Paul Schrader on writing "Raging Bull" and film biography

Paul Schrader on the commentary track of "Raging Bull"

"I'm not a big fan of the form of biography because people's lives don't tend to have a sort of dramatic arc. and then what you have to do is manipulate the facts which is -- always makes you feel a little queasy when you create composite characters and you have people meet who never met in real life. But if you're going to do a biography, it's always best to do one about someone who's relatively unknown. Then you can really get into the truth of their psyche without being so worried about the audience knowing that you've taken liberties. and so LaMotta was good because people didn't know that much about him."