Gangs of New York
by Martin Scorsese (2002)
Two criminal gangs compete for territory in the Five Points district of New York in the 19th century.
Behind the motivations of the war lies a strong and personal desire for revenge by a young Irishman seeking to honor his father’s death.
“When you kill a king, you don’t stab him in a back alley. You kill him where the whole court can watch him die.”
(Amsterdam Vallon)
THE NEW YORK SKYLINE.
It’s the city’s profile that is shown at the film’s finale, made up of buildings and their highest points.
It’s the symbol of modernity, an image well-carved into the collective imagination.
Today, it rises triumphantly on the horizon, erasing from history the traces of those gravestones that once stood in the foreground, bearing the names of those who helped build it.
But despite this, their legacy remains, pulsating and alive, and constitutes the very essence of the American Dream.
CONSIDERATIONS.
Scorsese brings his most ambitious project to the screen: an idea born in the early Seventies together with producer Jay Cocks, based on the essay “The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld” by Herbert Asbury.
A story of pain, hatred, and violence, showing us how the origins of this great city (and of our modern democracy) are to be found “in blood and tribulation.”
Indeed, the historical, social, and cultural reconstruction of the era is chilling.
The characters move within a universe ravaged by the American Civil War, the flow of immigration, and violent gang wars.
Memorable and brutal are the fight scenes between the Natives and the Dead Rabbits, where an extraordinary Daniel Day-Lewis shines in the role of William Cutting (aka Bill the Butcher).
The leader of the Natives, he is a true embodiment of the builders of what would become the famous “Land of Dreams.”
But there’s a lot at stake here. Maybe too much, even for a talented and gifted director like Scorsese.
As a result, some things don’t quite convince.
Starting with the rather bland and clichéd romantic subplot between Amsterdam Vallon (a reliable DiCaprio) and Jenny Everdeane (a less convincing Cameron Diaz).
This choice is hard to understand and seems mainly aimed at attracting a broader audience.
Even the narrative flow and the sequence of events don’t proceed as smoothly as in other works by the Master.
Perhaps, overall, the weight of the ambitions was just a bit too much to carry this time.
Nevertheless, Gangs of New York remains a film worth watching because it contains moments of great cinema.
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