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Movie Reviews
| Gangs of New York. Dir. by Martin Scorsese. Miramax Films, 2002. 166 mins.
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| Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York opens in 1846 in New York City's infamous Five Points district as two rival gangs prepare to do battle. The Natives are led by Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). Behind him are an assortment of gang members, sporting different colors and headgear and armed to the teeth. They face off against an army of Irish Catholics, led by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), who carries a large cross. There is speechifying on both sides, giving the occasion a strangely formal tone. Suddenly the screen erupts in an orgy of blood and screams, dramatizing the chaos beneath the orderly surface. The fighting ends when Priest Vallon, mortally wounded, falls to the ground. Bill the Butcher personally finishes off his archenemy in a ritualized stabbing that symbolizes both hatred and respect. Vallon's distraught son grabs his father's knife and runs. |
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In the next scene we have skipped ahead sixteen years. The nation is in the midst of Civil War. Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Di-Caprio) emerges from Hellgate Bridge Prison and makes his way back to Five Points. Hiding his true identity, he is soon welcomed into Bill's inner circle of thugs. He meets Jenny (Cameron Diaz), the beautiful thief with the heart of gold, and becomes smitten, although Jenny has some unclear relationship with the charming Bill. Even as he flourishes, Amsterdam remains intent on vengeance. Bill will eventually receive his just punishment, but not before the audience enjoys (or endures) several hours of elaborate sets and colorful episodes. The private drama between Amsterdam and Bill ends in the midst of New York City's infamous 1863 draft riots, which are portrayed in bloody detail and provide an interesting dramatic balance to the movie's initial scene. |
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So much for the essential plot. Let me dispense with a few issues. I liked this movie only slightly more than did the two Civil War historians who watched it with me, which is to say, not much at all. The characters are cartoonish, and the plot stacks one cliché upon another. For a movie that is the product of so much time and collective talent, it is surprisingly dull. But I cannot imagine that anyone is interested in my assessment of the film as a piece of art. How does it succeed as a portrayal of history? Here the record is mixed. |
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Historians who flinched during Glory (1989) when the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment attacked Fort Wagner from the wrong direction or complained when Ken Burns used photographs of corpses from the wrong battlefield will tear their hair out at Gangs of New York. The filmmakers devoted lots of attention to period costumes, buildings, artifacts, cultural rituals, and slang, and they seem to have gotten most of those things right (Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York: Making the Movie, 2002). But they also made the peculiar decision to conflate distinct time periods in the interest of the larger plot. Thus, for much of the movie, we appear to be in the midst of the Irish famine migration, rather than a decade later during the Civil War. Fifteen thousand Irish immigrants are arriving each week, sanitary reformers are battling cholera, and—most outrageously—the competing political parties are the Democrats and the anti-immigrant Know-Nothings. Meanwhile, an important plot thread involves the politically powerful William Marcy Tweed and his Tammany Hall cronies. Although Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall were already on the political scene during the war, his film persona looks more like the postwar Tweed. |
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