Gangs of New York (2002) ****
Directed By: Martin Scorsese.
Written By: Jay Cocks & Steven Zallian & Kenneth Lonergan.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Amsterdam Vallon), Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting), Cameron Diaz (Jenny Everdeane), Jim Broadbent (William 'Boss' Tweed), John C. Reilly (Happy Jack Mulraney), Henry Thomas (Johnny Sirocco), Liam Neeson ('Priest' Vallon), Brendan Gleeson (Walter 'Monk' McGinn), Gary Lewis (McGloin), Stephen Graham (Shang), Eddie Marsan (Killoran).
When Gangs of New York opened in December 2002, I went to see it at least four times in the theaters – more times than I believe I’ve seen any other movie in its first run. Here was one of those grand old Hollywood epics that they had stopped making before I was even born. There was not a scene in the film that didn’t bursting with ambition, where the scope of the film didn’t seem to be huge. I heard some critics complain that the film was flawed, but I ignored them. I loved every inch of Gangs of New York. Now, returning to the film several years later, I find that it is easier to see the flaws in the film then it was at the time. Perhaps shrunken down to a television screen, they seem more glaring. But I hardly care. I still love every inch of Gangs of New York. Flaws and all, the film is a masterpiece.
The film opens in New York in the 1840s. The Dead Rabbits, a gang of Irish immigrants, are preparing to go to battle with The Natives, a gang of American born men who want to drive the immigrants, who are defiling their homeland, out. Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) leads the Dead Rabbits, and in the final moments before the battle, he tries to teach his young son Amsterdam valuable life lessons. Then the group sets off, through a maze of underground passages, quickly gathering men, before bursting out onto the square where the battle will take place. This is when we get our first look at Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, leader of the Natives. His face is grotesque, with one glass eye, and huge mustache, as he yells ugly epitaphs at his rivals. What follows is one of the bloodiest battles in cinematic history. Men are beaten, stabbed and hacked to death, as the snow beneath their feet slowly turns red with all the blood. Cutting kills Vallon, and thus has power know over the Five Points, the most crime infested area of New York. It will be 16 years before anyone challenges Bill the Butcher again.
That is when Amsterdam (now played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is finally released from the orphan
age he was raised in after the death of his father, and returns to the Five Points. His rough upbringing has trained him well, and he soon falls in with a small gang of thieves. But if you want to operate in the Five Points, you have to ensure that you give Bill a piece of everything that you make. It isn’t long before Bill becomes enamored with this young kid, who is smart and ambitious, and draws him under his wing. Amsterdam, who came with the express purpose of killing Bill, and so was simply playing a part to get close to him (obviously never revealing his real identity) has mixed feelings. He even kind of grows to like Bill, and surely grows to like the money he makes working for him. But as always, the truth is bound to come out, and then all hell will break loose.
The focus of the movie remains on Bill and Amsterdam throughout, but there are other characters that swirl around them. Jenny (Cameron Diaz), a pickpocket who used to be Bill’s, and now maybe Amsterdam’s, if only he doesn’t let his pride get in the way. Boss Tweed (a delightful Jim Broadbent, playing broad amazingly well), a local politician for Tammany Hall, who shifts alliances with the breeze. Monk (Brendan Gleeson), a former Dead Rabbit now turned barber, who exchanges weird glances with Bill and Amsterdam. Constable Mulraney (John C. Reilly), another former Dead Rabbit, now a corrupt cop who gets away with what he does only because Bill allows him to. And McGloin (Gary Lewis), yet another former Dead Rabbit, who has sold out even more and is now one of Bill’s right hand men. These characters and more fill out Scorsese’s vast tapestry, and make the film come alive.
The filmmaking on display in the film is incredible. Shot entirely in the legendary Cinecitta Studio in Rome – where everything from La Dolce Vita to Ben-Hur was shot – it is to the films credit that it never feels like it’s on a soundstage. The entire Five Points Area of New York has been recreated, and makes up one of the distinctive environments in cinema history. The dirt, the grim, the blood, the wooden buildings, everything in the film is just about pitch perfect. Michael Ballhaus makes tremendous use of the location in his cinematography – the camera never stops moving, sweeping around often in 360 degrees in one shot, as it probes the dark corners of the area. There are a number of terrific, memorable images – Diaz’s introduction in slow motion through a dirty window (Scorsese loves to introduce his female characters in slow motion, and if he had to make Diaz a redhead instead of his preferred blonde, the effect is the same), Bill the Butcher throwing knives at Jenny, or the scene when Amsterdam awakes to find Bill sitting over his bed, an American flag draped over his soldiers. This doesn’t even mention the battles that open and close the film, which are visually stunning, and unlike so many modern action sequences, are not over edited to death. The whole film is a visual knockout.
