The Outer Banks Voice - Stream On: Is It Ever So? 'Gangs of New York'

By means of Peter Hummers on October 25, 2024

I start this column on Indigenous Peoples Day (also known as Columbus Day). Among the recent headlines I’m reading are: “Chicago gangs clash with Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members”, which reminds me of Martin Scorsese’s historical epic Gangs of New York.

This week Martin Scorsese’s historical epic from 2002.

GANGS OF NEW YORK

/Stream /Amazon /73%81% /Trailer /2002 /R

“What you have is nothing new. This country is hard on the people. Difficult and crazy. There is the devil in it, but people never seem to want to account for it.” (Ellis, No country for old men)

Like Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in Cormac McCarthy’s novel above, we may be concerned about the level of lawlessness we see in the news every day. But Scorsese’s (Mean streets, The kite) Gangs of New York tells us that things really haven’t gotten any worse in a hundred and fifty years.

As in Chicago, local gangs clashed with immigrants in New York City in the nineteenth century. Gangs begins with a battle between the ‘Dead Rabbits’, recently from Ireland, and the ‘Natives’, not native, but born in the United States.

—In the slums of Manhattan in 1846 Five pointsTwo rival gangs, the Anglo-Protestant Confederation of American Natives, led by William ‘Bill the Butcher’ Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis, There will be blood), and the Irish Catholic immigrant Dead Rabbits, led by ‘priest’ Vallon (Liam Neeson, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), enter their final battle to determine which faction will control the area. At the end of the battle, Bill kills Vallon and declares the Dead Rabbits outlaws. Seeing this, Vallon’s young son hides the knife that killed his father and is taken to an orphanage on Blackwell’s Island.

Sixteen years later, in 1862, Vallon’s son (Leonardo diCaprio, The kite, The Great Gatsby), who calls himself “Amsterdam”, returns to the Five Points seeking revenge and retrieves the knife. An old acquaintance, Johnny Sirocco (Henry Thomas), introduces him to the local gang clans, all of whom pay tribute to Bill, who remains in control of the area. Amsterdam is introduced to Bill, but keeps his past a secret as he seeks recruitment for the gang – and bides his time.

It’s a bit strange to compare Gangs of New York to Scorsese’s better known ‘Gangs of New York’ films, such as Good guysbut it holds up well. Set in mid-nineteenth century Lower New York City, the film was shot on an astonishing, mile-long set built at the Cinecittà Studio in Rome, Italy, representing a five-block stretch of Lower Manhattan that includes the Five Points . The studio also recreated two large sailing ships, a church, a bar, a theater, a casino and a replica of Tammany Hall.

The film was based on Herbert Asbury’s 1927 non-fiction book with the same namewith some personal fictional plots attached. The book described the Bowery Boys, Plug Uglies, True Blue Americans, Shirt Tails and Dead Rabbits, who were named after their battle standard, a dead rabbit on a pike. The book also describes William Poole, the inspiration for “Bill the Butcher” Cutting, who was a member of the Bowery Boys, a bare-knuckle boxer and a leader of the Know Nothing political movement.

In the film the Draft riots of July 1863 are accurately depicted as both destructive and violent. Records show that the riots resulted in more than a hundred deaths, including the lynching of eleven free African Americans. They were particularly targeted by the Irish, in part because of fear of competition in the labor market from freed slaves. The film also refers to the infamous Tweed Courthouse, as ‘Boss’ Tweed (Jim Broadbent, King Lear) refers to plans for the structure as ‘modest’ and ‘economic’.

Gangs of New York is a Scorsese epic with a typical mix of history and fiction. Daniel Day-Lewis won the British Academy Award for Best Actor, from twelve nominations; the film earned ten nominations at the American Academy Awards, but no cigar.

Resources include ScreenRant.com And Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0 deed).

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