Raging Bull is a sports drama based on biography of black-and-white made on 1980 in America directed by Martin Scorsese, produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler and the movie was adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from Jake LaMotta’s memoir Raging Bull: My Story.
The movie casts Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, an Italian American middleweight boxer who’s self-destructive and obsessive rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family.
Scorsese was initially reluctant to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to La Motta’s story. Schrader re-wrote Martin’s first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter.
In 1990, it became the first film to be selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in its first year of eligibility. The film is now regarded by many as Scorsese’s magnum opus.
Frank Petrella is the author of the movie and he died early in 1981, with his copyrights reverting to his daughter. And his daughter now claimed that the copyright has been infringed by MGM.
The “Raging Bull” case involves an appeal from Paula Petrella, the daughter of the movie’s author, Frank Petrella. Frank Petrella collaborated with his friend, LaMotta, on two screenplays and a book, which were used to make the movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert DeNiro. The 1980 film won two Oscars, The daughter of the man who wrote the Oscar-winning movie “Raging Bull” including best actor for DeNiro.
The daughter of the man who wrote the Oscar-winning movie “Raging Bull” sued Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. for copyright infringement for creating and distributing copies of the movie. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said she waited too long before filing her lawsuit.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will give her a final second TKO against a movie studio for ownership of boxer Jake LaMotta’s life story for the daughter of the man who wrote the Oscar-winning movie “Raging Bull”
The high court agreed to hear an appeal over the movie’s copyright, one of eight cases granted by the justices as they prepare for the beginning of the new 2013-14 session.
The problem is that she “was aware of her potential claim (as was MGM) since 1991, when her attorney filed renewal applications for the 1963 screenplay,” the lower courts said. “She did not file her lawsuit until 18 years later, in January 2009.” The Supreme Court will now review that decision.
The movie also has some other cases apart from copyright infringement and the high court also decided to referee a gun case out of Tennessee where a man’s plea to misdemeanor domestic assault which the court banned him from ever legally owning a gun again.
James Castleman pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor domestic assault in 2001. He was then charged in 2009 with illegal possession of a firearm by a person convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence after being caught in a straw-purchasing ring with his wife.
A federal judge threw the illegal gun possession charge out, however. Federal law bars a person convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence involving physical force or a deadly weapon from possessing a firearm. The judge said that the Tennessee misdemeanor domestic assault conviction does not require that physical force be used, and so the federal ban could not apply to Castleman.
That decision was upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but the government wants it overturned.
Those cases will likely be heard early next year.
Keywords: Raging Bull, copyright infringement, Paula Petrella, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.