But standing over every other element in the film is Daniel Day-Lewis’ towering performance as B
ill the Butcher – a performance that would still be the best of the decade had Day-Lewis not topped it himself in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Bill the Butcher is one of the most memorable screen villains in history, and although Day-Lewis plays the character as larger than life most of the time, its to his credit that will still always believe his character would act like this. When the rare quiet moment comes – like when he teaches DiCaprio what the difference between a kill and a wound is using the carcass of a pig, or the aforementioned scene when he is draped in the American flag – Day-Lewis hits just the right notes. He is the villain of the film, but he towers over its hero, and everyone else in the film. When you walk away from the film, he is element you most remember.
Now, let’s get back to the films flaws, as they did stick out to me more this time then at any time previous to this. While I think DiCaprio and Diaz worked well together (I love this exchange for example: DiCaprio “Is there anyone is New York you haven’t fucked?” , Diaz “Yeah, you”) the romance still does feel a little tacked on, and perhaps unnecessary, accept for the fact that without it, the film would have no female characters at all. Also, there supposedly Irish accents come and go a little too often – sometimes they are both spot on, sometimes they sound no different than they normally do. Scorsese is also never quite able to fully integrate the subplots involving the people from
“Uptown”, who look at the Five Points with a mixture of pity, fascinating and disgust. The same goes for the Draft Riots, which seem to come along a little too abruptly at the films climax. But more glaring, at least to me, than all of them is Amsterdam’s religious conversion which is never fully explained. He is a Catholic from beginning to end in the film, yet when he is given a bible when he leaves the orphanage, he dramatically throws it over the side of a bridge. Later, he will tell a Priest to “Go to Hell” when he asks him to attend services. But by the end of the film, he seems to have gone back to being a practicing Catholic, praying to Michael the Archangel, and the conversion back into the fold is never really explained. For Scorsese, for whom his own Catholicism has always played a role in his films, this seems odd.
And yet, while I acknowledge that Gangs of New York is a flawed film, I also have to admit that I don’t care. I love it now just as much as I did then. Who is interested in cinematic perfection anyway? Look at many of those old school Hollywood epics, and you find just as many, if not more, flaws than you will in Gangs of New York. And besides, when Gangs of New York works – and I would say that roughly 95% of the movie does – it is better than practically anything else out there. This is filmmaking at its most daring, most exciting, most ambitious. So if Scorsese was not quite able to pull off the film he had in his head for 30 years (he wanted to make the film every since 1978), we should be glad that he was able to make this film. Flaws and all, Gangs of New York is a masterpiece.
Directed By: Martin Scorsese.
Written By: Jay Cocks & Steven Zallian & Kenneth Lonergan.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Amsterdam Vallon), Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting), Cameron Diaz (Jenny Everdeane), Jim Broadbent (William 'Boss' Tweed), John C. Reilly (Happy Jack Mulraney), Henry Thomas (Johnny Sirocco), Liam Neeson ('Priest' Vallon), Brendan Gleeson (Walter 'Monk' McGinn), Gary Lewis (McGloin), Stephen Graham (Shang), Eddie Marsan (Killoran).
When Gangs of New York opened in December 2002, I went to see it at least four times in the theaters – more times than I believe I’ve seen any other movie in its first run. Here was one of those grand old Hollywood epics that they had stopped making before I was even born. There was not a scene in the film that didn’t bursting with ambition, where the scope of the film didn’t seem to be huge. I heard some critics complain that the film was flawed, but I ignored them. I loved every inch of Gangs of New York. Now, returning to the film several years later, I find that it is easier to see the flaws in the film then it was at the time. Perhaps shrunken down to a television screen, they seem more glaring. But I hardly care. I still love every inch of Gangs of New York. Flaws and all, the film is a masterpiece.The film opens in New York in the 1840s. The Dead Rabbits, a gang of Irish immigrants, are preparing to go to battle with The Natives, a gang of American born men who want to drive the immigrants, who are defiling their homeland, out. Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) leads the Dead Rabbits, and in the final moments before the battle, he tries to teach his young son Amsterdam valuable life lessons. Then the group sets off, through a maze of underground passages, quickly gathering men, before bursting out onto the square where the battle will take place. This is when we get our first look at Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, leader of the Natives. His face is grotesque, with one glass eye, and huge mustache, as he yells ugly epitaphs at his rivals. What follows is one of the bloodiest battles in cinematic history. Men are beaten, stabbed and hacked to death, as the snow beneath their feet slowly turns red with all the blood. Cutting kills Vallon, and thus has power know over the Five Points, the most crime infested area of New York. It will be 16 years before anyone challenges Bill the Butcher again.
