"It’s possible, and wildly unfair, that De Niro won his Oscar for his prodigious eating. It’s possible, and wildly unfair, that Scorsese did not win best director—it went to Robert Redford for his bland, bourgeois Ordinary People—because he was a Hollywood outsider. It was wildly fair that Thelma Schoonmaker won the Oscar for her editing on her first try as a nominee. The Academy had nothing against her and her work was highly visible, especially in the boxing scenes. These honors, naturally, say nothing about the way Raging Bull has taken its place in history—all those placements on those all-time greatest-movies lists that people are always drawing up. I asked Schoonmaker if anyone at the time entertained the thought that they were doing something special and she laughed. “No,” she said, “it’s always, ‘Let’s see what it will be like in 40 or 50 years.’” We are nearing the low end of that span and Raging Bull’s hold on us is undiminished."
