Raging Bull

What is it like to experience emotions without being able to identify their sources? What happens when a person feels intense self-loathing but cannot articulate why—even as his star rises? Join Mike and Dan for an extended conversation about Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese’s 1980 masterpiece and a film that it took the guys three years of podcasting to get the nerve to tackle. Dan explains why Raging Bull is a film that Flannery O’Connor would have admired; Mike talks about what happens when the violence confined by sports to a specific place spills over into other spaces; both debate the degree to which Jake can understand himself at the end of the film. As a portrait of a soul in distress, Raging Bull is one of the best.

Peter Biskind’s terrific Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood tells the story of how Raging Bull was made and how it marked the end of one of the greatest eras in American film.

Follow us on Twitter or Letterboxd. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

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