Martin Scorcese's film "Gangs of New York"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Martin Scorcese's film "Gangs of New York", a drama depicting America as a political community, represents three potentially discordant elements in Americans' souls: Social passions directed toward one's own group, rational concern for the common good and rational submission to a common law. The author describes the opening of the in 1846 in New York City's infamous Five Points district as two rival gangs, the Natives and the Irish Catholics, organize to scuffle; there is speechifying on both sides, which gives the event a strangely formal tone and then suddenly the screen erupts in an orgy of blood and screams, which dramatizes the chaos beneath the orderly surface. The paper relates that the conflation of distinct time periods in the film is confusing as it jumps between the Irish famine migration, a decade later during the Civil War when Irish immigrants, sanitary reformers battling cholera and--most outrageous--the competing political parties of the Democrats and the anti-immigrant Know-Nothings plus a central plot thread involving the politically powerful William Marcy Tweed and his Tammany Hall cronies.

From the Paper:

"In the film, the narrative of Amsterdam's vendetta against Bill--and of ethnic strife in 1860s Manhattan--is constituted deeply by the past. Accordingly, the film shows a prelude, a rumble in the Five Points in 1846. However, this struggle is portray in primordial imagery that suggests a time almost beyond any recognized era. The Dead Rabbits and other Irish gangs--commanded by Amsterdam's father, "Priest" Vallon--and their native counterparts--led by Bill "the Butcher"--wield crude weapons (clubs, axes) and fight in an bare field between shacks and dilapidated buildings. The battle appears not only before civilization but also for it. Bill declares, "On my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we are met at this chosen ground to settle for good and all who holds influence over the Five Points--us natives, born right wise to this fine land, or the foreign hordes defiling it." A sense of divine mission on the part of both natives and immigrants powerfully highlight the spirited and primal character of the struggle."

More papers on Martin Scorcese's film "Gangs of New York":

• Film Review # 101377 : "Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York"
• Term Paper # 96768 : "Gangs of New York"
• Book Review # 105572 : " Robert Moses and the Fall of New York City "

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: