Shots in the dark: what the boxing movie does for the Oscars, the film world's equivalent of a title fight.(Movie Column) From: Interview | Date: March 1, 2005| Author: Fuller, Graham | COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Robert De Niro won the Best Actor Oscar for his savage performance as Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980). According to Martin Scorsese's masterpiece, the world middleweight boxing champion from 1949 to 1951 was rendered inarticulate if he wasn't punishing someone in the ring or in his personal life (most of all himself). A quarter century has not lessened the film's masochistic ferocity, and it now seems unaccountable that Ordinary People won the Best Picture Oscar that year, or t...