Marty's ferocious retelling of America's history with New York as a microcosm ...

Rating: 8/10 (9 February 2011)

American movies set during the late 19th century had a strange habit to feature cowboys, pioneers, Indians and sometimes Southern landlords, slaves, Union soldiers etc. Cinematically speaking, it was quite hard to figure how the Yankees were, how New York was like when the South and the West were being won. Maybe that's why Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest New Yorkers, repaired this injustice with "Gangs of New York": a ferocious epic of blood, terror and anarchy, with New York as you've never seen it before.
To say that New York's history didn't start until the 20th century is an understatement. However, the film leaves you with the feeling that New York was born after a bloody climactic massacre as painful as the delivery of a new city freed from anarchy, hate and intolerance after the mother died and all the pain with her. New York is depicted as a metaphor of America, with the gang battles as a Secession War on the streets, a War whose consequences could have been lethal, just as if the South had won. This is not a revision of history, but a retelling through the eyes of a New Yorker.
In fact, the title is misleading, when we think of gangs and Scorsese (and New York), a gallery of unforgettable characters comes to mind, Charlie and Johnny Boy, Henry Hill, Jimmy Conway, Tommy De Vito etc. But in Marty's epic, the gangs are fighting for survival, they're robbers, thieves, whores, killers, like Travis Bickle's universe, one century earlier, with the Irish emigrants living like ants in a colony, in the never ending shelves of a hostile and disdaining city. How ironic that they are treated like foreigners and invaders by descendants of emigrants, calling themselves Natives. Indeed, New York's story is depicted with a poetic savagery, like the history of America in microcosm.
Violence in this film, reaches such a level of gore and bestiality, we feel nostalgic thinking of good old guns. In fact, violence would inspire a whole thesis that couldn't fill this review, let's just say that people shout, cry, hit, pull knives in bellies, stomachs, legs  it's a snow reddening violence not for money or greed, but for survival. These are the primal instincts in the veins of the hands that built America, hands closed to become a fist, before they could shake other hands. And who else could have been the leader of these people, who else could have incarnated such bestial savagery but a villain named Bill the Butcher, played by an amazing Daniel Day-Lewis?
Daniel Day-Lewis is the soul of this film, a charismatic villain profoundly attached to the Five Points, his territory. This sacred link was sealed after the spectacular victory against the Dead Rabbits, the Irish gang whose leader, 'Priest' Vallon (Liam Neeson) was killed by Bill's bare hands in front of his son, Amsterdam. 16 years later after, fate puts Amsterdam (Leonardo Di Caprio) in Bill's path. He becomes his protégé, inspiring Bill's fatherly instinct. Of course, the Shakespearian aspect of the story can't avoid some stereotypical un-Scorsesian situations, the revenge story, and the romance with Jenny (Cameron Diaz) the pick pocket expert, which I have always thought to be too pretty for that role, and Amsterdam not the most colorful character of the film (nothing against Leo's performance, but Daniel Day-Lewis puts so much charisma and energy in his role, he'd make anyone look dull)
Fortunately, these details don't hurt the film; the writing is sometimes so good it elevates the traditional Scorsesian dilemma to epic proportions. Amsterdam might not be Bickle, Archer, LaMotta, but we feel for him. To accomplish his duty, to avenge his father, he needed Bill's trust and sympathy, even if the price was to kill and to be betrayed by his own blood. But the intelligence of the script, an element not to be underestimated, is that it makes you realize that this guilt is driven by the same racialist instinct that ignited the hate. Therefore, Amsterdam won't redeem his soul by killing Bill the Butcher but by ending his dictatorship, and killing the evil spirit about to poison the whole dream of New York City, freedom and brotherhood, America's epitome.
That's how the story transcends Amsterdam's dilemma, it's not just the Irish, there are Black, Chinese, people from lower classes, every layer of what'll build tomorrow's society, who'll fight for their right to live and to be respected in this country, it's like a Civil War in one town, a war leading to one of the most spectacular climactic battle sequences in a movie, where basically, everyone fights, men, women, rich, poor, police, fire fighters etc. Violence is so bloodily chaotic it's like America finally exorcising all the demons in the most violent way, which in Scorsese's vision means the most redeeming. How ironic that people who didn't want to go to War took part in another war anyway. And the municipal resources deployed to end the massacre were so important it spared no one and created a posthumous union, symbolized by the last confrontation between Bill and Amsterdam. Bill dies a true American, unaware that his death gave birth to a new real American spirit.
Bill's death was Amsterdam's redemption. But the central character of this film is not Amsterdam, or Bill or any member of any gang, the central character is New York, as the town of all the ideals, hopes and fears America represented. The town sinned through disunion and was redeemed by blood. You don't make up for your sins in church you do it in the streets ... No wonder this is the town that most symbolizes America, and that only Marty could have made such a powerful film.