GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002)
Direction: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, Henry Thomas, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, John C. Reilly, Gary Lewis, Stephen Graham, Eddie Marsan, Alec McCowen, David Hemmings
Screenplay: Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, from a story by Cocks. (Herbert Asbury's Gangs of New York treads on some of the same territory shown in the film.)
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
KEEP AWAY YOUR POOR, YOUR TIRED. . .
Those who think that gangs and urban violence are a modern phenomenon should take a look at Martin Scorsese's ambitious Gangs of New York, a riveting tale of revenge, corruption, and power lust set in mid-1860s New York City. Scorsese had already covered the dangerous streets of his hometown in films as diverse as Mean Streets and After Hours, but in Gangs of New York he goes back in time to a period when that city was a chaotic Third World melting pot — one in which the melting took place whenever members of rival ethnic gangs shed blood on top of one another.
Scorsese's genteel The Age of Innocence, also set in 19th-century New York, stayed within the confines of the city's wealthy districts, galaxies away from the wretched neighborhoods of immigrants and working-class Americans. Gangs of New York, however, is set right in the 'hood, the Five Corners section of town (recreated on the lot of the Cinecittà studios in Rome) where a young Irishman, Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), seeks to avenge the death of his father (Liam Neeson).
The murderer, Bill, the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), is the one-eyed leader of a xenophobic gang that wants to wipe out the newly arrived Irish immigrants. (The Butcher was inspired by real-life nativist bigot Bill Poole.) Unaware of Amsterdam's real identity, Bill takes him in as a surrogate son. The truth, however, eventually emerges in bloody fashion.
Although the film's central storyline sounds conventional, Scorsese and (credited) screenwriters Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan contextualize it by weaving the personal stories into the sociopolitical framework of the mid-19th-century United States. The gang rivalries and personal vendettas are thus micro-civil wars found within the larger context of the Civil War that is tearing the country apart.
Amsterdam and Bill, for their part, are archetypes of their convoluted time, when the country — with the end of slavery and the arrival of cheap immigrant labor — was rapidly transforming itself from a socially stratified agricultural society into a more malleable industrial nation.
The Old Guard, represented by Bill and his followers, is unable to recognize or accept the inevitable changes. In sharp contrast to the American mythology, immigrants in Gangs of New York are — literally — welcomed with sticks and stones. The New Guard, represented by the Irishman Amsterdam and his fellow immigrants, is ready to take over from the Old Guard and thus proceed with the forging of the new nation — that is, until they themselves become the Old Guard, ready to be taken over by another wave of new blood.
In order to bring to life that difficult period in American history, Scorsese (who can be spotted in a cameo as a wealthy man inside his mansion) relied on a team of first-rate artists and technicians, among them production designer Dante Ferretti and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, both of whom create some of the most impressive work of their careers.
Gang's of New York was an entertaining film, but the facts were tweeked to portray things worse than they actually were. In some way this is supposed to make us feel better about ourselves. Our modern society was supposed to fulfill all our expectations of progress and evolution, but instead we find ourselves as lame and depraved as ever. Thus Hollywood comes to the rescue, showing us that the progress hasn't been great, but we have in fact exibited an historical budge in comparison to our previous depravity. Thanks! I'm feeling better already!