"I don't trust you when it comes to her. I don't trust nobody."
---Jake La Motta
Martin Scorsese's classic Raging Bull is a lesson to us all about how the power of love and possession can destroy a person's entire life, everything they have earned and everything they have learned. The story is about real-life boxer Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) and his self-destruction motivated by his intense jealousy and possession over his second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty). While he achieves success and notoriety in the ring, we learn that his motivation is controlled by his constant paranoia about his wife's alleged infidelity. Every time she kisses someone as a greeting, slow motion is used to emphasize that Jake is watching intently to see if he can catch any kind of flirtation on either party's part. His accusations are backed by non-existent evidence, just a strange assumption on his part that his wife is sleeping around. Jake's paranoia escalates to the point where he accuses his own brother of sleeping with his wife and subsequently ends their brotherhood for the next few decades.
The modern saying "bros before hoes" does not hold true for Jake La Motta. When he questions his married brother about whether or not he slept with Vickie, Joey La Motta (Joe Pesci) is so offended by this question that he refuses to answer him directly and instead suggests that Jake is messed up in the head and insecure about his growing weight. However this only furthers Jake's fears that his brother has betrayed him and he beats him up in retaliation. Jake then goes to Vickie and attacks her, which ends their relationship for good. Flash forward a few years and Jake has neither wife nor brother to love him in his middle age. Though he eventually makes peace with his brother, his relationship with Vickie is forever broken. His suspicions and beatings were just too much for her. His paranoia destroyed everything he built around him after he stepped out of the ring.
Jealous is a real emotion that exists in many relationships, not just with aggressive boxers or narcissistic people. A little jealousy might be okay for some relationships as long as both parties know that each will never act out on those feelings. However, when a person lets jealousy consume them, to the point where they are imagining things that are not true, this is unhealthy and will lead to destruction, heartbreak and loneliness. Raging Bull lives on as the best cautionary tale about the green-eyed monster Jealousy.
FUN FACT: Animal sounds such as monkeys screaming and elephants trumpeting were used during the boxing sequences!
FAVORITE QUOTE: "She don't go with nobody, she's fifteen years old. Where the fuck she gonna go? Where you take her, the Copacabana?" --- Joey La Motta
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