In a way, Taxi Driver, Angry Bull, and King of Comedy are part of Martin Scorsese's trilogy.
"Angry Bull" continues from top to bottom, "Taxi Driver" and "King of Comedy" echo each other, and these three films also establish Martin's personal style, examining society with images.
"Angry Bull" is not a pleasing and engaging movie, and it is not enough to watch, and even a little dull.
The "Rocky" series that exploded in the United States at the same time is the same theme but not the same genre, "Rocky" is more inspirational, "Angry Bull" is darker, more like the boxing version of "Taxi Driver".
In fact, this grayness is related to Martin Scorsese, who came to the trough of life.
In 1976, he became famous with "Taxi Driver", and the following year he cooperated with De Niro in "New York, New York", but unfortunately the box office and word of mouth suffered Waterloo, which was a very big blow to Scorsese.
At the same time, his marriage and body were lit up with red lights, making him lose interest in movies and prepare to change careers to find another one.
As a good friend, De Niro did not want to see Scorsese sink, so he took Jack Lamota's biography to the hospital to visit Scorsese.
Scorsese, who has experienced the ups and downs of his life, feels empathy for Jack this time and decides to shoot this film as his last farewell film.
Fortunately, after the movie came out, although the reputation was not good at the beginning, people slowly realized its goodness and was rated as the first best film in the eighties, saving three people since then.
The first was Martin Scorsese himself, and "The Bull of Rage" gave him renewed confidence in the film, and two years later he made another classic, "The King of Comedy", which echoed "The Bull of Rage".
Because Jack Lamotta in the film eventually went from a boxer to a stand-up comedian.
And "The King of Comedy" is about the story of a talk show actor, and the 2019 Jacqueline Phoenix version of "Joker" pays tribute to this story, and De Niro also made a cameo appearance as a talk show host who was shot by the Joker.
The second person was Joe Percy, who was preparing to quit show business, but starred in the film on De Niro's recommendation, playing De Niro's younger brother.
Originally, this character was not included in the original biography, but Paul Schrader, a screenwriter who has worked with Scorsese many times, has made up such a new character to make the narrative more fluid.
It was this change that allowed Joe Percy to extend his career as one of Martin's royal casts, and 11 years later in "Good Guys," Joe Percy was crowned the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
The third is De Niro.
With the superb acting skills in "Angry Bull", he won the Oscar in one fell swoop, and since then he has opened his way to godhood, and "Angry Bull" has also become different because of him.
"Angry Bull" is most popular because of the camera language and exquisite editing, but the reality and values reflected by Jack Lamota, played by De Niro, are the core of the film' standing.
Jack is a talented boxer and invincible.
However, because he did not succumb to capital, he was unable to participate in the Boxing Championship and it was difficult to realize his dream of wearing a gold belt.
In order to reach the top, Jack deliberately lost a game, and then got the gold belt as he wished.
However, he was lost in the darkness of the boxing match, and he was finally defeated in the last boxing match of his life, bidding farewell to the stage he loved.
Outside of boxing, Jack's life was also a mess, the world was to the left, and he was alone to the right.
Treating love, he is jealous, suspicious, selfish, violent and irritable, punches and kicks his relatives at every turn, and does not know how to respect others, resulting in him becoming a lonely man and a rebel.
At the end, Jack unloaded everything, finally understood how to get along with people, how to cherish feelings, and became an ordinary person but also a real person.
The same is true of the real Martin Scorsese.
After a series of sad and happy clutches, we know the significance of the movie to him, which makes us not regret, but also let him not regret, which is a fortunate thing in the history of film.
In Raging Bull, De Niro became a talk show actor.
In "The King of Comedy", De Niro stood on a bigger stage and was in the spotlight.
But De Niro's overnight fame in the film is not so glorious, which implies too many unspoken rules of the entertainment industry and social entertainment.
De Niro plays Rupert, a comedy lover at the bottom.
He dreams of becoming the king of comedy like his idol Jerry, bringing happiness to everyone between words and thus becoming famous.
But idols and fans are never one level of people.
Even if you have dreams, talents, and how obsessed you are with idols, in the eyes of idols, fans are just tools for them to gain fame and fortune, and they talk sweetly when they need it, and they hate each other.
You always think that you are friends with your idol, learn about his character on the screen, and worship his talent under the human set.
But you never pay attention to the bodyguards that the idol invites to prevent whom, and the object of the idol's talk is rarely the fans, on the contrary, the people who pay the bill are the fans.
In the movie, Rupert breaks the siege for Jerry, expresses admiration in the car, and shows his talent.
But instead of being grateful, Jerry hated it so much that he slipped away with a reason, but Rupert got it.
He went to the TV station every day to wait for Jerry's reception, but in exchange for repeated ridicule, people not only did not want to pay attention to him, but even his name could not be remembered.
Rupert thought Jerry was busy, that he was friends with him, and that he would not lie.
After many setbacks, Rupert kidnaps Jerry with Jerry's bastard meal in order to put himself on the stage and be the king of comedy for a while, not a boring egg for a lifetime.
Rupert turned his suffering into a story and told it as a joke, which caused the audience to laugh, won the full house, and also enjoyed the disaster of imprisonment.
Rupert's few minutes of talk shows were on fire in the country.
In prison, he was signed up by capital, packaged, and suddenly became a popular idol, and the sentence was reduced from six years to more than two years due to the application of many fans.
After being released from prison, Xiao Transparent became a big star, this is the star, they are not a privileged class, but they have privileges, superior, everyone has to compliment, otherwise fans will come to find people in trouble.
This society wants people to get better, but they are more after having money to earn traffic, even if he is a bad person, capital will flock to him.
Not to mention that Rupert in "The King of Comedy" did not cause any harm to Jerry, the starting point is that Huai Cai does not meet and does not hurt people, just to say that there are many stars who are not worthy of the domestic entertainment industry.
But they have a large number of fans, making 2.08 million a day, making mistakes, and having fans washing the floor.
Even if you are forced to withdraw from the circle, you can still rely on your fans to get rich, what kind of values does this phenomenon convey?
You can be untalented, uncultured, even you can commit crimes, as long as you are a star, you have fans, you can cross the class to become a superior.
This is also the main reason why the star circle is chaotic, young people are no longer safe, everyone relies on wiping edges, selling ugly in exchange for traffic, as long as there is heat, you can let the cash cow drop its own fruit.
For the sake of traffic can accept privileges, for the sake of traffic can force others to identify with incapable idols, for the sake of traffic can call on fans to storm others.
What is the need for such an entertainment industry? From the inside to the outside of the smoke miasma, the inside is pickled, the outside teaches people from evil, the idol makes fans unable to tolerate other views, can only be a diode.
When it comes to their idols, as long as they are not exaggerated, they are black, their thoughts become single, their behavior tends to be extreme, art can exist, art does not have three, six, nine, etc., but art has a strong incitement.
It is precisely because of this that the pursuit of art will have a distinction between high and low, taking the top, getting the middle, taking the middle, taking the bottom, taking the bottom, and getting nothing.
The terrible thing is that most of the entertainment industry today is "taking down", fans "get nothing", and the only "get" is to attack it in groups.