Gangs of New York is based on, or rather inspired by, journalist Herbert Asbury’s 1928 book of the same name. It was one of Martin Scorsese’s many long-running passion projects, and he allegedly spent over 20 years developing his ideas and then finally filming it. Scorsese was drawn to the criminal underworld of the 19th century, a subject often ignored in favor of the Old West or the wider political movements and conflicts such as the Civil War. He saw a real conflict over the direction of the country. The director was ultimately unsatisfied with the final product, as producer Harvey Weinstein forced cuts (Scorsese is known for his looong running times). Weinstein also oversaw the addition of voiceover narration by Leonardo DiCaprio which is often unnecessary.
Still, this is probably the only major film to touch on a lot of aspects of 19th Century urban life and was intended as a springboard for a new subgenre of crime and historical films (it was not to be). Scorsese really wanted to show the breadth of 19th Century New York, so there are anachronisms. The movie is clearly set in 1862-1863, the Civil War being a major background event that eventually intrudes on the characters’ gang war. However, the Nativist movement was much stronger in the 1850s. While immigration was still a major social and political issue, the organized Nativists, expressed by the Native American Party, lost their steam as the sectional conflict took over. On the opposite end, Boss Tweed and his powerful and corrupt Tammany Hall Democrat machine didn’t kick into gear until after the Civil War. Here he’s a major player from the get-go, played by Jim Broadbent.
While we’re on him, I want to mention
that he did start his career with a firefighter company, as did the real figure
behind antagonist Bill the Butcher. The firefighter scene shows Scorsese’s research.
Unlike the often celebrated anti-fire people today, firefighters in the 19th
Century were private and competed for territory, to the point they would brawl
when burning buildings needed to be put out. Bill the Butcher’s firefighter
gang also actually put empty buckets over hydrants so their own engines could
arrive and put out the fires.
Boss Tweed (Jim Broadbent)
The central locale is the Five Points,
an infamous, densely-populated slum that was known for its heavy rates of
disease and crime. Many people who watched the movie found the conditions to be
fantastical, but even with some embellishments historians have praised the
visual accuracy. The Old Brewery, for example, really did have dark
subterranean rooms, though they were not the caves that we see at the beginning
of the film. I thought Chinatown was a post-war anachronism added to the film,
but apparently there was a small Chinese population in New York even before the
Transcontinental Railroad. Actually, the Five Points is now part of Chinatown! The
different gangs and their names are also accurate, and here we can get into
some of the characters.
One of the major immigrant groups in the
19th Century was the Irish. The Great Potato Famine of the late
1840s caused many Irish, already chafing under British domination, to head for
America. Soon they made up a third of New York’s population. Given what they
escaped from, they were willing to work for lower wages, causing competition
with native-born Americans, and perhaps worst of all for a Protestant nation
were Roman Catholics. There was a fear that they would serve the Pope over the
United States, and movie Nativist villain Bill the Butcher indeed attacks the
Irish over their “popery.”
Amsterdam (Leonard DiCaprio) gets in with Bill the Butcher
(Daniel Day-Lewis in top hat and noticeably striped pants)
The Irish were also prone to crime, and
the most dangerous gang was the Dead Rabbits. Male lead Leonardo DiCaprio plays
Amsterdam Vallon, the fictional son of the also fictional “Priest” Vallon (Liam
Neeson). The Dead Rabbits did protect Irish immigrants from other ethnic gangs,
but caused a lot of trouble themselves. After a long, brutal gang fight with
the Nativist Bowery Boys in 1857, the organization lost much of its power. The
movie moves the fight years earlier and makes it a one-off battle. Scorsese
chose to have the men use clubs, knives, and other melee weapons for dramatic
effect, though in real life everybody packed firearms and used them. Amsterdam
Vallon restores the Dead Rabbits as he seeks revenge for the death of his
father. He also gets into a tumultuous off-and-on romance with Irish thief and pickpocket Jenny
Everdeane (Cameron Diaz). However, they’re both heavily overshadowed by the
third major character.
