A stunning epic triumph

Rating: 9/10 (27 January 2003)

Much has been said about Gangs of New York's narrative problems and sure Cameron Diaz's character is for the most part unnecessary, but for me the film was not about character studies or historical facts. Gangs of New York is all about capturing a time and a place and sucking the viewer into that place for the duration of the film.
*Minor Spoilers*
Scorsese's vision and direction in Gangs is, in my opinion, his greatest yet and that's quite a statement considering his past accomplishments. He barely gives the viewer time to settle in their seat by opening the film with a battle so ferocious that it literally leaves you breathless by its intensity. From this point on though, Gangs has proceeded to split its viewers in two, those that are awed by Scorsese's vision and those that find the film lacking in narrative focus and a chaotic mess.

The lack of narrative focus and the chaos of the film's atmosphere is exactly what I believe makes Gangs stand out as a cinematic triumph. By evoking an atmosphere of chaos, Scorsese accurately allows the viewer to feel they are in a place like the Five Points where chaos reigned and order was nowhere to be found. The detail of the sets and incredible cinematography by Michael Ballhaus is absolutely stunning and even when the narrative pace slows, Scorsese's powerful vision never ceases to amaze.

And as is usual there must be a character that symbolically represents their environment, like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, and in Gangs that character is Bill the Butcher, who is brought to vibrant, frightening life by Daniel Day-Lewis, who (Sorry, Jack) deserves to win the Oscar. Bill is a character of unending contradiction and fascination and if one remembers nothing else from Gangs they will remember Daniel Day-Lewis's performance.
The film concludes with the draft riots that takes place on the same day that Amsterdam Vallon and Bill the Butcher meet for the battle that the film builds towards. The battle never takes place though, at least not in the way the characters envisioned, because the army is called to put down the riots. Some may be put off by the constant cutting between the riots and the conflict in the Five Points, but to me it was brilliant. Throughout the film Scorsese juxtaposes the problems of the Five Points to the problems with the draft and the Civil War slowing building towards the fateful day when everything will come to a head. Suddenly the battle in the Five Points is shown to be pointless when compared to the whole of the city and the Nation that is currently in strife, which I believe is a brilliant point. It shows that petty things like revenge mean nothing compared to the greater conflicts in the world. An important lesson to be learned.
The only real fault that anyone could really say about Gangs of New York is that it may be too ambitious, but in this day of age when it's hard to find any sort of ambition in the movies, I'll gladly take a film that tries to reach too far over a film that doesn't have any ambition whatsoever.