Jake Lamotta Vs. Terry Malloy:
“I Could have been a Contender”
At the end of Raging Bull when all the view is left with is an old fat Jake Lamotta, he quotes Marlon Brando’s On the Waterfront character, Terry Malloy. This one quotation is an incredibly powerful way to end the film as it brings this film and its character into a larger cinematic world and invites the view to compare the two film fighters. Jake Lamotta, the self destructive man whose rage led him to fame in the ring and ultimately destroyed his personal life, and Terry Malloy whose allegiance to his mobster brother led him to a led him to a less then worthwhile life. There are three factors that will be taken into account when comparing these two characters: the fighting, the family life, the life outside the ring. These are three aspects to the these characters which translate from both films and are the factors which make up most of the existence of these two characters, (to whatever extent a film character actually exists).
Both characters were career boxers, both were middleweights, and both were prominent in their field at some point. The big difference in their fighting life is how it is depicted on film. The viewer is allowed to see all of Jake’s fights, were as Terry’s are never seen. The only record the view has of Terry’s boxing career are the stories he tell about fighting. This creates two completely different types of characters. Being allowed to see Jake’s fights emphasizes his rage it makes him more violent visually to the audience. The main point of Jake as a fighter is to show how all the anger inside catapulted his boxing career and drove him to win. It makes him a very frightening character and actually makes the audience understand that this is a guy who is driven to physically beat people. That drive destroys him outside of the ring but it is all Jake knows. Terry’s fights are never shown they are only spoken about and that creates a character that is less threatening and more sympathetic. The audience is never allowed to see Terry beat anyone, most of the movie he is the one getting beat. The audience feels bad for Terry, he is a character who lives mainly in the past. As an audience we never there to see him win, there is not shared moment of joy in victory or the pain of defeat. Those two moments in Raging Bull are the two moments were the audience is allowed some humanity from Jake, his real emotions come out. With Terry that is never given to the viewer. He becomes something even sadder then a loser, a man haunted by his past.
On the Waterfront and Raging Bull both deal with a plethora of issues but one that is very obvious and glaring is the family relationship, specifically the relationship between brothers. Both Jake and Terry have brothers who are involved with some form of organized crime. It is the connections the brothers’ have to the underworld that also set Jake and Terry up for large life changing events; Terry’s loss in the Wilson Fight, and Jake becoming world champion. The big difference in the brotherly relationship is that Jake’s brother Joey dotes over him, defends him at every turn and looks after him. Joey is Jakes manager and throughout the movie makes the right moves to make Jake a winning fighter. When Jake is not training hard Joey gets in his face and motivates Jake to train harder. Joey is the one who sets Jake up with his wife to be Vicky. Joey defends his brother’s honor when he takes Vicky out of club and away from Salvy. In the end Jake’s rage and jealousy makes him turn against his brother who truly loved him. Terry’s relationship with his brother Charlie is the exact opposite of Jake and Joey’s relationship. Charlie is like a vampire who sucked all the life from Terry and then just through him to the curb. When Terry was a fighter he took many dives for his brother and because of that was never able to aspirer to the top of the boxing world. After Terry’s career fizzles out Charlie continues to use Terry. He sets Terry up with a mineral job on the waterfront to keep him quiet about the crime going on around him. Charlie is always looking out for himself which is most evident in the famous car ride scene. Charlie puts pressure on Terry to keep his mouth shut about a mob murderer he witnessed. Charlie even thinks about taking his brother to get killed. In the end Terry is finally able to over come his brother and do the right thing for himself.
The final comparison of the two characters would be their demeanor within the context of the film narratives. Terry’s narrative is of a man who has to make a choice to between loyalties to his brother and doing what is just. Terry is very conflicted character who is driven manly by his past. Jake’s main motivating force is his rage. Jake unlike Terry is a man who takes what he wants. He uses intimidation and his power to get what he wants. The audience is given all of Jake, nothing is washed over. The audience dives into the deepest darkest places that Jake’s rage takes him. The viewer is even allowed to watch Jake beat his wife Vicky and his brother Joey, two characters who always took care of Jake. The audience is never given that much liberty into Terry’s life. Terry only exists within the context of the mob narrative. There are moments where Terry’s life becomes broader. The seen with the pigeons on the roof top is a moment where Terry’s personal life is brought to light. It is a very human moment and makes Terry a more dimensional character. Most of Terry’s dimension though comes the philosophical/emotional debate between loyalty and justice. There no strong liner narrative for Jake. It is seeing snapshot in the life of a destructive man who could not live outside of a boxing ring. Both ways of storing telling present strong full encapsulating cinematic experience, but two experiences which are completely different.
In the end; Terry does the right thing and he feels validity in his life and who he is, Jake spirals out of control loosing everything and everyone he loves becoming a parody of what he was. It would seem by the end of each film the characters have reversed roles. Terry is no longer living in the past, and Jake can only find happiness in the past, in the fact that he was a champion. When Jake recites the lines from On the Waterfront, he starts by describing Terry as an “up and comer who is now a down and outer,” and that he was a champion and it will always be in the record books. It is the reverse of fortunes and the similarities between the two characters that makes Jake recital of Terry’s lines impactful. The difference in their fighting careers, the differences in the brother relationship, and the context of the narratives all encapsulate how these two characters can be the same archetype, a boxer/fighter, but be on different ends of the spectrum. This is what creates the poignancy of the ending of Raging Bull. They could have had Jake recite a line from Champion, where Kirk Douglas played boxer Midge Cooley. The Midge Cooley character is more like Jake’s character. He uses his power and anger to get what he wants, Midge walks all over everyone and destroys his relationship with his brother. But then that becomes just a one dimensional mirror image. In the famous lines Terry says “I could have had class, I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody, instead of just a bum which is what I am.” That works for Jake on many levels. The easies being that he has lost his whole life and is a bum. But also that in the film Jake never had class. He was loud, mean, vindictive, and even with a championship it was a bum. Terry on the other hand did the right thing and salvaged what was left of his character. He overcame being bum and that it was why that ending of Raging Bull, those lines are so important to the overall end of Jake’s character.
