Coming to the end of this film again, I was struck by final title, the line-by-line fade-in from the Gospel of John:
"So, for the second time, [the Pharisees]
summoned the man who had been blind and said:
'Speak the truth before God.
We know this fellow is a sinner.'
'Whether or not he is a sinner, I do not know.'
the man replied.
'All I know is this:
once I was blind and now I can see.'"
It was almost too much to take in, emotionally, after the scene in the dark prison cell where Jake insists, over and over, "I'm not an animal!" Personally, I've got a deep-seated sympathy for Jake, but it's hard for me to explain why, so I am hoping you can shed some light on the problem.
For one, the film does not come across as particularly religious, though my impression on this point might come from the overtly sexual and violent way in which Jake seeks the comfort of other humans. He must be loved, he's hungry for it, although his desire to be loved might go unnoticed in light of his mistreatment of the people who care about him most. What I mean is that the film is about "LOVE," but Scorsese conceals this theme fairly well until the end.
At the same time, are there not moments in the film where Jake seeks out some kind of penance for his abusive outbursts? I am thinking here of the scene where he insists that Joey punch him in the face repeatedly (so his wife can watch). And later, when he gives up the title to Sugar Ray after letting his face get pummeled into a bloody mess, isn't he paying for beating up Joey and Vickie? He reaches out to the people he hurts, though he is too late to be forgiven by them. But by me? By you?
Now here is your prompt: First, are we meant to see Jake as the blind man who learns to see by the end of the film? Or is he "the fellow" the Pharisees call a "sinner"? Second, what role does Scorsese seem to think the audience will have taken on while watching this film, judging by the final title quoted above? Are we the "pharisees" judging Jake, or are WE supposed to be the blind man who now, because of our experience with Jake, can see human frailty in a new light, not only Jake's but our own as well? Be sure to review the rules for commenting and that you meet the length requirement. Also, remember that this film response is optional.
I believe that Jake is the one who is referred to as the blind man who learns to see. Jake struggles a lot through this movie, and I think most of it is emotionally. Jake seems to have a very large support system, but he tends to push them away and lash out against them. Fighting seems to be the only thing that Jake cares about, even though he has a loving brother and a beautiful wife who adores him. In the beginning and middle of the movie, you can see how Jake does not trust the two most important people in his life, being Joey and Vickie. Jake even goes so far to beat up the both of them after he thinks they are sleeping together. He abuses everyone around him until the end of the movie, where you can see he finally comes to terms with reality. He, in a way, gives up fighting by throwing his championship match. He loses it all when he gets sent to prison, where he repeats over and over again that he is not an animal. At this point in the movie, you can see that Jake finally realizes what means most to him, and you automatically feel some sort of sympathy for him.
ReplyDeleteI think that Scorsese referred to us, as the audience, as the Pharisees. During this movie, we all go along with Jake through his adventures in life. We learn to have our own opinion about him, which starting out it is easy to say he is stubborn, selfish, and very hard-headed. I think that Scorsese made the movie this way and ended with that quote because we are judging him and his actions the whole movie, and it is a very good question to ask at the end: Is Jake a sinner? The way Jake acts during the beginning and middle of the movie differs from the image we are left with at the end of the movie. He is no longer that stubborn, selfish, and hard headed character. Instead, we see him as a vulnerable, saddened, depressed character who has lost everything that ever meant anything to him. In turn, he is left all alone.
I believe that Jake plays the role of the fellow the Pharisees call a sinner as well as the blind man. Throughout the film Jake is sinning in a more literal sense by beating his wife and his brother while also being put down by Joey, Vickie, and everyone else he knows, much like the Pharisees did to the fellow they called a sinner. Jake is at the mercy of his loved ones and everyone else around him. Even though Jake’s house is decorated with crucifixes and images of the Virgin Mary, we are not certain that he is religious, but I believe that he repents of his sins. He regrets the way he treated his loved ones and seeks forgiveness. Regardless of if people see that he is changed and grant him forgiveness, I think the most important part is that he wants to be forgiven. Jake is the blind man that now sees—that now understands how he should have treated the ones he loves.
ReplyDeleteEven though Jake has mistreated his loved ones, I do not believe that Scorsese wanted the audience to feel unsympathetic towards him. I believe this film is about love, forgiveness, and the consequences of our actions. Scorsese wants us to be the blind man. He wants us to not just look past Jake’s sins, but ignore them altogether once we’ve realized the moral to the story of this film. The blind man does not care about the fact that Jake was or is a sinner, because the blind man is more focused on the fact that he can now see—that he should be grateful for his fortune. This film is a learning experience for both Jake and the audience that we should not take our prosperity for granted and not to judge others. Who are we to judge?
