De Niro gained 60 pounds to play LaMotta, which was an all-time record at the time (later beaten by Vincent D'Onofrio, who gained 70 pounds for Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"). But to say it is one of the most powerful films of all time would be no gross overstatement - it is superb film-making at its finest. To be honest, I'm not so sure about that, since various genres offer different feelings and emotions (comparing this to a comedy might seem rather silly). "Raging Bull" has often been regarded as the greatest film of the 80s. Schrader, who had previously written "Taxi Driver" (1976), agreed, and wrote the screenplay for them.
It was after De Niro read boxer Jake LaMotta's memoirs that he knew he wanted to make the film, so Scorsese and De Niro turned to Paul Schrader for a script.
It dwindled in production hell for quite some time, with Scorsese's drug use halting production and only the duo's strong willpower that kept the project moving ahead. It came out in 1980, earned Robert De Niro a Best Actor Academy Award, and was marked down as another solid triumph by director Martin Scorsese, whose previous 1976 outing with De Niro earned them both critical acclaim (and for De Niro, an Oscar nomination, although he would actually earn an Oscar for "Raging Bull" four years later). Like most great movies, its focus is much deeper. "Raging Bull" isn't the average, stereotypical underdog boxing movie, because it isn't really about boxing at all.
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