Daily Dialogue — September 17, 2011
“Why? Why? Why?…Why’d you do it? Why? You’re so stupid…I’m not an animal. Why do you treat me like this? I’m not so bad.”
— Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), Raging Bull (1980), screenplay by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is screamfests. Raging Bull suggested by Deaf Ears.
Trivia: Mardik Martin wrote the most traditional, linear script for the film (more of a traditional Jake La Motta biography), but backed off on the project due to exhaustion after months of research. Paul Schrader made several changes to the script, including making, Joey La Motta, Jake’s brother, the second most prominent character (by combining his actions with that of Jake’s friend, ‘Peter Savage’) and starting the story in the middle of La Motta’s career rather than at the beginning. Although they kept Schrader’s overall structure, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro spent 5 weeks rewriting his version of the script until they had exactly the film they wanted (Scorsese and De Niro are uncredited as screenwriters for the film).
Dialogue On Dialogue: Fascinating to see how the mood of a story can change from one moment to the next, LaMotta a raging bull, then feeling like a sacrificial lamb.