Raging Bull Books

Beyond what the public has seen from Jake Lamottas incredible bouts in the ring, there is much more people should know about Lamottas life. Through this book you will uncover Jake lamottas Physical and mental struggles, whether it be taking a tremendous amount of abuse in the ring and still staying on both of his feet, Or his madness at home with his family and closest friends. He tells his separate problems which included his best friend, his wife(s), and the mafia. His childhood alone as a thug living in tenements in the early Bronx will draw you to read more and soon you will start to understand where all the rage came from.

"Bull" is one of the most powerful biography's written. La Motta went step by step relaying his life story, in a transparent way. He not only draws us in round by round to him being on the top of the world, he also clearly gives the reader his blow by blow decent into hell, and even worse for a showman, anonymity. He became a nobody, because of his unhealthy actions.
I for one give La Motta a tremendious amount of credit, for coming to terms with his greatest opponent and knocking him on the mat, himself.
The movie is equally as engrosing.
Great read.

There just isn't another biography/autobiography involving an athlete that can measure up to RAGING BULL.

The book depicts self-hate and the self-destruction that goes with it in the kind of succinct style you expect from a ghetto-bred boxer. What sets it apart though is that what one finds between the lines is often more revealing than the lines themselves.

Jake's method of confessing to grotesque acts without the vocabulary of rationalization says volumes about the pathologies behind them. Instead of getting lost in Freudian buzzwords, La Motta recounts his life in terms that sum up and surpass every treatise on self-destruction ever written.

No need for Psychology 101. RAGING BULL is the real textbook on the subject.

A Page Turner - More Like A Page Pounder

Reading this book I felt like Sugar Ray Fighting La Motta - couldn't put it down -

OK - that's a stretch, but you get the idea. I could not put this book down. It reads like a bull charges. A little bit of wind up - I'd say the first 19 pages - then it's a charging bull.

Jake's story is much more than what the movie shows and is different.

As we all know and heard so many times - the book is always better than the movie and again it's very true here - the book is Jake's exact story not changed one hair for Hollywood. It's such an intense, real and gritty story.

It starts off in Jake's childhood as a tuff Bronx kid taking a beating from his father and the world - and as he got older the beatings continue and get worse - the biggest beatings coming from himself.

La Motta is brutally honest and doesn't try to hide anything or paint himself in a special light. It's a powerful and straightforward look at his life, his heart and a candid look at the sport of boxing back then.

It's a great book, you'll pound through the pages like a raging bull.

Jake La Motta is a vicious monster. Both inside the ring and outside the ring. Growing up in the slums of the Bronx,
Jake was not loved or cared for by his father, who frequently beat him for no reason or explanation. His mother
was loving to Jake, but his father beat her too. Jake channeled all this abuse, both physical and neglect, and turned
into a thug as a teenager because what else could he do. He believed he was to have been a murderer, for bashing a bookie over the head with a pipe,and suffered for many years afterwards with self inflicting torment and abuse and anguish to all around him. While as a teen, Jake the thug turned into a life of petty crime and was sent to a reform school. While at reform school, the only thing Jake could find interesting was the gym, where he practiced and developed as a boxer. When Jake was released from reform school, he vowed to himself never to go back to jail and to try and change his way. Jake soon began to compete amateurishly with boxing, and then shortly
thereafter turned pro. While he was a freight train inside the ring, Jake was a train wreck in his personal life.
Jack's life consisted of no one he could trust. Not his best friend Pete, his wives, his brother, and especially the mob.
He battered his boxing opponent into oblivion, he battered his wives unconscious, and battered his friends if you would
even call them friends. Yes Jake was this violent. His second wife Vickie, is main wife in this book was a saint, during and after their marriage. Jake beat everyone in the ring he could. Sometimes he'd lose, not on purpose, but as a result to his mannerisms prior to a fight, which were mostly self inflicting. After 8 years of boxing pro, and going no where, Jake relented to turning to the mob for a shot at the middleweight
belt. In 1949, Jake was champ. They day after he was champ, he life went into the gutter. A good for nothing bum kid from
the Bronx, he was destined to never amount to not even spit on the sidewalk, was now the champion of the world! How was this. Well Jake's demons came forth the night he won the championship, and what he feared he'd done as a kid, was not true. Believed to be a murderer as a teen, Jake drove himself insane with pain, fear, guilt, and anger, and the only way he could channel all that negative energy was to box. Well, who he thought he killed long ago was actually alive and well and he couldn't believe it. From there on, Jake lost the spark and the fire to what drove him to be the champ, and a year and a half later after defending his title twice was belted by quite possibly
the bloodiest boxing match my eyes ever seen on February 14th 1951 to Sugar Ray. Jake got massacred by the 13th round. (if you ever get a chance to actually see that fight, seeing is believing!!!). Jake's trip into hell began in Oct 1949, after winning the belt, and he took his first steps descending into hell after he retired from boxing in 1953. His move to Miami added to the catastrophe, his wife divorced
him, he fooled around alot, he ballooned to well over 200 lbs, drank and dabbled with drugs, his business crumbled due to a prostitution charge of a minor, and once again Jake ended up in jail. Serving 6 months, Jake finally prayed to the man upstairs for forgiveness, and released from prison, Jake wanted to vindicate himself. Leaner, cleaner, and this time for certain destined to clean up his act. After prison, Jake was a whistle blower in boxing and spilled the beans about the fight set up he needed to do to become the champ. After that, Jake remarried, although it ended up unsuccessful, Jake tried, and it appears he was not abusive to his 3rd wife. After dabbling
in acting and plays, Jake found solace in performing again, but on stage instead of a ring. There were some set backs. But nothing as shocking and more disturbing as the first 22 chapters. And by 1970 Jake was acting in b-films.
In conclusion, Jake La Motto is a vicious monster. But who could blame him. I don't. Jake will blame himself, and yes, many of the horrific things he did in his youth were unacceptable and just downright unethical. But Jake never was given a chance at life. Not by his family anyways, he was raised by the mean streets of the Bronx, his family was the streets, and it was mean, and Jake was meaner. Jake was never loved as a child, and without that love, he never trusted
anyone, ever! Many success stories, or dreams come true stories are about love and trust. Jake has neither. This is a sad story, a truly sad story, of a man who struggled to make it on his own, and did make it on his own, and just threw it all away because he didn't any know better because no one showed him.
Personally, I believe Jake LaMotta to be the best middleweight boxer ever! I mean ever! For all his wrongs, he did something right, and box right he did. Jake gave boxing so many memorable upsets, so many memorable knockouts, and most importantly memorable comebacks, both inside the ring and outside the ring. Jake is a champ, and a monster, but I would never say that too his face unless I want to keep mine on my head.
Onto Raging Bull II, the continuing story...Highly Recommended!

