The urban jungle is a nest for both snakes and pearls

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2006)

Strangely enough this film about New York at the time of the Civil War is more about the end of the hellish gate to some kind of lawless and wild wild west it is living through than its real depiction. New York was the immigrating harbor and as such had an enormous and constantly changing population. The turn-over as they say today was extremely rapid. It was also a very cosmopolitan city that accepted all nationalities but also all races. But the political and security organizations and institutions were far from up to what it should have been. In other words, and corruption demultiplied this phenomenon, gangs were everywhere and particularly the good old gang of native Americans, meaning the Americans who had been born in American, in the US, against all the others, the immigrants, the foreigners who come and eat your bread out of your mouth as is well known. Constant fight, constant strife, constant rivalry and daily casualties in a constant violence of every single second, day and night. Killing, hanging, lynching, stabbing, shooting, and so many other variants of these were everyday entertainment and distraction. The film focuses on the Irish as the main opponents of the native American gang. I find the film a little bit complacent as for the picturing and illustrating of this violence, and that pushes other issues a little bit in the background, for instance the rich bourgeoisie of fifth avenue, the merchants and the industrialists. The working class in the sweatshops are not shown either. This is slightly regrettable, because we do not understand then why politicians feel obliged to have some kind of alliance with one gang or the other. They have to choose such an alliance as opposed to the possibility for the working class poor to come together and join forces with the various minorities and fight for their own candidates in the elections. The Civil War provides the best surrounding environment for such a film too because of the anti-draft movement that develops in New York around 1863-64. This anti-draft movement could be the element that might make all the segments of the poor coalesce in one invincible majority. Scorsese shows very well, through the gangs and through the two leaders of native Americans and the Irish, how a possible alliance could have come out of this situation, but the gang war going on prevents basic interests to prevail in the name of jingoistic community interests. Scorsese seems to be wishing for us to believe that gang violence has always been the way for the establishment in New York to sail through all tempests, storms and other social hurricanes. It is a very pessimistic film that opens no perspective whatsoever. Then what about the acting of the various actors ? It is essentially Leornardo Di Caprio that I observed, following his iron hard and steel cold eyes in the film. He is so static most of the time, and when he is not , when he is moving he seems to be sliding slowly across the room, the street or the screen without any body language. Even his face seems to be expressionless except for his eyes. He looks like an actor who has risen or been raised in an environment of violence that has left some kind of shock in him, the shock that makes him step back, melt in the wall tapestry and keep out of trouble all the time. Will he ever learn how to use his body to express feelings, action, speed, and so many elements that have to be made visible on the screen because they cannot be described with words ? He has a real problem now his adolescent looks and naivety and charm have gone and he is obliged to move a body and move in it that has become slightly too heavy for him. Having seen what he did in The Departed, I believe he can learn, but he definitely still has a lot to improve. Good luck on the way to San Francisco.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne