GANGS OF NEW YORK d: Martin Scorsese
December 23rd, 2004 by Andre Soares
Gangs of New York (2002)
Director: Martin Scorsese. 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.) 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
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 1993 genteel The Age of Innocence was also set in 19th-century New York, but in the city’s wealthy districts, galaxies away from the wretched neighborhoods of immigrants and working-class Americans.)
The basic plot of Gangs of New York revolves around a young Irishman, Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), who returns to the Five Corners section of town to avenge the death of his father. The murderer, Bill, the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), is the one-eyed head of a xenophobic gang that wants to wipe out the newly arrived Irish immigrants. 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-nineteenth-century United States. The gang rivalries and personal vendettas are thus a micro-civil war found within the larger context of the Civil War that is tearing the whole 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 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. Keeping things moving are Thelma Schoonmaker’s concise editing skills (at times concise to the point of abruptness, considering that Miramax ordered Scorsese’s 3-hour-plus final cut pared down to 168 minutes), and the director’s own fluid camera work. The opening sequence, in particular, is a magnificent example of bravura filmmaking, as the camera follows Irish gang members through the otherworldly innards of a New York slum. (Like so many American filmmakers, Scorsese does considerably less well in the film’s more intimate — and laughably artificial — sex scenes.)
With the exception of Cameron Diaz’s much-too-modern and much-too-coy anti-heroine, the film’s other leading performers hold their ground among the elaborate sets. Henry Thomas (the little boy in E.T.) is excellent as the traitor Johnny Sirocco; Leonardo DiCaprio brings the required inner strength to his determined, steely-eyed Amsterdam; while Daniel Day-Lewis exudes charisma through his larger-than-life Bill, the Butcher. Day-Lewis, a performer who tends to drown his characterizations in mannerisms and twitches, delivers the performance of a lifetime in Gangs of New York. Despite plenty of chances, not once does the actor allow his villain to fall into the pit of caricature or self-parody. In fact, Bill is so frightening — and so fascinating — because he is so monstrously human. With glistening eyes and clenched teeth, Day-Lewis’ ruthless, power-hungry, viciously xenophobic Bill, the Butcher, believably encompasses all that is ugly about Americans — and human beings in general — then and now.
In Gangs of New York, Scorsese shows that New York City, and by extension the United States, went from chaotic Third World Nation to (somewhat less chaotic) Global Superpower not only through honest and hard labor, but also — perhaps chiefly — through the ruthless use of force and coercion. At the end of the film, the bloody Draft Riots — New York’s own mini "French Revolution" — are squelched by the U.S. Army’s systematic slaughter of the anti-draft, anti-elite protesters. Their blood colors the streets red, those same streets from which would spring up the skyscrapers shown triumphantly in the film’s grand finale. It is the birth of a new America, one in which, as the vote-rigging politician William ‘Boss’ Tweed explains, "the appearance of the law must be upheld, especially when it’s being broken." There was to be no more mob rule in filthy streets. From then on, "the appearance of the law" would disguise the corruption and abuses generated from inside immaculate government and corporate office rooms.
The Age of Innocence, Scorsese and his screenwriters tell us in this remarkable cinematic achievement, has never truly existed in the United States. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Synopsis:
1846: New immigrants flock from the impoverished parts of Europe to the New World. Hoping for a better life, what they find upon landing in New York City is a poor country rife with violence, corruption, and xenophobia. Gangs rule whole sections of New York, a boiling melting pot where both the police and the politicians are inefficient and corrupt. Chief among the brutal gangs are the Native Americans, a viciously anti-Irish group led by the bloodthirsty William Cutting, better known as Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). As the leader of the Natives, the Butcher lords over the Five Points neighborhood, his de facto fiefdom.
During one particularly nasty gang war at Five Points, the Butcher slaughters the leader of the Dead Rabbits, Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). Years later, Vallon’s son, Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), returns to the the old neighborhood to avenge his father’s death. He ingratiates himself with the Butcher, who takes the young man in as a sort of surrogate son. Amsterdam, for his part, develops a certain fondness for the Butcher, though he remains committed to his initial goal. Matters begin to get out of hand when Amsterdam falls for a petty thief, Jenny (Cameron Diaz), a woman with whom the Butcher is infatuated. It all comes to an explosive climax during the bloody anti-draft riots of 1863
DVD:
The two-disc Gangs of New York Region 1 DVD (U.S. / Canada / U.S. territories) release date: November 3, 2004
Features:
- Picture: Widescreen (2.35:1)
- Audio: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1)
- Subtitles: English
- Closed captioned
- Commentary by director Martin Scorsese
- "History of Five Points" featurette
- Exploring the sets
- Set and costume design featurettes
- U2 music video
- Discovery Channel special "Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York"
- Five Points study guide
List price: US$19.99.
A Miramax Home Entertainment release.
Notes:
Nineteenth-century New York was recreated on the lot of the Cinecittà studios in Rome.
Gangs of New York was originally conceived in 1977. The idea was eventually scrapped allegedly because of the failure of the expensive Heaven’s Gate, which was also set in the American past.
Robert DeNiro and Willem Dafoe were both considered for the role of Bill, the Butcher, which eventually went to Daniel Day-Lewis.
At the last minute, Elmer Bernstein’s music was replaced by a new score by Howard Shore.
In Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese appears in a cameo as a wealthy man inside his mansion.
During the run-up to the Oscars in early 2003, Miramax and former Academy president and two-time Oscar-winning director Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music), 88, were heavily criticized for an opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Daily News and the Long Beach Press-Telegram in which Wise endorsed Martin Scorsese for an Academy Award. It was later revealed that the article had been written by publicist Murray Weissman, then working for Miramax’s Oscar campaign. Perhaps because of the backlash, Gangs of New York failed to win a single award out of its ten nominations.
"This is a world we conjured out of whole cloth, out of a whole lot of unassimilated historical research," explained screenwriter Jay Cocks in Slate. That’s officially why Gangs of New York was considered an original screenplay even though it was inspired by Herbert Asbury’s book of the same name.
William ‘Bill the Butcher’ Cutting is based on real-life butcher and gang leader Bill Poole, who began his "career" as one of the Bowery Boys. Cutting’s last words in the film, "I die a true American" are allegedly the same ones uttered by Poole at the time of his death. (Though the allegations are most probably myth-making lies.)
Poole loathed the Irish-Catholic immigrants, and the rivalry between the Nativists and the newcomers led to his death at the hands of an ex-Bowery Boy and ex-cop, Lewis Baker, who shot Poole in the heart. Miraculously, Poole lasted another 14 days. In the movie, Cutting dies during the Draft Riots of 1863. In reality, Poole was killed in 1855.
"[Bill Poole was] a notorious ‘no rules’ street fighter, mayhem artist, die hard nativist. … In other words, a racist and a bigot . . . whose God given duty it was, as an American patriot, to throw stones at everyone who got off the boat." Daniel Day-Lewis, as quoted in Celeb Spot / CBS News.
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