The history lesson to be gained from "Gangs of New York" is simply that although individual Americans, no matter what their country of origin, believe in the concept of the "Great American Dream", and their ancestor's role in shaping the freedoms which we take for granted, the sad truth is that this country was forged form a boiling cauldron of dissimilar interests and uncannily selfish pursuits, which almost always resulted in clashes and confrontations. Riots, ransackings, and rebellious carnage perpetrated in the quise of political and religious zealotry is certainly nothing new if you live anywhere on this planet except the United States, and those whose "pursuit of happiness" in America only involves seeing what's on over 500 channels of media saturation hardly pay attention to what goes on in other parts of the world, or pay attention to the historical inconsistencies with common sense and propriety which have been happening here for over 200 years. GONY paints a not too particularly pretty picture of "the way it was", in images taken almost directly from the "gazettes" and "onesheet" illustrations popular in the media in the late 1800's. It is a rare testament to common sense, by the way, that GONY didn't come out in December 2001. It would have coddled the ire of the jingoistic right so much that I'm sure it would have been roundly snubbed and left to rot on a fence like a dead rabbit.

In this composite of two images from the film, Bill introduces Jenny Everdeane as his former partner. "Whattaya say, Jen?", he taunts, "One more time for the sweet souvenier."

I was pleased that Marty casts himself in his Hitchcockian cameo as an upper class New York citizen who is robbed by Cameron Diaz's Jenny Everdean. The upper class "snobs" who parade through the slums of the Points like tourists on holiday get their comeuppance during the infamous Draft Riots, which Scorsese uses as a commentary and counterpoint to the final battle between Leonardo DiCaprio's Amsterdam Vallon and Day-Lewis' Bill "The Butcher". At the end, after three grueling hours of backstabbing both figuratively and literally, bloody fighting and horrific carnage, Jenny and Amsterdam stop for a moment at the graves of the two gangleaders, Vallon and Bill, while Amsterdam reflects: "For those of us what lived and died in them furious days, it was like everything we knew was mightily swept away, and no matter what they did to build up this city up again, for the rest of time, it would be like no one would even knew we was ever here." The image of the gravestones in the cemetary fade over time, as the city grows behind the river, including two very prominently placed twin towers of death, which were not, thankfully, digitally erased by the technicians before GONY was released. If anything, this eerie scene is prescient (Marty didn't intend for any modern comparisons with terrorism, because he shot the film a year before the attacks.) and gives "Gangs" an even greater weight.

"Gangs of New York" is a testament to great filmmaking. The acting, irregardless of what Kenneth Turan thought, plays remarkably well. Leonardo DiCaprio is shaping up to be a major star, and this is a major tour de force. Cameron Diaz, while content to jiggle her way through marketing blitzes disguised as movies, does the Sharon Stone turn here, and Marty elicits from her a battle scarred and world weary performance. Jim Broadbent is hammy and bombastic as usual, and gives "Boss Tweed" just the right hint of gleeful corruption. Not to be overlooked are John C. Reilley as "Happy Jack", and Henry Thomas as Johnny, the film's martyrs. Daniel Day-Lewis shines and shimmers, crackles and cajoles, with a supreme glint in his Native American glass eye as the piece's villian de resistance, Bill "the Butcher" Cutter, in a role I believe was originally to have gone to Robert de Niro. Good thing he dropped out. Day-Lewis is brilliant. After viewing GONY at the theater in December, I recorded Marty's "The Age of Innocence" off the Tivo. It's hard to believe it's the same actor. The comparisons between the two films is astounding as well. While "Gangs" tells the "truth", "Innocence" perpetrates the "lie" of history. Both are perfect bookends of a time when America was, as DiCaprio's Amsterdam Vallon tells us in GONY, still a boiling cauldron, and not a fully forged nation.

 

DVDrawbacks: The movie is spread over two discs, and the end of the first disc ended rather abruptly. I don't know why the software developers can't develop a method to trigger the player to automatically switch to the next disc. (on multi disc machines.) The simple fact is that the movie is incredibly long.

Besides being a bravura piece of filmmaking in the visual sense, with sweeping and glorious editing by Master Editor and frequent Scorsese contributor Thelma Schoonmaker, the script contains some of the most quotable dialogue in a single film in quite a long time. I include some of the most thrilling dialogue here, in the order in which it appears in the film.

"If only I had the guns, Mr. Tweed, I'd shoot each and every one of them before they set foot on American soil." Bill "The Butcher"

"Each of the five points is a finger. When I close my hand, it becomes a fist." Bill "The Butcher"

"The spirit of the law has to be upheld. Especially while it's being broken." "Boss" Tweed

"Suppose I help myself to everything." Jenny Everdeane "Suppose you do." "Amsterdam" Vallon

"The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me. I cut off his hands. He offends me. I cut off his toe. He rises against me. I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up, so all in the streets can see.That's what preserves the order of things. Fear." Bill "The Butcher"

"Whattaya say, Jen? One more time for the sweet souvenier." Bill "The Butcher"

"My allegience is to the law. I'm paid to uphold the law." Jack............"What in heaven's name are you talking about? You may have misgivings, but don't go believing that, Jack. That way lies damnation....I want you to go out there, and I want...you...to punish the person....who's...responsible...for murdering this poor little rabbit.."Bill "The Butcher"

"The Earth turns, but we don't feel it move. And one night you look up. One spark, and the sky's on fire." "Amsterdam Vallon"

"The past is the torch that lights our way.Where our fathers have showed us the path, we will follow." "Amsterdam" Vallon

"I wonder if Miss Everdeen could angle her rifle in another direction." "Boss" Tweed
"All Right, Line Up. It's Election Day." Bill "The Butcher"

Bill: "Weapons?" Amsterdam: "That I leave up to you." Bill: "Bricks, bats, axes, knives...... pistols??"
Amsterdam: " No....pistols." Bill: "Good boy."

"For those of us what lived and died in them furious days, it was like everything we knew was mightily swept away, and no matter what they did to build up this city up again, for the rest of time, it would be like no one would even knew we was ever here." "Amsterdam" Vallon

'Gangs of New York'

MPAA rating:R, for intense violence, sexuality/nudity and language.

Leonardo DiCaprio ... Amsterdam Vallon
Daniel Day-Lewis ... Bill the Butcher
Cameron Diaz ... Jenny Everdeane
Liam Neeson ... Priest Vallon
Jim Broadbent ... William "Boss" Tweed
Brendan Gleeson ... Monk McGinn
John C. Reilly ... Happy Jack
Henry Thomas ... Johnny

An Alberto Grimaldi production, released by Miramax Films. Director Martin Scorsese. Producers Alberto Grimaldi, Harvey Weinstein. Executive producers Michael Hausman, Maurizio Grimaldi. Screenplay Jay Cocks and Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan. Story Jay Cocks. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus. Editor Thelma Schoonmaker. Costumes Sandy Powell. Music Howard Shore. Production design Dante Ferretti. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Article copyright July 2003 by Michael F. Nyiri. Please do not reproduce without permission from the author. All opinions and observations are those of the author, and are not meant to be indicative of the expressions or thoughts of Martin Scorsese, Miramax films, or the Disney organization. Images not retreived from the IMDB were obtained by routing a digital signal from the DVD player into a VCR, then directly routed to the computer input and captured by the Windows Moviemaker software in the XP operating system. Any adjustments to the images were accomplished in the Micrografx Picture Publisher program. All images are copyright Miramax and Disney, and permission to use them is pending.
Michael F. Nyiri

finished : 7/04/03