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Gangs of New York
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As Always, a review of The
Film and The DVD (extras)!
The Film: After seeing Gangs of New York,
I get the feeling --or is it the hope?-- I've seen this year's big Oscar
winner. Unfortunately, more likely, I've only seen this year's L.A.
Confidential: the deserved award winner, snubbed thanks to a pop-culture
favorite, with a better
publicity campaign. However, when up against a
film written and directed by Martin Scorsese, could any film possibly compete? Let's just say there will be no fair competition for Gangs
this year, and leave it at that.
The story is set around the time of the
1840's and the civil war. This was an age not half as rosy as the history
books would have you believe, with many immigrants given two pieces of
paper upon walking ashore; one giving them citizenship, the other stating
they've just written their life away, as a soldier in the Union Army. This
time period is portrayed far differently than what is told to the kids in
grade school, with the disgruntled poor folk of America throwing rotten
fruit at a stage play of Abraham Lincoln. This was an age when your daddy
did not have to send you to the National Guard to avoid the draft; for the
right price, he could keep you from being in the armed forces at all.
Meanwhile, poor America was outraged that they were the ones in the
frontlines, with the exact same number of draftees entering the boats, as
the caskets departing.
The film opens with a prologue based on
real events,
where the leader of the Irish-American "gangs," Priest Vallon
(Liam Neeson), is pit against the so-called "native" gangs of New York. Mind you,
these alleged natives are hardly native Americans per
se, though rather a bunch of we-were-here-first blowhards who have marked
their territory like grunting Neanderthals, and want the new immigrants
put "in their place." Said faux natives are led by
William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), the town butcher (both literally and
figuratively), who in the resulting last stand winds up killing Vallon,
"winning" the day. Vallon's young son looks on, powerless, only
to be sent to a juvenile hall, where he plans for his day of revenge.
Not enough can be said of this opening
scene, which is in fact a part of the dustiest American history books,
known as a famous gang battle at the Five Points, on Manhattan's Lower
East Side. This is a prologue with the ferocity of the similarlty brutal
first minutes of Saving Private Ryan, yet with an almost medieval
brutality that feels closer to films like Braveheart. It is not a
battle of guns and bombs, though is a battle of shillelaghs, meat cleavers,
knives, and whatever other urban weapons the "natives" and
"immigrants" bring with them. In the end, few are left standing,
with some falling very, very brutally. Priest Vallon's death is among the
most brutal, enhancing your understanding for his young son's rage, well
into adulthood...
Jump ahead 16 years, when a now grown up
Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Dicaprio) is sent from his juvenile hall into
the real world, to try and make something of himself. He immediately
returns to the place of his birth, where he intends to get close enough to
Cutting to enact his revenge. Such revenge will not happen quickly,
however, because as young Vallon puts it, "When you kill a king, you
don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch
him die." He gets in the good graces of William, as an anonymous
"newcomer" to New York, waiting until he's close enough to make
his move.
The resulting film is a perfect piece of
epic cinema grandeur, due in no small part to Martin Scorsese's expert
hand, as director. However, no man is an island; he is equally assisted,
by an equally sensational screenplay, and equally superior cast. If you
felt any member of this ensemble was a great performer, you'll feel even
more so now; if you didn't before, you should rethink that opinion.
Daniel Day-Lewis' William Cutting, in
particular, is a spectacular villain; a self-proclaimed leader of the
"natives" who seems to subtly hide a dialect, alluding to a
not-so-native heritage. He is not a spaghetti western bad guy in a black
hat, though a three-dimensional, 19th-century, NYC bigwig, struggling to
make his social status as "butcher" look like a member of the
upper-class. In the hands of any other actor (or director, for that
matter), this character in the oversized top hat and Wyatt-Earp mustache
could've been easily dragged through the muck as a Snidely Whiplash cliché.
Daniel gives the character a life of its own.
I was similarly impressed with Leonardo
Dicaprio's performance. He's come a long way since his Jack Dawson role in Titanic;
a fictional mold he has been trying to break free from for half a decade.
Prior to Titanic, Leo starred in over a dozen films, in HALF a
dozen years; in the five years since, he's starred in merely four, with
none of them a success. Is this because young girls are looking for more
of "Jack Dawson"...? With all due respect; this is a fool's
dream, since Jack Dawson never existed to begin with. I implore the
formerly 13-year-old fans of yesteryear --each of them now a mature young
woman-- to go see this film. Leonardo is definitely a performer who
deserves more respect than a fictional character he played five years ago.
Rounding out the trio or exceptional
performances is Cameron Diaz, as Jenny. This is an actress who seems to be
in that "Tom Hanks" turning point in her life, when her attempts
at comedy must be shelved for a far stronger role in epic dramas. It's
truly hard to believe this is the same girl who frolics in funny underwear
in films like Charlie's Angels and The
Sweetest Thing. Clearly, she deserves far more respect, and far
meatier roles. Her portrayal of Jenny is a role that begins as a mere
pickpocket, and quickly expands into a sympathetic quasi-heroine, who
nurses Amsterdam to health, and in time, holds a gun to protect him. This
is a great role; Cameron deserves more roles like this.
In the end, I think what I love best about
Scorsese's films is that the ending is never tacked-on. I have said my
peace many times of what I call The
Scarlet Pumpernickel endings of most films; the overdrawn, saccharine
finale that, much like the Daffy Duck cartoon of the same name, clearly
was written by someone who had no idea how to finish what they started.
Spoilers notwithstanding, this film's finale is exceptional, and was
clearly filmed with a fair share of forethought. So great is this epilogue
time-lapse, it would likely win best film short if shown in a much shorter
film. Should this film similarly win "Best Feature Film"...? I
think so. It's time The Academy started thinking as well.
The DVD:
.Any DVD that has audio commentary by Martin Scorsese himself is leaps and
bounds better than the VHS version. In fact, it's better than every new
DVD release that week, month, or...well, you get the idea. The point is
Scorsese comments on his own film. If only other Oscar-nominated directors
did the same, for their films. No,
there are no "deleted scenes" here. Scorsese isn't the sort of
director I would consider to have deleted scenes, especially when the film
itself was 165 minutes long. Instead, we have a ton of featurettes,
including a "History of Five Points" feature, a set &
constume design study, a separate Five Points "study guide," and
even a Discovery Channel special, on the real gangs of New York.
This is a nice selection of extras for anyone who loved the film (which should
be everyone). In addition are some
inspired bonus features. One unique extra is the ability to see the huge
sets used in the film, in a multi-angle format. This is a nice way of
seeing the detail of the sets without simply having a quickie documentary
from the set designer; in this case, you can see his work, from
every possible angle. Oh, there's also the U2 music video, for anyone who
thinks U2 should've gotten the Best Original Song Oscar more than Eminem
(don't get me started on that one!). In
the end, is this a movie that was great? Yes. Is it another movie that was
rooked on Oscar night? You bet. There are many times people jump and cheer
when an overhyped, banal, pointless film gets rooked on Oscar night. This
wasn't one of them. Put this DVD in your player, and see for yourself...
---Techtite
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