Namely, he acts as a liaison between Jake and the local mobsters, introduces Jake to Vickie, and organizes Jake’s fights-all the while attempting to alleviate some of Jake’s anger and paranoia.

Joey LaMottaĪs Jake’s brother and manager, Joey finds himself in the precarious position of controlling Jake’s private and public life. The film doesn’t encourage us to like Jake or sympathize with him, but we occasionally feel some compassion toward him-we can’t help but pity a man who doesn’t understand his self-destruction, brutality, and perpetual rage. As such, jealousy and violence become his automatic responses to external stimuli. Jake is also masochistic he induces others to inflict pain on him, from goading Sugar Ray to beating him to a pulp, bullying Joey into hitting him in the face, to pouring ice water into his shorts to deny himself sexual gratification. Jake has basic emotions-he often complains about his body and “little girls hands”-and lives a life without introspection or self-analysis. In the ring, he efficiently releases his inner demons, and when that’s not enough, he abuses the people around him, most notably Vickie and Joey.

Raging Bull centers on Jake’s primal and violent tendencies, as well as his turbulent suspicions about his wife Vickie’s infidelity. Jake LaMotta briefly reigned as the world's middleweight boxing champion, delivered Sugar Ray Robinson his first professional loss, became a stand-up comedian, and was jailed for inappropriate contact with a underage girl.

Jake lamotta