Gangs of New York
Just got around to seeing Martin Scorcese’s new film, The Gangs of New York. Among my circle of friends whose views on films can be trusted, it elicited diametrically opposed reactions. Likewise the print reviews I’ve seen have been mixed. As a big fan of both Scorcese and the period of American history in which the film was set, I figured I should go see it no matter what. It was quite an experience.
First of all, despite all the lavish production, the big-star performances and all the hype, Gangs of New York is a Scorcese picture first, last and always. Like his signature films over the last twenty five years – Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas – Gangs of New York is concerned with sin, guilt, grace and redemption. If Woody Allen is the Jewish film poet of New York, Scorcese is certainly his Catholic counterpart. While Allen’s second-generation Jewish intellectual view of New York comes to the screen from the tradition of vaudeville, Scorcese’s cinematic vision is fired by the spectacle and mysteries of the Catholic mass. Gangs of New York is a great big, dark incense-scented cathedral of a film, full of rituals and rites, gory sacrifices, spiritual temptations and the hope of redemption.
Much has been written about Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as the villain of the piece, the ruthless nativist gangleader “Bill the Butcher.” While Lewis is all over the film and his dark leering countenance dominates many of the scenes, his performance is so big that it’s hard to separate signal from noise. Leonardo diCaprio actually impressed me much more with his control and nuance. Clearly there’s some backlash against his matinee-idol popularity, because his acting is not getting the attention it deserves in a much more nuanced role.
The real star of the film is the city itself. Scorcese and his production designer have envisioned 1860s New York as a steaming cauldron of poverty and squalor, yet somehow still recognizable as the embryo of the modern city. The film begins in the cavernous labyrinth of an abandoned brewery in Five Points, now teaming with hundreds of poor Irish immigrants. It’s a microcosm of the city – narrow, dark, crowded, filthy and closed-in, bustling with violence and activity. We’ve seen this New York on screen before, but not recently. It’s the New York of William Wyler’s Dead End (1937), adapted from Lillian Hellman’s play about kids growing up in the slums, and it’s the New York of John Garfield’s Force of Evil (1951), one of the darkest of the film noir cycle. Thanks to technology, Scorcese can bring this vision of the city to life in detail much more vivid than anything previously seen. This signal success is the film’s biggest weakness: at times, the monumentality of the setting simply swamps the story. Even Day-Lewis’s mustache-twisting villain can barely keep his head above the waterline.
Of all the films in Scorcese’s oevre, The Gangs of New York is most comparable to The Last Temptation of Christ. Both films deal in the most straightforward terms with the director’s personal obsessions, and both excel in the visualization of the past in the most sensual and unsentimental terms. Both feature outstanding performances by the male leads (in Last Temptation, Willem Dafoe as Jesus and Harvey Keitel as Paul) that, in the end, are overwhelmed by the totality of the production and the sweep of Scorcese’s vision. Both are essential, and in some ways, it’s their flaws that make them great. Do not miss the chance to see Gangs of New York on the big screen.
10:58:38 AM 
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