This is a great movie. With The Departed many said it was a return to form for Scorsese. However, there have been critics that have been discussing how good The Aviator was, but there are no mentions for Gangs of New York. A.O. Scott of the New York Times said at the time the movie came out:
"I said earlier that ‘‘Gangs of New York’’ is nearly a great movie. I suspect that, over time, it will make up the distance. "
Well, it does not seem to have made up that difference in many people’s mind. Why?
Ok, there is one big problem with the movie and that is Cameron Diaz. Whe just can’t pull of the transformation that her character goes through.
I like GONY a lot. But only because it is a GREAT period movie. The story itself fails to me. The climax is completely anticlimactic. Leaves the audience unfulfilled.
The way the film was shot, and the way Daniel Day Lewis played his character, I think, gave the film a tad of a comic book feeling. It just doesn’t feel very real–even though it’s got the same amount blood and hardship in it than any realistic movie would.
Personally I thought it was good, but a few years later I can’t admit to recalling the contents of the movie all that much. And I suspect that that’s just because I couldn’t take it very seriously with the way it was directed. (I’m pretty much the same way with Sin City. I think they would have done better to de-comicize the telling of the story for film–either that or go animation.)
The movie felt awkwardand and didn’t capture the period. The characters weren’t interesting, although Daniel Day Lewis played a villian that would havebeen greatin a very different movie.
Well, it did seem a bit like a tragic Deus Ex Machina, where the writer can’t think of a good ending so everyone just dies (I’m looking at you, Shakespeare.) But it worked for me because it symbolically marked inexorable progress. But up until the end the story wasn’t so great, but the characterizations, especially DDL’s constant exuding of instability, and period color were enough to carry the film up till that point.
My mother pretty much thinks this is the best movie anyone ever made. Seriously. She even spoke of some day going to the Five Points (does it even exist?).
I saw it with her and I enjoyed it, to a point. There’s only so much violence I can handle in a movie, and this one crossed that line, albeit not by much. All in all a pretty good movie, but not one that I’m keen to add to my DVD collection.
I really liked this movie, mostly for the historical feel, which seemed very authentic to me. I also liked the way Scorcesese combined so many elements of so many stories from the novel. I didn’t find any of the characters besides Bill the Butcher very interesting, though. I also felt Scorcesese had to tread a fine line between inviting the viewer’s sympathy for the Irish, and acknowledging their complicities in the horrors of the draft riots, and I think that took away from the accuracy of the movie.
And the Five Points doesn’t exist anymore, but you can go to where it once existed (basically it is a park in Chinatown now).
I agree. Bill the Butcher is a great knife-thrower, who puts out one of his one eyes, on purpose, as a tribute to a fallen foe. But then, with his depth perception gone, he’s still able to throw a knife with superhuman accuracy. He was almost like a bad X-*Men * villain.
Comicize is a good word. The first time I saw it, on cable tv, like TNT or one of those, I missed the opening credits, just channel surfing. I turned it on when the camera is panning thru what I thought was a cave. It had a strange feel. I thought it was one of the modern vampire movies. Very few clues as to the time period until they get outside and you see it’s the prep for a gang fight.
I liked how they dovetailed the story into the real events of the upcoming draft and the riots which ensued, having learned some of this before from Ken Burns’ Civil War series.
It’s that dovetailing that makes it anticlimactic for me. The whole movie is leading up to a conflict between DDL and Titanic Boy. Then when it finally comes to a head, events of the time overwhelm it and make it meaningless.
It’s not enough to sit in a darkened theatre and intellectually ponder the fact that these are sad violent and tragic people. As it is not a documentary but instead a work of art ( s.i.c. ), we should be led to feel empany, sympany, horror, disgust, contempt and so on.
I did not care about anyone in this film and while it is a well-crafted piece the truth is that Scorcese dropped the ball. We all know he can direct. A lot of the actors can act.
It didn’t come together and that is a shame because I sure do love historical works like this one. It is a screenplay problem as much as a directoral problem.
That seemed to be the point: that’s just the way things work out sometimes. Fighting over something that in the big picture doesn’t matter too much. It’s said that a message about of the final irrelevance of things is a cop-out, but in this case, both of the era and the violence, it was true and poignany.
Who knew I was an existentialist. I see what you mean about the poignany of the fight, in the wake of real world events which overwhelmed it. To the main characters, the events of their whole lives were tatamount to even the Civil War which was going on outside their world, even as they were subject to being drawn into that very war.
But it just doesn’t work for me in this instance. I have to agree with DrFidelius. “Personally, I dislike the fictionalization of history.” Me too to the degree of storytelling. I like that stories get told with an accurate backdrop of history. A quick example that comes to mind is Godfather II, where Pacino is trying to get out of Cuba on the night of the revolution. There, it is only a setback to Michael Corleone’s plans. He gets back to the states, has a drink, regroups and moves on.
Another GREAT example to me is Reds. Beatty and Keaton’s fire between them was real and tangible to me. The backdrop of the Russian Rev, and all it’s dogmatic ramblings and rantings deserved second billing.
I like the fictionalization of history (mostly…) It gives directors a good chance to show some real history, which I love. In this instance, this battle between Lewis and DiCaprio is the movie. And current events just invade to diminish any possible point being made.
I see what you mean about the poignany of the fight, in the wake of real world events which overwhelmed it. To the main characters, the events of their whole lives were tatamount to even the Civil War which was going on outside their world, even as they were subject to being drawn into that very war.