Gangs of New York is a 2002 epic historical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, based on Herbert Asbury's 1928 book The Gangs of New York. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz, along with Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas and Brendan Gleeson in supporting roles. The film also marks the start of a collaboration between DiCaprio and Scorsese.
The film is set from 1846 to 1863 when a long-running Catholic–Protestant feud erupts into violence, just as an Irish immigrant group is protesting the threat of conscription during the Civil War. Scorsese spent 20 years developing the project until Miramax Films acquired it in 1999. Principal photography took place in Cinecittà Studios in 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 $193.8 million worldwide. It was met with generally positive reviews from critics, and Day-Lewis's performance was highly acclaimed. It received 10 nominations at the 75th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese, and Best Actor for Day-Lewis, but did not win in any category.
Plot
In the 1846 slum of the Five Points, two rival gangs, the Anglo-Protestant Confederation of American Natives, led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, and the immigrant Irish Catholic Dead Rabbits, led by "Priest" Vallon, engage in their final turf war outside the Old Brewery, the Dead Rabbits domain, to determine which faction will hold power over the Five Points. During the street brawl, Cutting kills Vallon, orders Vallon's body to remain untouched, and declares the Dead Rabbits outlawed. Having witnessed this, Vallon's young son hides the knife that killed his father before being taken to the Hellgate Orphanage on Blackwell's Island.
16 years later, in 1862, Vallon's son "Amsterdam" returns to the Five Points seeking revenge and retrieves the knife while the Metropolitan Police evict the Irish from the Old Brewery. An old acquaintance, Johnny Sirocco, familiarizes him with the local gang clans, all of whom pay tribute to Cutting, who still controls the Five Points. Amsterdam helps Sirocco loot a burning house one night, during which Cutting takes notice of them. Amsterdam is introduced to Cutting but keeps his past a secret as he seeks recruitment into the gang. He learns many of his father's former lieutenants—particularly "Happy" Jack Mulraney, who has become a corrupt Irish policeman, and McGloin—are now in Cutting's employ, despite his deep anti-Irish and racist views.
Each year, Cutting celebrates the anniversary of his victory over the Dead Rabbits. Amsterdam secretly plans to kill him publicly during this celebration. Amsterdam soon becomes attracted to pickpocket and grifter Jenny Everdeane, with whom Sirocco is also infatuated. Amsterdam gains Cutting's confidence and becomes his protégé, which draws him into the dealings of corrupt Tammany Hall politician William M. Tweed. His first test was to help Sirocco and his crew loot a ship in the harbor, only to find that the Daybreak Boys had already hit the ship and killed everyone aboard.
An assassination attempt takes place against Cutting. He is wounded, but Amsterdam saves his life. Amsterdam encounters Walter 'Monk' McGinn, a former Dead Rabbit, who is aware of Amsterdam's true identity and was behind the assassination plot. He later discovers that Everdeane was once a ward and consort for Cutting until she had an abortion that left her scarred. Sirocco, jealous of Everdeane's affection for Amsterdam and Amsterdam's newfound popularity, reveals his true identity and intentions to Cutting. Cutting baits Amsterdam with a knife throwing act involving Everdeane. As Cutting toasts Priest Vallon, Amsterdam throws his knife, but it is deflected, and Amsterdam is wounded by a counter throw. Cutting then beats him and burns his cheek with a hot blade before banishing him, believing Amsterdam to not be worthy of a death by his hand.
Everdeane implores Amsterdam to escape with her to San Francisco. Amsterdam instead 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. Cutting sends corrupt Mulraney to investigate, but Amsterdam garrotes him to death and hangs his body in the square. In retaliation, Cutting has Sirocco beaten and run through with a pike, leaving it to Amsterdam to end his suffering. McGinn later meets with Amsterdam and presents him with Vallon's razor, which he retrieved after the original battle.
When Amsterdam's gang beats McGloin, Cutting and the Natives march on the church and are met by Amsterdam and the Dead Rabbits, with new and former members filling its ranks. No violence ensues, but Cutting promises to return soon. The incident garners newspaper coverage, and Amsterdam presents Tweed with a plan to defeat Cutting's influence: Tweed will back McGinn's candidacy for sheriff and Amsterdam will secure the Irish vote for Tammany. McGinn wins in a landslide via ballot stuffing, and a humiliated Cutting attempts to challenge him to a duel, but after being denied the challenge, he murders McGinn with his own club. McGinn's death prompts an angry Amsterdam to challenge Cutting to a gang battle in Paradise Square, which Cutting accepts.
The Civil War draft riots break out as the gangs are preparing to fight; several households and stores are being broken into, and Union soldiers are deployed to control the rioters. As the rival gangs face off, cannon fire from ships hits Paradise Square, interrupting their battle shortly before it begins. Many of the gang members are killed by the naval gunfire, soldiers, or rioters. Cutting and Amsterdam fight each other amidst the chaos until Cutting is wounded by shrapnel. Finally, Amsterdam uses his father's knife to fatally stab Cutting, who dies as Amsterdam holds his hand.
In the final scene, Amsterdam buries the knife next to his father's grave in a Brooklyn cemetery, and erects a makeshift headstone with the name William Cutting over it alongside the actual gravestone of Priest Vallon. As Amsterdam and Everdeane leave, the skyline changes as a modern New York City rises up 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
Production Martin Scorsese had grown up in Little Italy in the borough of Manhattan in New York City in the 1950s. He 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?"
Development In 1970, Scorsese came across Herbert Asbury's book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (1928) 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. 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.
At the time, Scorsese was a young director without prestige; by the end of the 1970s, 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. That same year, Scorsese and Cocks wrote the first draft, but Scorsese decided to direct Raging Bull (1980) instead.
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. 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. In 1997, Universal transferred the rights to the project to Disney, whose then-chairman Joe Roth turned down the film due to its excessive violence, which was "not appropriate for a Disney-themed movie".
Scorsese took the film to Warner Bros. Pictures, being contractually obligated to make a film for the studio. The film was declined by Warner Bros. as well, and afterward declined similarly by 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In 1999, Scorsese was able to find a partnership with Harvey Weinstein, noted producer and co-chairman of Miramax Films. As the film had a large budget of nearly $100 million, Weinstein sold the international distribution rights to the project to Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group for approximately $65 million to secure the required funds. Shortly after, Touchstone Pictures joined Miramax Films in funding the film, in exchange for a portion of the proceeds from domestic distribution.
In 1999, Cocks was retained by Scorsese for the screenplay adaptation, which underwent nine revised drafts. 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." 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.
Set design 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. For the Five Points, Ferretti recreated George Catlin's 1827 painting of the area.
Rehearsals and character development