Blindspot: Gangs of New York (2002)

I won't go on the record to say that this one is my favorite Blindspot so far, and I will also confess it was not one I obtained under the most pleasant circumstances. It happened when I was in college, back when I was still collecting films by Lynch and Cronenberg. At the time, both directors proved extremely elusive, and for whatever reason it was very hard to find films by Lynch (with the exceptions of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr., though Lost Highway appears to have since become easier to obtain). I'd just figured out how to use my debit card and I was having some trouble controlling how much I'd spend at a time on films. Adding to that, because of how frustrating it was locating films by either director, I started to find other targets to search for in between. This came from Martin Scorsese's crime films.

Gangs of New York was one I picked up for no real reason other than because I'd enjoyed some of Scorese's other films while I was also buying Lost Highway and Inland Empire. I had no real reason to buy it at the time, and for a few years it sat in the drawer, probably out of personal shame. I'm not proud of those days, and while I still struggle sometimes with saving money I have since made a more concerted effort to avoid spending recklessly on films. Still, a few films remain in my collection from incidents like this one (another film on my Blindspot list, Atonement, was also obtained through similar circumstances). That naturally made it perfect material for the 2015 Blindspot Challenge.

When people think of the 19th century, the images that often come to mind are those of upper-class Victorian England. I'm talking about the fancy houses, the men in suits, ties, and top hats, women in elegant dresses. Typically the men are in business or some respectable career, smoke thick cigars, and like to drink tea. The "Victorian gentleman" is itself one of many stereotypes commonly associated with the English people. What many do not understand is that the world was far more complicated than that, and what we get here is another side to that same era. This is arguably the greatest strength displayed by Gangs of New York, as it was interesting to see this angle normally reduced to the background. Instead the lower class is placed front and center, and while I can't be 100% certain of its historical authenticity, it certainly makes for an interesting world.

It is the mid-19th century, and the American Civil War has just begun. It is a dark time for the American working class of New York, who live in a town torn apart by crime and prejudice. Every day thousands of Irish immigrants arrive in America only to be met with hate from the so-called "Natives" who through backwards thinking actually have a range of outrageous assumptions about the new arrivals that sadly weren't too uncommon for the time. At the same time, the society of New York has been split into various "tribes" in the form of gangs in constant conflict with each other. The most powerful of these gangs is led by a nasty man known as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting, who has eliminated most of the competing gangs and even bought out some of the authorities (and is also extremely vocal about his bigoted worldviews).

Also thrown into the mix is Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio), the son of a gang leader (Liam Neeson) killed by Cutting fifteen years earlier. Amsterdam is not pleased with the actions of Cutting, but manages to find a place in the latter's gang and works his way to being second in command. However, despite all outward appearances, Amsterdam is still loyal to his Irish heritage, and plots revenge against Cutting. Meanwhile, he also finds an unlikely friendship and eventual romance with a young Irish thief named Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), who proves to be quite talented and a valuable ally. However, in the end, it is left open whether any change has really happened, with the ending montage suggesting that modern New York is not that much different.

One thing I will note I was pleasantly surprised by was the general moral ambiguity that came with this story. The film makes a point of highlighting early on just how messed up a world the characters are living in, with several very real issues for the period. These included situations like rivalries developing between early fire departments, something that actually happened quite often and caused a lot of trouble (two different groups would show up at the same emergency, and then get distracted fighting over which one gets to put out the fire). The racism and backwards thinking, like the various characters who claim that the Irish and people of colour are "stealing jobs" from white men, is absurd today but also not unusual for the 19th century.

The main character himself is not so much likable as interesting, but it helped that he was never fully portrayed as being the good guy. He may have had some sympathetic goals but on several occasions his methods are called into question and it is never totally certain if he is doing the right thing (this calls to mind similar vigilante themes explored in Scorsese's earlier film Taxi Driver). Cutting also makes a decent antagonist, though sometimes his mustache seems to be a distraction from the overall performance. The rest of the supporting cast do okay as well, though there aren't very many who particularly stand out.