We are mean to see Jake as the sinner who is summoned to be judged by the blind man. Jake's life, like most lives (albeit to an exceptional degree), is heavy with sin. It is the Pharisees, or the sanctimonious, that might be inclined to judge Jake and label him as a sinner and perhaps not without good reason. Through-out most of the movies we are shown that Jake is abusive and distrustful. To the extent that he eventually comes to suspect without grounds the two most important people in his life, Vickie and Joey, are having an affair. He then physically abuses them both. He also drinks to excess and seems to struggle with gluttony, he periodically complains of having to stay within a weight class. However, I do not think that Jake is meant to be damned by anyone.
ReplyDeleteThe final and total fall of Jake and his redemption allow us to empathize with his and our own innate flaws. Everyone even the best of us make mistakes and hurt those around us, to err is human. But that does not mean that we are bad people or unworthy of love. So we are the “blind man” that perhaps was sanctimonious (or perhaps the Pharisees) that saw all that Jake and done and damned him. But now we have seen him stripped of his glory: he lost his business, his wife, children, and brother. He has been thoroughly punished for the abuse he exacted upon them. And now he repents it whole heartedly. So we were blind, without empathy or compassion, but now we the audience can see that Jake is worthy of forgiveness and just as much a victim as anyone else in the film. Lastly, the lesson is meant to be extended to ourselves, for we are all human like Jake.
I believe that in this scenario, Jake is the man in question. We see by his final monologue that he at the very least recognizes his own shortcomings, and while it may be too late to hold onto his family, his reputation, or his dignity, he does find a certain redemption in it. And while Jake's actions up to that point are not at all Christlike, there is a plethora of religious imagery in the film (church dances, a crucifix over Jake's bed) that I cannot believe is an accident, and given Scorsese's propensity for religious undercurrents in his films, I would say that they are there for a reason.
ReplyDeleteI am not so sure that we the audience are specifically meant to be either the blind man, nor the Pharisees in this equation, but I could see a case made for the latter: after all, it is hard not to watch the film without developing at least a little bit of resentment, if not outright antipathy, toward Jake LaMotta. By the end of the film, he does not exactly seek contrition in the traditional sense (like, for example, apologizing for his violent behavior), but he does appear to come to the realization that at the end of it all, he is utterly alone, and he can only blame himself for it. So in that sense, we are the Pharisees: initially judgmental, only to come to see him as a more sympathetic figure after all.
I believe Jake is the blind man. Throughout the movie he constantly abused the people he loved and cared for. He would smack them around, bad mouth them, etc. He took them for granted. It wasn’t until he lost everything that he was able “see” his wrong ways. Once Jake lost the title, his wife, and even his brother, was he able to see that he was wrong in what he did. But as true tragedies go, it was too late. Jake must live the rest of his life with the fact that he lost everything by his own hands, and there is nothing he can do to change it (no matter how much pain he conflicts or takes). Side note; I believe that the “sinner” is Sugar Ray. At the beginning of the film, he won the fight against Jake (despite Jake being the clear winner). This set up the motion of the film (that Jake could never have enough and must have more). And Sugar Ray beat him at the end of the film, concluding the film and showing Jake the “Light”
ReplyDeleteI think we, as the audience, are also the blind man now seeing the new light. From my personal experience of watching the film, I felt remorse for everyone BUT Jake. I felt that what Jake did was his own fault and that he should be punished for his deeds. It wasn’t until the ending after he lost everything (his wife, his brother, his title) and the verse from the Gospel of John did I start to pity Jake. I started to realize that he was just a paranoid man who wanted nothing more than the love from the people he cared for. The best way he knew how to show his love was to beat his enemies to a pulp. I realized that he was only trying to do the right thing but he was doing them the wrong way. But just like Jake, we the audience realize this a little to late, and can’t do anything about it.
