Gangs of New York (DVD, 2003, 2-Disc Set) GOOD

Description: Gangs of New York56 languagesArticleTalkReadEditView historyToolsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaFor other uses, see Gangs of New York (disambiguation).Gangs of New YorkTheatrical release posterDirected byMartin ScorseseScreenplay byJay CocksSteven ZaillianKenneth LonerganStory byJay CocksBased onThe Gangs of New York by Herbert AsburyProduced byAlberto Grimaldi[1]Harvey WeinsteinStarringLeonardo DiCaprioDaniel Day-LewisCameron DiazJim BroadbentJohn C. ReillyHenry ThomasBrendan GleesonCinematographyMichael BallhausEdited byThelma SchoonmakerMusic byHoward ShoreProduction companiesTouchstone PicturesMiramax FilmsAlberto Grimaldi ProductionsDistributed byMiramax Films (United States) Initial Entertainment Group (International)[2]Release dateDecember 20, 2002Running time167 minutes[3]CountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget$97-100 million[4][5]Box office$193.8 million[5]Gangs of New York is a 2002 American historical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, based on Herbert Asbury's 1927 book The Gangs of New York.[6] The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz, along with Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Stephen Graham, Eddie Marsan, and Brendan Gleeson in supporting roles.The film is set in 1863, when a long-running Catholic–Protestant feud erupts into violence, just as an Irish immigrant group is protesting against the threat of conscription during the Civil War. Scorsese spent twenty years developing the project until Miramax Films acquired it in 1999. Principal photography took place in Cinecittà, Rome and Long Island City, New York City.Gangs of New York was completed by 2001 but its release was delayed due to the September 11 attacks. The film was theatrically released in the United States on December 20, 2002, and grossed over $193 million worldwide. It was met with generally positive reviews and Day-Lewis's performance was highly acclaimed. It received ten nominations at the 75th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese and Best Actor for Day-Lewis.Plot[edit]In the 1846 slum of the Five Points, two rival gangs, the Anglo-Protestant Confederation of American Natives, led by William Cutting, and the Irish Catholic immigrant Dead Rabbits, led by "Priest" Vallon, engage in their final battle to determine which faction will hold sway over the territory. At the end of the battle, Bill kills Vallon and declares the Dead Rabbits outlawed. Having witnessed this, Vallon's young son hides the knife that killed his father and is taken to an orphanage on Blackwell's Island.Sixteen years later in the year 1862, Vallon's son, "Amsterdam" returns to the Five Points seeking revenge and retrieves the knife. An old acquaintance, Johnny Sirocco, familiarizes him with the local clans of gangs, all of whom pay tribute to Bill, who remains in control of the territory. Amsterdam is introduced to Bill but keeps his past a secret as he seeks recruitment into the gang. He learns many of his father's former lieutenants are now in Bill's employ, despite his deep anti-Irish views. Each year, Bill celebrates the anniversary of his victory over the Dead Rabbits and Amsterdam secretly plans to kill him publicly during this celebration. Amsterdam soon becomes attracted to pickpocket and grifter Jenny Everdeane, with whom Johnny is also infatuated. Amsterdam gains Bill's confidence and becomes his protégé, involving him in the dealings of corrupt Tammany Hall politician William M. Tweed. Amsterdam saves Bill from an assassination attempt and is tormented by the thought that he may have done so out of honest devotion.On the evening of the anniversary, Johnny, in a fit of jealousy over Jenny's affection for Amsterdam, reveals Amsterdam's true identity and intentions to Bill. Bill baits Amsterdam with a knife throwing act involving Jenny. As Bill toasts Priest Vallon, Amsterdam throws his knife, but Bill deflects it and wounds Amsterdam with a counter throw. Bill then beats him and burns his cheek with a hot blade before banishing him, believing Amsterdam to not be worthy of death. Going into hiding, Jenny implores him to escape with her to San Francisco. Amsterdam, however, returns to the Five Points seeking vengeance and announces his return by hanging a dead rabbit in Paradise Square in front of several Irish gangs that were allied with the Dead Rabbits. Bill sends corrupt Irish policeman and former Dead Rabbit Mulraney to investigate, but Amsterdam garrotes him to death and hangs his body in the square. In retaliation, Bill has Johnny beaten and run through with a pike, leaving it to Amsterdam to end his suffering. When Amsterdam's gang beats McGloin, a former Dead Rabbit and one of Bill's lieutenants, Bill and the Natives march on the church and are met by Amsterdam and the Dead Rabbits. No violence ensues, but Bill promises to