One exception to that rule is Everdeane, who I will have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by. My initial expectations of the film included her simply being a love interest and motivation for Vallon, and while that was partially true it turned out to be a lot more complicated than that. Writing strong female characters into historical movies is note easy, especially in a period like the Victorian Era, but here they really pulled it off. She's a thief but she is also smart and capable of looking after herself (and indeed, saves herself on multiple occasions, as well as Vallon at least once), all while maintaining the illusion of being an "ideal" 19th century girl.

Another area where I can definitely give this film credit is its pacing. The full movie is almost three hours long, but it actually moves fairly quickly. I don't recall any specific point at which I felt a scene was going on longer than it needed to, and I could see it was trying to use the long runtime to its advantage. The only trouble was that there is a lot going on in that time. Maybe not quite as much as a movie like The Godfather or Scorsese's later film The Departed, but still a lot. The central narrative: that of Vallon, Everdeane, and Cutter, is pretty straight forward and easy to comprehend, but there are plenty of other characters and sub-plots that can be easy to lose track of.

I won't say that Gangs of New York is my favorite Blindspot so far, but it proved to be an interesting experience, and I'm certainly glad I watched it. It has its flaws but it is a compelling story with some amazing period detail that shows a side of history often overlooked. I'd recommend checking it out if you like Scorsese or want a good crime film, and even with the long running time it hardly feels like it's that long. If I were to label Scorsese's best crime films, I would probably choose either Goodfellas or Taxi Driver, but Gangs of New York is a reasonable second or third option, and I will say that it is definitely better than Raging Bull.

Raging Bull: A Miserable Mess of a Film

I like Scorsese as a director. He's done some great films: Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Aviator, Shutter Island, and Hugo were all excellent movies made under his direction. Scorese and Robert De Niro go together like Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke, John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, or David Lynch and Jack Nance. Put the two of them together and you can get some really good movies... most of the time anyway.

During my short-lived stint in college, I was enrolled in a film studies course that had a frustrating way of working. Every week, our teacher would have a new movie for us to look at, but she only once ever screened a movie in full, and that was in preparation for the exam (we were expected to write a short essay comparing Out of the Past to one of two possible movies, one of which was Breathless; having to watch that film was my first real exposure to Jean-Luc Godard). Instead, she gave us a syllabus that labelled each week, and gave us a movie she expected us to watch on our own time.

Even more irritating was the fact that the majority of the movies on the syllabus were obscure and/or foreign movies. She expected us to somehow, in the period of a week, acquire some obscure movie from the other side of the movie on DVD and watch it. Once in a while we got something a bit more plausible (though I still ended up seeing North By Northwest a week late), but as you can imagine I quickly fell behind.

When I saw Raging Bull on the list, I got excited, since it just so happened I'd obtained a file of that movie, which wasn't the most ethical way of watching it but still allowed me to see it in time. I thought I could finally start catching up and things would get easier.

I didn't get more than thirty minutes in before I shut it off in frustration from not being able to understand it. I eventually had to sit down and watch it in full, frequently referring back to a plot synopsis to keep track of what was happening, but that was an extremely painful experience. This was really an Oscar winner? If you ask me this film stole an Oscar that rightfully belonged to the other black and white historical drama nominated that year: David Lynch's The Elephant Man.

So what's my problem with the film? Well, for starters there isn't much of a plot to it. Supposedly it's about a boxer who has a bad temper but it took a plot synopsis off IMDB to understand that. The movie really seemed to keep jumping all over the place without ever really developing anything. There were a lot of scenes of Robert De Niro in the boxing ring and occasionally his interactions with other characters. The way it does that is exceptionally jarring, and doesn't really draw you into the world of the story. I also never really found myself connecting with De Niro's protagonist.

If you want a good boxing drama, you'd be better off with something like Million Dollar Baby. That movie actually makes sense and has a point, and deserved the Oscars it won much more than Raging Bull ever did.