William Cutting, known as Bill the
Butcher, absolutely steals the show because he’s played by Daniel Day-Lewis. A
hardcore method actor, Day-Lewis replicated a 19th Century New York
accent by studying the rhythm of Walt Whitman’s poetry and even listened to an
old Whitman recording. He further added on a twang to reflect the character’s
lower-class roots. Famously, when Scorsese took him out to lunch, he frightened
the waitress and got into fights with other people in the parking lot. Back to
the actual character, William Cutting is mostly based on William Poole, the
head of the Washington Street Gang and the Bowery Boys. He was known for his
brawling and his skill with a knife, a byproduct of his being a butcher. The
blade skills are dialed up for the movie, with Bill the Butcher able to perform
knife-throwing shows and flip and catch meat cleavers. The real Bill was also
married, was a Whig, and was murdered at the young age of 33 by an Irish rival
in 1855. Here he’s older, unmarried, and lives into 1863, and he aligns himself
with Boss Tweed despite the Democrats’ pro-immigration stance. Actually, his character is strangely singular in his politics, both hating the immigration policies of the Democrats and Republican president Abraham Lincoln and his war on the South.
Hell-Cat Maggie celebrates
tearing off an ear
The film is populated by many other
characters, some fictionalized versions of real figures, others purely
historical, and some just plain made up. One of the more outlandish but true
characters is Hell-Cat Maggie (Cara Seymour), a female member of the Dead
Rabbits. As in real life, she has filed her teeth into sharp fangs and wears
claws over her fingers. On the fictional side John C. Reilly plays Dead Rabbit
turned corrupt cop “Happy” Jack Mulraney, while Brendan Gleeson plays the
comparatively more moral Walter “Monk” McGinn. There’s also a collection of
wealthier prominent characters who are portrayed as wanting to cure the ills of
the Five Points, but also come off as disattached an object of scorn for the
more hardened lower-class people. Among them are famous newspaper editor Horace
Greeley and missionary John Schermerhorn (who was actually long dead by 1863).
P.T. Barnum briefly pops up, too, thought we don’t get a close look at his
famed museum.
The gangster drama’s climax is intruded
upon by a major historical event: the New York City Draft Riots. The riots are
foreshadowed as poor immigrants looking for work find themselves quickly
recruited into the Union Army. There is also the occasional reference to an
upcoming draft. As the Civil War dragged on, the Federal government was finding
it harder and harder to fill their quotas. This led to the Enrollment Act, in
which eligible men had to sign up for a draft. Already controversial in a
country that emphasized volunteerism over forced military service, the Act also
stipulated that one could pay for substitutes. This meant that the wealthy
could get out of being drafted while a lower-class substitute took his place.
The Emancipation Proclamation added
another layer of trouble, as many people did not want to risk their lives for
black people, both because of racism and the fear that freed slaves would come
north and compete for lower-paying jobs. On July 13, 1863, one of the
firefighter units attacked a draft site and from there the situation escalated
into citywide riots. The rich and black people were targeted, and of course
many rioters became more interested in looting than making a political
statement. The situation got so bad that Union soldiers had to be sent into
restore order. Final casualties are still unclear, but at least several
thousand people were killed or wounded.
 |
| The revitalized Dead Rabbits |
The movie does a good job portraying the event, using telegraph messages to convey the growing chaos and describe events that Scorsese couldn’t show onscreen. However, the level of participation from the military is exaggerated when the Navy literally bombards the city. They did no such thing, especially since this would have caused the very destruction the anti-riot force was trying to prevent. Thematically, the main characters are so caught up in their gang war that they try to ignore the riots and have a big fight, only to be attacked by soldiers. A final shot of modern New York City rising up while the graves of Bill the Butcher and Priest Vallon are grown over by weeds in the foreground indicates that the primitive lawlessness of the city has ended and civilization has triumphed.
There’s a lot of plot beats I didn’t
cover, but I highly recommend checking out this movie. It moves nicely despite
its length, mainly on the strength of Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance.
Ironically, the actor is so good that it leads to my biggest criticism.
DiCaprio and Diaz are the leading man and lady, but feel like the villain’s
supporting characters. Gangs of New York
has a lot of historical tidbits and characters that never get much attention in
popular film.
Rating: 8/10
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