return soon. The incident garners newspaper coverage, and Amsterdam presents Tweed with a plan to defeat Bill's influence: Tweed will back the candidacy of Monk McGinn for sheriff and Amsterdam will secure the Irish vote for Tammany. Monk wins in a landslide, and a humiliated Bill murders him with his own club. McGinn's death prompts an angry Amsterdam to challenge Bill to a gang battle in Paradise Square, which Bill accepts.The Civil War draft riots break out just as the gangs are preparing to fight, and Union Army soldiers are deployed to control the rioters. As the rival gangs fight, cannon fire from ships is directed into Paradise Square, interrupting their battle shortly before it begins. Many of the gang members are killed by the naval gunfire, soldiers, or rioters. Bill and Amsterdam face off against one another until Bill is wounded by shrapnel. Amsterdam then uses his father's knife to kill Bill.Amsterdam buries the knife next to his father in a cemetery in Brooklyn, erecting a makeshift headstone with the name William Cutting over it now alongside the actual tombstone of Priest Vallon. As Amsterdam and Jenny leave, the skyline changes as modern New York City is built over the next century, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center, and the cemetery becomes overgrown and forgotten.Cast[edit]Leonardo DiCaprio as Amsterdam VallonDaniel Day-Lewis as William "Bill the Butcher" CuttingCameron Diaz as Jenny EverdeaneJim Broadbent as William "Boss" TweedJohn C. Reilly as Happy Jack MulraneyHenry Thomas as Johnny SiroccoLiam Neeson as "Priest" VallonBrendan Gleeson as Walter "Monk" McGinnGary Lewis as McGloinStephen Graham as ShangEddie Marsan as KilloranAlec McCowen as Reverend RaleighDavid Hemmings as John F. SchermerhornLawrence Gilliard Jr. as Jimmy SpoilsCara Seymour as Hell-Cat MaggieRoger Ashton-Griffiths as P. T. BarnumBarbara Bouchet as Mrs. SchermerhornMichael Byrne as Horace GreeleyJohn Sessions as Harry WatkinsRichard Graham as Harvey Card PlayerGiovanni Lombardo Radice as Mr. LegreeTim Pigott-Smith as Calvinist MinisterProduction[edit]The country was up for grabs, and New York was a powder keg. This was the America not [of] the West with its wide open spaces, but of claustrophobia, where everyone was crushed together. On one hand, you had the first great wave of immigration, the Irish, who were Catholic, spoke Gaelic, and owed allegiance to the Vatican. On the other hand, there were the Nativists, who felt that they were the ones who had fought and bled, and died for the nation. They looked at the Irish coming off the boats and said, "What are you doing here?" It was chaos, tribal chaos. Gradually, there was a street by street, block by block, working out of democracy as people learned somehow to live together. If democracy didn't happen in New York, it wasn't going to happen anywhere.— Martin Scorsese on how he saw the history of New York City as the battleground of the modern American democracy[7]Martin Scorsese had grown up in Little Italy in the borough of Manhattan in New York City during the 1950s. At the time, he had noticed there were parts of his neighborhood that were much older than the rest, including tombstones from the 1810s in Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, cobblestone streets and small basements located under more recent large buildings; this sparked Scorsese's curiosity about the history of the area: "I gradually realized that the Italian-Americans weren't the first ones there, that other people had been there before us. As I began to understand this, it fascinated me. I kept wondering, how did New York look? What were the people like? How did they walk, eat, work, dress?"[7]Development[edit]In 1970, Scorsese came across Herbert Asbury's book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (1927) about the city's nineteenth-century criminal underworld and found it to be a revelation. In the portraits of the city's criminals, Scorsese saw the potential for an American epic about the battle for the modern American democracy.[7] Scorsese immediately contacted his friend Jay Cocks, a film critic for Time magazine. "Think of it like a western in outer space," Scorsese had told him. Cocks recalled they had considered Malcolm McDowell in the lead role and framing the narrative with quotations from Bruce Springsteen, but otherwise they intended to keep the period vernacular authentic.[8] At the time, Scorsese was a young director without prestige; by the end of the decade, with the success of crime films such as Mean Streets (1973), about his old neighborhood, and Taxi Driver (1976), he was a rising star. In June 1977, producer Alberto Grimaldi ran a two-page ad in Daily Variety, announcing the film's production with Scorsese set to direct.[9][10] That same year, Scorsese and Cocks wrote the first draft, but Scorsese decided to direct Raging Bull (1980) instead.