfriend whom he thought he murdered in a drunken blackout. He thought she was dead and worried about his career, so he and his brother planned to throw her body in the lake.

Nearly beat a bookmaker to death in a robbery. Thought for many years that he had murdered him.

Even years later as an old man, he didn't show remorse.

He was a disgusting human being, he just happened to be great at boxing and he arguably the greatest actor ever playing him in a movie, directed by arguably the greatest director ever.

 

I still don't think the movie was accurate at all. It's a good movie if it was not supposed to be autobiographical. As a film it is interesting.

And yet it's not even based on the book. In one gym scene a poster of a 1970s boxer with an Afro is clearly visible. That's bad when the scene was supposed to be 1947.

Talking of Afro hairstyles, in the movie, Joey and Jake both look like something out of the soul glo commercial from "coming to America". In real life they both had wavy hair tapered at the sides. not fuzzy tightly permed hair. Men did not look like that in the 1940s. If they did I need to see the photos.

I do think the movie was a great vehicle for the actors in it but it's mostly fact free as a biopic.

I really never understood the wider interest in the film outside of boxing circles. For non boxing fans what is it? A black and white film in the 1980s showing a portrayal of 1980s Italian American dialogue In the 1940s. Domestic violence and Robert Deniro puting on weight. And Unrealistic fight scenes.

The book itself is not accurate either.

 

What do you think was wildly inaccurate?

It is based on the book but during the course of two years worth of research into Jake and Joey's lives they discovered that several things that Pete wrote into the story were either not true or happened differently so they changed it. The fact is that the movie is actually more accurate than the book in many ways.

You keep bringing this up but Jake and Joey both had big hair in the 40s. Below are side by side comparisons of the actors hairstyles with the fighters:

[url]https://flic.kr/p/XQ9Rx7[/url]
[url]https://flic.kr/p/XQ9RBA[/url]

Again, what facts do you think it gets wrong?

What is 1980s Italian American dialogue? Why do you think its different from the 1940s? These are all just bizarre criticisms to be honest. This film is universally rated as one of the greatest pieces of American cinema.

The biggest part of the book that is inaccurate is the fact that Joey is almost totally replaced by Pete and that the gangsters names were largely changed, and their characters were combined or split to accommodate the story. I'm really curious where you found all of these inaccuracies you keep mentioning. Both in the book and the film. I'm not talking about little nitpicky bull**** like Deniro was too thin, or there was a poster in the background with a 70s looking hairstyle either. I'm talking about the actual basic gist of the story and the players involved.

 

I thought it was a terrific film. The photos you provided were startling in their similarity between the actors and real life characters.

 

Jake actually came up in a discussion with my boss today. His father sparrred with LaMotta sometime after WWII in Chicago a few times.

Boss related what his dad said back when the movie was out and he asked his father about it: "He was a bigger ***** than that."

 

I think the fact that Lamottas mother and most of his siblings lived with him during his married life for the duration of his boxing career is a significant omission of the film. In fact where was his mother two sisters and brother Albert? Lamotta not going to reform school, not mugging the book keeper, not falling out with Capriano (throwing him down the stairs and forcing him to sign a release contract) are all significant omissions. The **** too. Joeys boxing career. In fact the fight scenes whilst interesting and atmospheric are not accurate. Jimmy Reeves was not his first fight. Ray Robinson did not have him up against the ropes for as long as the film implies.

that may be so, but who do we trust? It would seem more likely that Joey from the film was Joey in real life but it has also been written in the past that Joey, Jake's younger brother, is a composite character -- about 20 percent Joey, and about 80 percent La Motta's friend, Pete Petrella.

"Many of the things that happen between Jake and Joey in the film actually happened between Jake and Pete in real life (as La Motta reveals in his autobiography) -- the arguments about women, about the mob, the jealousy, and so on. Even the "breakup" and reconciliation with Joey actually happened, in real life, with Pete."

In the film they had Joey and Jake walking around socially with their hair Wild like that whilst dressed in suits. The training photos and action photos you posted are not a true representation of how they wore their hair socially since it's all messed up from fighting. In the 1940s wavy haired men glued their hair down. There was none of the tight frizzy look going on back then.

Swearing and curse words were obviously prolific in the 1940s but it is well documented that many conversational dialogue scenes were actual adlibs between Deniro and Pesci. They just let the cameras roll as the two talked. I would be surprised that these exchanges could be so authentic since not all of the expressions and slang words could all have been in use at that time. I have never met Joey Lamotta. If you met Joey did he use the F word that often, and if he did would he have done so often in the 1940s? I just don't know if it was quite as common place back then.

It's difficult to say what the actual gist of the film actually is. Especially in an accuracy perspective. It is a boxing film in that it is a story about a paranoid guy consumed with jealousy and defiance who happens to be a boxer, but it does not seem to matter much that he is a boxer. The idea seems to be more about showing people who behave like animals with a 1940s backdrop. A cruel and ruthless life and how the characters interact throughout all of that.

Like you say names have been changed. But important Players in Lamottas life have been ENTIRELY omitted. The chronology of the story has gaps. The beginning of the film is not the beginning of Jakes life. It starts after many of the things that happened to Jake that might explain why he is the way he is during the part of his life that the film is about.