At first it would be easy to say that Jake is obviously the sinner, the first 15 minutes of the movie would suggest that Jake is uncompassionate and selfish, especially when Jake flips a table over “burned stake”. He comes off as extremely intense and vulgar. However, as the movie progresses we see glimpses of Jake’s sincerity and his love for other people like Vickie and Joey. Although he does not express these attributes strongly or clearly, for Jake it is a big deal. With that said Jake is to be seen as the blind man who learns to see as the obstacles continue. Some early signs suggesting that Jake is learning to see and openly appreciate the things around him are when he is by the pool at his house in Miami. He is talking to a reporter while Vicki looks after the children. Jake interrupts the interview to have a family picture taken, to show off what a beautiful family he has. Before Jake stood as Jake and only Jake, center of it all kind of attitude, but in this moment in the film I see Jake as the proud family man.
ReplyDeleteI think Scorsese wanted us to be the blind man now able to see the light through Jakes journey and misfortunes. Jake in the beginning was hard to watch, his actions received little to no sympathy. I know that while I watched the movie I was secretly scolding him the entire time, in my mind I wanted to pull Jake aside and explain to him how his life would end up if he continued to treat people the way he did. As an audience member I wanted to slap and nurture Jake at the same time. It is easy to judge Jake in this movie, but looking at the bigger picture we sympathize and learn to see as Jake does. I think Scorsese wanted it to be that way.
I did feel a lot of sympathy for Jake just because from the very beginning I wanted to know why. Why did he treat people the way he did? Why wouldn’t he let Tommy help him? Why was he so insistent on doing things his way? Sometimes I could see the little child in him that didn’t get the recognition he needed. The insecurity he had in his relationship with others, women especially, showed me that no matter how successful he became it would never fill the void he seemed to have in his life. When he was on top of the world he seemed to be untouchable. By the end of the movie, after he had lost his career and family, his eyes were opened and he was able to “see” what was lost.
ReplyDeleteAfter the journey we take with Jake, I believe we are the Pharisees judging him. We can see all along what “we” believe he is doing wrong in all aspects of his life. His first wife/girlfriend didn’t bring much sympathy, but would I think differently if he would have spoken to her in a less demanding way. He treated most people like they were beneath him. Even the guys who wanted to help him get to the top. It is easier for people to “judge” others even though it’s not our place nor was it the Pharisees place. We can make plenty of comments on what others do because we are not in that position and can only suppose how we would react in the same situation.
To me I see Jake as the blind man in the movie. I was not a big fan of Jake from the get go, he is not my type of character so I find it easier to critique his roll and his actions throughout the movie. There is no doubt that Jake makes terrible decisions. He has a loving wife and brother who care about him more than anyone else in the movie does. His lack of trust towards the two people who care about him is astonishing. Jake was blind to what really mattered to him in life. We see Jake lose the fight against Sugar Ray in the beginning and I think that Sugar Ray is what blinds him. Jake wanted the title so bad that he began to get tunnel vision and nothing was going to prevent him from getting that title. Jake loved winning, but Jake also loved being loved by others. When Jake hit his wife and hit his brother, it opened my eyes to how blind Jake really was. The two people who were there for him throughout it all supporting him and uplifting him were nothing more than the dirt on the bottom of a pair of shoes in Jake’s eyes. Jake through his entire life away and then when the moment finally came where everything he had worked for and he threw it away. I think Jake threw it away because that is the only way that Jake is able to say sorry, so that he can show the people he hurt just how much they mean to him by throwing away his one and only dream. I think Jake saw the light when he was in jail and kept repeating that he was not an animal. When people are blind they do and say things that they never meant. It was an eye opener for Jake to finally see what he had become and what he had done to the people he loved and at that point what was done is done and there is no changing it. When Jake was looking into the mirror at the end he was quoting a line, but that line was a direct reflection of his life and how he threw it all away and he can now see that he should of changed earlier but now he is alone. He had the world in his hands and lost it and he sees that.
ReplyDeleteI think the audience was intended to be the Pharisees and blind. I think Scorsese wanted us to judge Jake for his actions throughout the movie and feel little to no sympathy because that is the easiest thing to do towards Jake. The quickest emotion for me towards Jake throughout the movie was anger and I was enraged when he hit his wife, and treated women the way he did. I judged him and knew how it would all turn out. Judging someone is the easiest thing to do. Then at the end I didn’t feel sympathy for Jake when I saw that he finally regrets his past and realizes that he lost everything when he was looking in the mirror. Its like we were supposed to judge Jake, but then both the audience and Jake saw the light at the same moment, so maybe we were blind judgmental viewers who now feel closure because we knew he was going to lose it all, and then at the end, we saw Jake realize why he lost it all. Scorsese could have been telling us that judgment is a form of blindness and we realize that when we see the light of truth.