Raging Bull: Scene Breakdown

Plot Synopsis: 
Raging Bull (1980), directed by Martin Scorsese, is a black and white drama adaptation of Jake LaMotta’s memoir.  Scorsese shows us how Jake’s ambition, selfishness, lust, and jealousy affected his journey to becoming the middleweight champion in the 1940s as well as his relationships with his second wife and with his brother.  
After a prologue scene of an older and fatter Jake reciting a speech before performing at a nightclub, the film opens with Jake taking his first loss to rival Sugar Ray Robinson. His relationship with his wife is shown to be sour and unstable. Jake is introduced to Vicky by his brother Joey, and they have an affair. He goes on a string of wins throughout the rest of the 1940s, marries Vicky, buys a house, and has children.  
As time goes on, Jake’s domineering and jealous nature only grows. When his wife makes an offhand comment about his next opponent (Janiro) being good-looking, Jake doubts his wife’s loyalties and viscously pummels Janiro in the ring. Joey makes a deal with the mafia, agrees to take a dive in a rigged fight, and finally gets a title shot after being reinstated. He ultimately beats the champion and claims the title for himself. 
At home, Jake’s suspicions are aroused when his wife gives Joey a quick kiss on the lips. He interrogates Joey to see if he or Salvy slept with Vicky, but Joey refuses to answer. Jake then confronts Vicky, who sarcastically (and falsely) confesses to having had sex with both men, as well as many others. Jake beats Vicky and Joey unconscious, and tries to make amends with his wife. His career takes a turn for the worse, he loses his title to Sugar Ray, and is estranged from his brother. 
Years later Jake retires and opens a nightclub. After a long, late night of drunkenness and promiscuity, Vicky tells Jake that she is filing for divorce and taking the kids. Jake is also arrested for letting underage girls in his club. After years in and out of jail, he ends up hosting tiny shows in cheap nightclubs. Jake sees his brother on the street and tries to reconcile, and Joey reluctantly accepts. The film ends with Jake talking to himself in the mirror, hyping himself up for a show. 
The film has scenes with superior and memorable performances and also fantastic visuals, dynamic sound design, and flashy cuts.  The scene that I thought was the most important to the story is when Jake is thrown into prison after the divorce. 
Visual Breakdown: 
The scene opens with an establishing medium of Jake fighting two guards as they try to force him through a door in the prison hallways. The guards are wearing basic uniforms and cowboy hats, Lamotta is wearing jeans and a very dirty white T-shirt. A title card flashes on the screen stating: DADE COUNTY STOCKADE, Florida, 1957. All three men are grunting and shouting at each other. Most of the dialogue is scattered and somewhat indistinguishable. The first guard says “this is where it’s at, right here” as he starts to open the gate.  
We cut to a wide shot at the same angle, revealing more concrete walls. The second guard says “who’s the one who [indecipherable] goddamn shirt, boy?” Jake is still wriggling against the grip of the second guard. He bumps into the first guard, knocking his hat onto the floor. The first guard says “You pull your load here, boy!” and swings the gate open. “That’s right!” agrees the other. Jake tries to lift his feet off the floor and does everything in his power to impede their progress, but both guards persistently drag him through. One says “You ain’t the goddamn boxing champion!” “Fuck you, fuck you” mutters Jake. As the men walk past the camera, it pans with them to the right, revealing a cell door. “Son of a bitch! You hear me? You hear me?” yells a guard. The guard knees Jake in the butt. They pause outside the door. 
We cut to a medium shot of the three men outside the door. The first guard says “hold on to him!” as he shoves Jake towards the other one. “I got him!” confirms the other, pinning Jake’s arms behind his back. The first guard turns and opens the prison door, revealing darkness. Both guards struggle to shove Jake in. “See it, see it?” taunts a guard. “Look at it son, live in it! Go on boy, live in it!” 
We cut to a closeup from inside the cell looking at Jake’s head being shoved through the door. Most of the frame is black, a shaft of light illuminating Jake’s face “Do you understand that?” Jake turns to retort: “in your mother’s cunt!” The guards give a final shove, launching Jake in the cell. The camera pans around, keeping his face in the frame. Jake continues protesting over the guard’s taunts “Your mother’s-- You cocksucker!” The guard responds with one last “live in it!” before slamming the cell door, locking the heavy bolt. “How do you like that, you son of a bitch?” a guard yells. Jake looks around and sits on the cell’s cot. “Sick fuck!” yells a guard, who we then hear spit. Jake gets back up and walks to the door, moving out of the light. He leans out the small opening in the door and yells “Fuck you! (guard yelling) Fuck your mother!” Panting heavily, he walks back over to the cot. 