That is when Amsterdam (now played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is finally released from the orphan
age he was raised in after the death of his father, and returns to the Five Points. His rough upbringing has trained him well, and he soon falls in with a small gang of thieves. But if you want to operate in the Five Points, you have to ensure that you give Bill a piece of everything that you make. It isn’t long before Bill becomes enamored with this young kid, who is smart and ambitious, and draws him under his wing. Amsterdam, who came with the express purpose of killing Bill, and so was simply playing a part to get close to him (obviously never revealing his real identity) has mixed feelings. He even kind of grows to like Bill, and surely grows to like the money he makes working for him. But as always, the truth is bound to come out, and then all hell will break loose.The focus of the movie remains on Bill and Amsterdam throughout, but there are other characters that swirl around them. Jenny (Cameron Diaz), a pickpocket who used to be Bill’s, and now maybe Amsterdam’s, if only he doesn’t let his pride get in the way. Boss Tweed (a delightful Jim Broadbent, playing broad amazingly well), a local politician for Tammany Hall, who shifts alliances with the breeze. Monk (Brendan Gleeson), a former Dead Rabbit now turned barber, who exchanges weird glances with Bill and Amsterdam. Constable Mulraney (John C. Reilly), another former Dead Rabbit, now a corrupt cop who gets away with what he does only because Bill allows him to. And McGloin (Gary Lewis), yet another former Dead Rabbit, who has sold out even more and is now one of Bill’s right hand men. These characters and more fill out Scorsese’s vast tapestry, and make the film come alive.
The filmmaking on display in the film is incredible. Shot entirely in the legendary Cinecitta Studio in Rome – where everything from La Dolce Vita to Ben-Hur was shot – it is to the films credit that it never feels like it’s on a soundstage. The entire Five Points Area of New York has been recreated, and makes up one of the distinctive environments in cinema history. The dirt, the grim, the blood, the wooden buildings, everything in the film is just about pitch perfect. Michael Ballhaus makes tremendous use of the location in his cinematography – the camera never stops moving, sweeping around often in 360 degrees in one shot, as it probes the dark corners of the area. There are a number of terrific, memorable images – Diaz’s introduction in slow motion through a dirty window (Scorsese loves to introduce his female characters in slow motion, and if he had to make Diaz a redhead instead of his preferred blonde, the effect is the same), Bill the Butcher throwing knives at Jenny, or the scene when Amsterdam awakes to find Bill sitting over his bed, an American flag draped over his soldiers. This doesn’t even mention the battles that open and close the film, which are visually stunning, and unlike so many modern action sequences, are not over edited to death. The whole film is a visual knockout.But standing over every other element in the film is Daniel Day-Lewis’ towering performance as B
ill the Butcher – a performance that would still be the best of the decade had Day-Lewis not topped it himself in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Bill the Butcher is one of the most memorable screen villains in history, and although Day-Lewis plays the character as larger than life most of the time, its to his credit that will still always believe his character would act like this. When the rare quiet moment comes – like when he teaches DiCaprio what the difference between a kill and a wound is using the carcass of a pig, or the aforementioned scene when he is draped in the American flag – Day-Lewis hits just the right notes. He is the villain of the film, but he towers over its hero, and everyone else in the film. When you walk away from the film, he is element you most remember.Now, let’s get back to the films flaws, as they did stick out to me more this time then at any time previous to this. While I think DiCaprio and Diaz worked well together (I love this exchange for example: DiCaprio “Is there anyone is New York you haven’t fucked?” , Diaz “Yeah, you”) the romance still does feel a little tacked on, and perhaps unnecessary, accept for the fact that without it, the film would have no female characters at all. Also, there supposedly Irish accents come and go a little too often – sometimes they are both spot on, sometimes they sound no different than they normally do. Scorsese is also never quite able to fully integrate the subplots involving the people from
“Uptown”, who look at the Five Points with a mixture of pity, fascinating and disgust. The same goes for the Draft Riots, which seem to come along a little too abruptly at the films climax. But more glaring, at least to me, than all of them is Amsterdam’s religious conversion which is never fully explained. He is a Catholic from beginning to end in the film, yet when he is given a bible when he leaves the orphanage, he dramatically throws it over the side of a bridge. Later, he will tell a Priest to “Go to Hell” when he asks him to attend services. But by the end of the film, he seems to have gone back to being a practicing Catholic, praying to Michael the Archangel, and the conversion back into the fold is never really explained. For Scorsese, for whom his own Catholicism has always played a role in his films, this seems odd.And yet, while I acknowledge that Gangs of New York is a flawed film, I also have to admit that I don’t care. I love it now just as much as I did then. Who is interested in cinematic perfection anyway? Look at many of those old school Hollywood epics, and you find just as many, if not more, flaws than you will in Gangs of New York. And besides, when Gangs of New York works – and I would say that roughly 95% of the movie does – it is better than practically anything else out there. This is filmmaking at its most daring, most exciting, most ambitious. So if Scorsese was not quite able to pull off the film he had in his head for 30 years (he wanted to make the film every since 1978), we should be glad that he was able to make this film. Flaws and all, Gangs of New York is a masterpiece.
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