The Grand Illusion

Martin Scorsese’s lacerating, visionary biopic of ruthless boxer Jake LaMotta (masterfully portrayed by Robert De Niro in his second Academy Award-winning role) steps back into the ring in a stunning new 4K restoration.

During his brief reign as middleweight boxing champion, Jake LaMotta was known as "The Bronx Bull". LaMotta had early lessons in life: to steal and to fight. He channelled his tough childhood into the ring, where his aggression became a way of combating deep-seated anxieties and emotional fears. This determination and rage turned him from a young hoodlum into a champion. But his drive for the title, his brutality outside of the ring, and his almost-psychotic sexual jealousy threatens to destroy his marriage, his deepest friendships, and the career he fought to build.

“Scorsese’s great talent is in showing the dynamics between basic human drives and the cultures that mold them. Jake’s destructive impulses—targeted as much against himself as the outside world—make us uncomfortable because they aren’t completely foreign to our personal experience, no matter how much we might want to distance ourselves from them… The most obvious basis for the film’s claim to greatness lies in Scorsese’s devastating critique of the very codes of masculinity that shaped him as a filmmaker, and in Robert De Niro’s performance, through which that critique is made flesh.” Amy Taubin, The Village Voice