[8]In 1979, Scorsese acquired the screen rights to Asbury's book; however, it took twenty years to get the production moving forward. Difficulties arose with reproducing the monumental cityscape of nineteenth-century New York with the style and detail Scorsese wanted; almost nothing in New York City looked as it did in that time, and filming elsewhere was not an option.[7] In 1991, Grimaldi and Scorsese resumed development on the project with Universal Pictures on a budget of $30 million. At one point, Robert De Niro was set to portray Bill the Butcher.[10] However, the studio transferred the rights to the project to Disney in 1997, whose then-chairman Joe Roth turned down the film due to its excessive violence, which was "not appropriate for a Disney-themed movie".[11][1]Scorsese took the film to Warner Bros., being contractually obligated to make a film for the studio; the film was however declined by Warner Bros. as well, and afterward declined similarly by 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).[9] Eventually, in 1999, Scorsese was able to find a partnership with Harvey Weinstein, noted producer and co-chairman of Miramax Films.[7] As the film had a large budget of nearly $100 million, Weinstein then sold international distribution rights to the project to Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group for about $65 million to secure the required funds. Shortly after, Touchstone Pictures joined Miramax in funding the film, in exchange for a portion of the proceeds from domestic distribution.[9] That same year, Cocks was retained by Scorsese for the screenplay adaptation, which underwent nine revised drafts.[12] However, Weinstein was not pleased with the shooting script and wanted other screenwriters brought in for more rewrites. To placate Weinstein, Scorsese called Cocks into a room and fired him. Telling The Globe and Mail, Cocks recalled the situation: "You ever been fired? It's terrible. Terrible. Even if it's a job you don't like, it pisses you off, right? Well you can extrapolate from that, exponentially."[13] Due to this, the final shooting script was not fully completed when filming began. Hossein Amini was hired and wrote the last two drafts, but he was uncredited for his work.[14][10]Set design[edit]In order to create the sets that Scorsese envisioned, the production was filmed at the large Cinecittà Studio in Rome, Italy. Production designer Dante Ferretti recreated over a mile of mid-nineteenth century New York buildings, consisting of a five-block area of Lower Manhattan, including the Five Points slum, a section of the East River waterfront including two full-sized sailing ships, a thirty-building stretch of lower Broadway, a patrician mansion, and replicas of Tammany Hall, a church, a saloon, a Chinese theater, and a gambling casino.[7] For the Five Points, Ferretti recreated George Catlin's 1827 painting of the area.[7]Rehearsals and character development[edit]Particular attention was also paid to the speech of characters, as loyalties were often revealed by their accents. The film's voice coach, Tim Monich, resisted using a generic Irish brogue and instead focused on distinctive dialects of Ireland and Great Britain. As DiCaprio's character was born in Ireland but raised in the United States, his accent was designed to be a blend of accents typical of the half-Americanized. To develop the unique, lost accents of the Yankee "Nativists" such as Daniel Day-Lewis's character, Monich studied old poems, ballads, newspaper articles (which sometimes imitated spoken dialect as a form of humor) and the Rogue's Lexicon, a book of underworld idioms compiled by New York's police commissioner, so that his men would be able to tell what criminals were talking about. An important piece was an 1892 wax cylinder recording of Walt Whitman reciting four lines of a poem in which he pronounced the word "Earth" as "Uth", and the "a" of "an" nasal and flat, like "ayan". Monich concluded that native nineteenth-century New Yorkers probably sounded something like the proverbial Brooklyn cabbie of the mid-20th century.[7]Filming[edit]Set of the movie at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, ItalyPrincipal photography began in New York and Rome on December 18, 2000, and ended on March 30, 2001.[15] Due to the strong personalities and clashing visions of director and producer, the three-year production became a story in and of itself.[7][11][16][17] Scorsese strongly defended his artistic vision on issues of taste and length while Weinstein fought for a streamlined, more commercial version. During the delays, noted actors such as Robert De Niro and Willem Dafoe had to leave the production due to conflicts with their other productions. Costs overshot the original budget by 25 percent, bringing the total cost over $100 million.[11] The increased budget made the film vital to Miramax Films' short-term success.[16][18]

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