"He makes the best f***ing films!" - King Missile, "Martin Scorsese"

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2002)

Honestly, I think despite the praise (and the demerits) it's getting, "Gangs of New York" is still underrated and misunderstood. Scorsese says so much about so many things in this film, that it's really overwhelming and easy to overlook them if you watch it instead of emerging into it. Many things which have be seen as kitsch by the average critic, actually make a huge point, and, in addition, there are a lot of subtleties. The following example is not really what i mean by the scope of the film, but in one scene, in which someone refers to the pickpocket, Cameron Diaz, as Mrs. Amsterdam, Amsterdam being the name of Leo Dicaprio's character, he is either making a joke about their relationship or they have really been married, although no other mention or scene of a marriage has taken place. This is exactly what Coppola did in "The Godfather" films. Characters would mention things or a baby would be seen, and this one thing would say or show something that happened that otherwise was not spoken or heard of... a marriage, the birth of a child, a killing, etc., which also shows the time that has passed and some minor detail that relates to the main story itself. In the context of the film as a whole it does not mean a lot to the main story, but it shows that something has happened which we haven't been shown, some time has passed, and that, in GONY Leo and Cameron are now a valid, and trusting, couple. In probably his best role yet, Daniel Day-Lewis plays a man nicknamed "the Butcher," who leads the gang that opposed Leo's father's. In the style of the great method actors, Brando and Bobby DeNiro, he kept his New York accent on and off the set. Now, one critic stated that his character is, in a sense, over the top, P.T. Barnum-ish (P.T. Barnum happens to be a character in the film, as well, and is named-dropped on several occasions for good reason), that he might as well have been computer generated... but that's a major part of his character... and the story and the time. He is a caricature of America, portraying our morbid curiousity, amongst several other things. This film is America... past, present, future... vigilantes... racism... power-hungry... mass murderers and murder in general (which the media and entertainment loves to show, including this film, but at least it had an extremely valid reason)... bloodshed of war between our own people and between "us" and "the foreigners"... organized crime... a corrupt government... corrupt politicians... assassination... minor religious differences and the huge problems they cause... men drafted to fight for "their country" that usually end up coming home in wooden boxes... bribery... class distinctions and differences... theft... the morbid curiousity and the attraction to the freakish... satirization and caricaturization of the government and... etc., etc., etc. The central plot is a revenge story, with a love story on the side, but what it's really about is all of the aforementioned problems and quirks that are American... that ARE America. I think a lot of people missed out on this, because it wasn't told outright to them. The time period ends with the draft riots, which was one of the bloodiest events, if not thee bloodiest, in American history. I believe this says a lot about the movie and America as a whole. The final shot makes all of this obvious. It shows the New York of the 1800s slowly build into the New York of today. I'll let that speak for itself. The way Scorsese moves the camera shows all of these things, with his trademark tracking shots, and, really, any of his shots. He takes everything from "Mean Streets," "Goodfellas," "Kundun," everything great about his films and pieces them all together in this one. So much is going on around the characters, around the film itself, and Scorses captures all of it. America might as well be "all this stuff" that DeNiro's Travis Bickle sweeps his hand over in "Taxi Driver." One last comment: The set is one of the greatest ever constructed. The more money these producers give Scorsese, when they do, the better the film he makes. He even paid for the film from some of his own salary he received for directing it. Apparently, George Lucas (read the Trivia) saw the set and told Scorsese they have computers that can do that now. And that... THAT is the difference between a director and an auteur.