Gangs of New York2002

Scorses-a-thon “I don't see no Americans. I see trespassers, Irish harps. Do a job for a nickel what a nigger does for a dime, and a white man used to get a quarter for. What have they done? Name one thing they've contributed.” There is almost too much to say about this movie. Scorsese has taken New York and made it ageless. Mythologized it. It is so fitting that I watched this after seeing the Odyssey because the feeling it gives is so similar. I’ve never seen America look like this. So barbarous and so medieval.   “I've got forty-four notches on my club. Do you know what they're for? They're to remind me what I owe God when I die. My father was killed in battle, too. In Ireland, in the streets, fighting those who would take as their privilege what could only be got and held by the decimation of a race. That war is a thousand years old and more. We never expected it to follow us here. It didn't. It was waiting for us when we landed.” What this movie does for me is highlight how little we are taught or little I remember. Because to my knowledge, the Civil War is taught and seen as clear black and white north vs south with the north as intelligent forward-thinking progressives and the south as backwards racist hicks. This shows me that was never the case. They were always here. Always around us.  And of course. It’s never simple. Evil is everywhere. But just to see it put so plainly, it was very moving. A racist evil man called “the Butcher” literally drapes himself in the American flag. And prays to God before it laid across an altar. In its depiction of history, it has become prophecy.  This movie seems to be in conversation with more films than any I’ve seen before. Specifically, Scorsese films going all the way back to Who’s That Knocking. I genuinely feel this is the climax of his career. The casting of Daniel Day-Lewis feels incredibly deliberate as this antithesis of the character he played nearly ten years prior in The Age of Innocence, which may be the film most worth watching with this as they give so much context to each other.  I feel like this may be the best place to start with Scorsese, but I may only feel that way after watching all his other films. But watching the birth of his New York and the way it shows how little has changed is incredibly important and gives incredible context to his other films. Everything starts here.  I honestly am not equipped enough to relate how incredible and important this movie is. There are definitely better people who could. But I must convey how moved I was by this. He may in fact be the greatest living director. And I think what makes him so strong is his ability to connect with his subject matter, whether that’s the life of the Dalai Lama in Tibet or a gangster in New York. He reaches out and puts you in their shoes in their head and makes truly empathetic films.  I’m definitely watching this on Fourth of July next year.