Inspired by the events of mid-19th century US history, and the 1928 book The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury, director Martin Scorsese’s 2002 historical epic roars with sound and fury, capturing a time when street gangs and crooked politicians roamed the muddy terrain of Manhattan.
Initially conceived in the 1970s, Gangs of New York’s production was costly and challenging. Filming took place in Rome’s storied Cinecitta studio, with large sets designed to recreate the historic locales of the period. The film contains numerous action sequences involving some of the most technically elaborate set pieces of Scorsese’s filmography. The disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein then reportedly demanded reshoots that led to the film’s theatrical release being postponed by a year.
In both the film and history, nativist groups decried the successive waves of immigrants arriving on the city’s shores in the mid-19th century. The Democrats’ Tammany Hall political machine often colluded with such reactionary elements for gains at the ballot box. All these forces came to a head during the New York draft riots of 1863, a violent and racist uprising of white working-class men who, not wanting to be conscripted to fight in the American civil war, ultimately ended up attacking and killing Black residents.
The story of Gangs follows the Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his return to the notorious Five Points neighbourhood in 1862. He seeks vengeance for his father, Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), a gang leader killed at the hands of his rival William Cutting, AKA Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his band of anti-immigrant nativists in a street battle.
New York looks like a medieval village, the stage of scrappy fights over turf and power between gangs with names like the Dead Rabbits and Plug Uglies. The film opens with a bloody and brilliantly staged battle to the sounds of Peter Gabriel, with Scorsese taking us on a tour, Goodfellas-style, through the muddy corners of the Five Points neighbourhood. The stench is practically rising from the ground, the city teeming with thieves, prostitutes, hustlers, tavern keepers, shop owners, street corner musicians and migrants from all over the world.
Amsterdam infiltrates Bill’s circle, all the while plotting his revenge. He makes the acquaintance of Jenny (Cameron Diaz), a pickpocket and intimate of Bill, as well as Tammany Hall politician William “Boss” Tweed, played with wonderfully cynical wit by Jim Broadbent (“The integrity of the law must be maintained … even as it’s being broken”). Other great characters include gangster-turned-policeman Happy Jack (John C Reilly) and Walter “Monk” McGinn (Brendan Gleeson).
Some of the film’s most compelling material lays in ground-level corruption, from which a great metropolis grew. The Tammany political machine’s collection of votes for favours would make today’s political parties smile at their innocence (you have to return favours?). Bill and his Anglo-nativist factions deride Catholics, the Chinese and anybody else in shouting distance who is not descended from the nation’s founding fathers as heathens and foreign parasites.
Gangs of New York is a passionate, operatic work, more about the sweep of history than individual characters. We’re not quite as emotionally caught up in the central character’s journey as in other Scorsese films: the story of Amsterdam, Jenny and Bill is eventually overwhelmed by larger events as the story makes its way towards the 1863 riots. Still, this is DiCaprio’s first time working with Scorsese and he gets his moments, along with Diaz and the great supporting cast. And Day-Lewis’s performance as the brutal and silver-tongued Bill is something else: a sort of poetic thug who fancies himself an American hero, lord of his muddy domain.
It’s still a hell of a movie, flaws and all. At times it is even brilliant in its visual beauty and ferocious energy. It marked something of a new phase in Scorsese’s later career, entering into a longer, sustained form of epic moviemaking, as last seen in The Irishman – and soon in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Gangs of New York is streaming on Binge. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
This article was amended on 6 September 2023, to correct the spelling of Plug Uglies.