We cut to a medium wide, with the camera centered in the middle of the cell. Jake sits on the cot. He pants and looks at the walls. He gets up and walks to the wall on the far right, the camera panning with him. 
We cut to a medium at a similar angle. Jake places his hands on the wall, and leans on it. He pants and thinks for a few seconds. The camera zooms in closer, making it a medium closeup. Jake slams his head against the wall six times, muttering “dummy” with each hit. He then starts punching the wall. Instead of dummy, he mutters “Why?” with each hit. The camera slowly zooms back out. As it goes on, the whys get faster, louder. He starts using his head again and screaming until the words become incoherent screaming. He punches again. He uses his forearms to beat the walls. “AAAAAH, you motherfuck—AAAAAAAH!” he runs out of energy and starts sobbing. He tries to punch again, but winces and grabs his wrist. “Ow! Aah, my hand!” 
We cut to a medium of Jake sitting on the bed. We can barely see a bit of the left side of his silhouette, as he sits in the darkness, the light shaft illuminating the place next to him. He bawls and moans his lines while caressing his hand as the camera slowly zooms in: “Why’d you do it, why? You’re so stup—you’re so stupid. So fucking stupid, so stupid! They call me an animal. I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal! Why do they treat me like this, I'm not that bad, I'm not that bad! I’m not that bad...” His sobbing crescendos. He says “I’m not that guy...” The sentence seems to calm him, and he repeats it a few more times, until he sits in silence. We then hear Jake telling a joke in a J-Cut to the next scene: “guy comes home, finds his wife in bed with another guy. Wife says, look here, big mouth, now the whole neighborhood will know.” The scene ends in a solid cut. 
Thematic Breakdown: 
The reason why I think that this is the most important scene is because it shows how Jake expresses his frustration with himself and tries to come to terms with the consequences of his actions. Throughout the film he has been chasing glory, fame, love, and the heavyweight title. Everything he does, he does for himself, and he wants to do it all on his own. Now he sits in his miserable cell, wondering where he went wrong. 
This scene shows Jake at his lowest, and the way the entire setting reflects it. The set is sparse, making the protagonist and the guards the only interesting subjects in the frames. The lighting in the cell is very strategically placed, where Jake is moving in and out of the light. The lighting direction is from above, signaling that he is in a very low and desolate place, but also mimicking the directionality of a spotlight. 
Jake has spent his entire life fighting to be in the spotlight, and it is not until this scene that he realizes that he has lost it. His face is visible for the entire scene, until he breaks his hand and sits down to sob. Until that moment of the scene, he is constantly in denial and fighting the inevitable. He fights the guards tooth and nail to avoid his cell. Once he is in, he screams profanities and beats the walls. Once the situation sinks in and he realizes all his ravings are futile, he sits on the cot (and Jake rarely is shown resting) in the darkness, out of the spotlight, accepting that he is no longer the man he used to bet. 
My favorite line is when Jake cries out, “they call me an animal. I’m not an animal!” yet showing the most animalistic of tendencies. Jake is brought into the prison kicking and screaming the worst obscenities. He is unkempt and filthy.  His breathing is heavy, like a beast. When his rage subsides and he realizes his imprisonment, he doesn’t accept the situation, but rather beats the wall until his hand breaks. He finally sits down and sobs incoherently. None of these behaviors are those of a rational being. Here we see him in an inhuman light, his actions those of a wounded animal.  
Once I made this connection, I noticed that Jake had been acting like an animal for the entire film, pursuing everything to satisfy his basic desires. He ate, drank, fought, and pursued romances as much as he wanted and only when he desired it, never being satisfied and only for his own pleasure. Almost every problem he had in the film was partially his own fault. He was so obsessed over his wife’s unfaithfulness that he failed to notice that his own actions drove her away. He holds up everyone around him to a higher standard that himself, and blames everyone but himself for everything that happens. Even in his darkest hour, when arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, a crime that can only be his responsibility, Jake still can’t see any personal responsibility for his own demise.