But that is not important because It's a film about the part of the "Raging Bull" book that Scorsese was interested in. That's it.

It is not a documentary. It's a good film if it was not an autobiography.

Jake never said "you never got me down Ray" here is a quote.

"That never happened," La Motta said last year. "I never said it. That is probably what I would have said if I did say something, but I never did. I don't even remember if I was talking at that time. I had too much respect for Ray."

 

That isnt true at all. Jake moved out of the family home in early 1943 and moved to Pelham Parkway. He lived right next door to Joey's first wife Agnes' father. Joey moved to the same neighborhood a little later. It wasnt until a year later that Jake bought the split level apartment building on Neill but even then his mom and sisters didnt live with him. They lived in a separate apartment on the floor below Jake.

Dude get real. This is all some mickey mouse nitpicking if Ive ever heard it. Good lord. Your crying because they didnt give lip service to his other family members? Why? Has every biopic and biography ever written given an inordinate amount of time to every person the subject has ever known? No. You have 90 to 120 minutes roughly to depict the rough narrative. And thats exactly why the film didnt start from birth and end with his death, showing the bookie mugging, his stay in reform school, or his falling out with Capriano. Those arent significant omissions because its not a documentary. You need to learn the difference. This film was giving a snapshot of a portion of LaMotta's life beginning roughly in 1941 when LaMotta was already about 20 years old, three years after his stay in reform school and several years after his mugging of the bookie. What would they add by adding those things you think are glaring omissions? How does that further the narrative? As for the first fight depicting Jimmy Reeves NOBODY ever said in the film that was his first fight. In fact its depicting him as an already established fighter. "Ray Robinson did not have him up against the ropes for as long as the film implies" LOL The film doesnt implys that Robinson has him up against the ropes forever. The film takes artistic license and actually pauses the action to show us that moment when Jake knows his title is gone but refuses to capitulate. Its a film, its art, and the fact that it actually took this artistic approach to depict what was essentially a seedy blue collar story is exactly why its considered such a fine film.

Dude I dont know where you are getting this from but thats not true AT ALL. In fact its the opposite. The arguments about women, the mob, jealousy, and even the breakup and reconciliation did in fact all happen between Jake and Joey. Joey was the one who brought the Blinky Palermo deal to Jake to fix the Fox fight. Jake and Joey agonized over it and argued about it up until just before the fight in the dressing room. It was Joey who brokered the deal to bribe Cerdan for a title shot and it was his friend Thomas Milo who acted as the bag man. Thomas Milo's involvement is recorded in the Senate hearings and Milo was the same Yonkers gambling kingpin who front Joey the money he used to begin his loan shark career. It was Joey who informed Jake that Vikki was having an affair on him and the two argued about it with Jake threatening Joey after which Joey walked away from him and they didnt speak for years. None of that was Pete. None of it. In fact that hall happened while Pete was in prison. You can check all of those facts against the dates that Pete was serving time and living in California.

Good lord man. Do you think men fixed their hair up every morning to go sit down and have a cup of coffee?? 90% of that film took place either in a boxing ring, a gym, or at home in an informal setting. So yes, most of the time their hair looked exactly like I posted. But whatever, you are getting ridiculous with your nitpicking horse****.

Sooo, youve never met these guys. You dont know how they speak. You frankly dont seem to know MUCH AT ALL about them but you have a hard time believing people cursed conversationally back then even though they were raised like animals so you THINK it might be inaccurate. I think thats the definition of grasping at straws.

 

You just described Jake LaMottas life. So youre saying it was accurate in trying to say it was inaccurate...

So you didnt think the film was accurate because it didnt include every single minute detail about his life? Every person he ever talked to? Every **** he ever took? Every box of cereal he ate? Come on man. That doesnt make the film inaccurate or even incomplete. It just means they chose to depict a certain part of his life, not his entire life. Have you EVER seen a biopic that included every single detail about a person? No. Never been made. It would be the longest film in history and not by a little either. Its a weak argument for calling a biopic inaccurate.

But one sentence doesnt make it inaccurate particularly not when that sentence is trying to convey LaMotta's demeanor, emotions, or thoughts at the time. No, LaMotta didnt SAY that. But it accurately displayed his fighting spirit not only in that moment but in life in general. That wasnt accurate? That was one of the most important scenes in the entire movie because it accurately illustrated that not just Ray but life, ADVERSITY ITSELF would not get LaMotta down. The fact that he lived the life he did and died last week at 95 is a testament to the fact that the feeling conveyed in that moment by those words: "You never got me down Ray" was not only accurate but was LaMotta's anthem.

 

Ask your boss who his dad was. Im interested because one of my friends was based in Chicago and Tony Zales sparring partner at that time and he knew the LaMotta brothers as well. I never really asked much about Jake being a jerk but he did say Jake was a genuine badass (not in those terms). He sparred with Cerdan and watched Jake take Cerdans title and said he didnt think Cerdan could ever beat Jake. He was ringside for the Lamotta-Raadick fight and had some funny stories to tell about it.