These drafts by Emmett Clary, Mardik Martin, Paul Schrader, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese demonstrated the development in thinking about the filming of the various boxing sequences and how they would be integrated into the other dramatic action in the movie. With that in mind, I carefully examined five different screenplay drafts that were among the De Niro papers. I was particularly interested in the evolution of the nine boxing sequences in the film. Robert De Niro’s performance in the film earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor. The object of my research was the film Raging Bull (1980). He is preparing an essay, “Filming the Fights in Raging Bull,” for a forthcoming critical anthology on the films of Martin Scorsese edited by Aaron Baker and to be published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Grindon spent time working in the Robert De Niro collection in July on a Robert De Niro Fellowship. He is the author of Knockout: the Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema (University Press of Mississippi, 2011), Hollywood Romantic Comedy: Conventions, History and Controversies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and Shadows on the Past: Studies in the Historical Fiction Film (Temple University Press, 1994).

Leger Grindon is a professor of film and media culture at Middlebury College where he has taught since 1987. Paul Schrader’s outline for the 1980 film ‘Raging Bull.’

Raging bull the making of