Hollywood transformed in the '60's and '70's. And, for me, it's a wonderful reminder of my industry roots.

Entertaining and easy read on the "1970s" Hollywood era (covers 1968-1980). Covers a lot of ground and includes a look at almost every major or important director from that era, and how their ego and hubris ultimately restored Hollywood to the studio system. Reccommended for any fan of films of that era.

Firstly - I don't think that this book should be mistaken for a spiteful Paul-Johnson-type of takedown of Great Men...Biskind's not a curmudgeon, and I see no evidence of a Grand Thesis in this book smashing down facts to fit the preconceived mold...

I'm made to remember, as I first read & then occasionally re-read this book, that the Seventies was not just the time in which the putative counter-cultural forces stormed & took the tired old film studio citadel (and in the process became, many of them, boring old farts struggling for relevance); nor was it simply the time in which Spielberg & Lucas hatched the modern Big Blockbuster--but it was also the age of the invention of the super-auteur, the well-advertised & vaunting "maverick" filmmaker who compulsively pointed up to the stands every time he came up at bat (Bogdanovich & Coppola, most egregiously)...The super-stardom of these people arrives with the mainstreaming of know-how fetishism, and the over-valuation of the film artiste - the ascension of film-schools, making-of docs, horserace reports on box-office grosses, and so on...Much of what has been taken for slimy "gossip" in this book seems, on reflection, to be intimately connected with the films themselves: and in some wild cases ("Days of Heaven"; "Apocalypse Now"), the prodigal wasn't bankrupted & chastened, but came back home a star...

That said - I'm grateful for Biskind's hard treatment of Altman, and of Paul Schrader--they were begging for it...I don't understand why he treats Robert Towne's "Personal Best" as an ignominous all-'round failure--it REALLY wasn't that bad!

They say they sent it to my address, but i never recieved it. I called them. they told me they sent it, and did not offer further help.

This book reads straight from the gossip columns. It's a fun, juicy read that you won't be able to put down. Peter Biskind gives you a sneek-peek behind Oz's curtain to see the nitty gritty lives of people like Scorsese, Speilberg, Copolla and Lucas. This won't be "classic literature," but you will find it exciting, addicting and a definate page-turner! Read this book just for the fun of it!

I really like this book!!! I have about 50 pages to go and dread finishing it. I love the great films of the late sixties and seventies- Coppola, Scorcese, Ashby, Kubrick, and this book looks behind the scenes of the machine that produced them and the creative people who made them. Check it out. Only reason for 4 stars is that I would have liked more photos.