"Raging Bull" (1980) is not a so much a film about boxing but more of a story about a psychotically jealous, sexually insecure borderline homosexual, caged animal of a man, who encourages pain and suffering in his life as almost a form of reparation. Martin Scorsese's masterpiece of a film drags you down into the seedy filth stenched world of former middleweight boxing champion Jake "The Bronx Bull" LaMotta. Masterfully he paints the picture of a beast whose sole drive is not boxing but an insatiable obsessive jealously over his wife and his fear of his own underling sexuality. The movie broke new ground with its brutal unadulterated no-holds-bard look at the vicious sport of boxing by bringing the camera into the ring, giving the viewer the most realistic, primal, and brutal boxing scenes ever filmed. With blood and sweat spraying, flashbulbs' bursting at every blow Scorsese gives the common man an invitation into the square circle where only the hardest trained gladiators dare to venture.
             The movie opens just as it ends, the camera pans down to the pavement revealing a sign outside the Barbizon Plaza Theater: "An Evening with Jake LaMotta Tonight 8:30." The film then cuts to a punched out overweight shot of LaMotta babbling a barely coherent rhyming rant mixing Shakespeare with the infernal jabber of an half illiterate has been boxer. Quickly the scene shifts from backstage of a nightclub to a close up of a younger LaMotta receiving repeated jabs to the face. The bold white title card "Jake La Motta 1941" jumps out against the stark grey images of the match. LaMotta between rounds sits in the corner surrounded by his trainer, manager and cut man giving the impression of lion tamers antagonizing a corned animal by telling him he is "out pointed" and "You're gonna have to knock him out." When the fight continues LaMotta crouches like a coiled snake bo...