What Gangs of New York Misses

City Journal ^ | January 14, 2003 | William J. Stern

[aculeus]

Fascinating Irish in America history.

From John Hughes to Bernard Law ... ugh.

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[Wallace T.]

The movie was pretty poor. For $70 million, Martin Scorcese produced what was essentially a "spaghetti Western." Even some of the background scenes looked similar. With that kind of money, even adjusted for inflation, Sergio Leone could have produced over a dozen spaghetti Westerns. Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef (as they looked 35 years ago) would have been far better in the roles assigned to Leonard DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis. Eli Wallach would have been a far better two-timing cutthroat than the lightweights they hired. (No doubt his Irish accent, overlaying his real life New York whine, would have been funnier than his Mexican one.) Ann-Margaret or Ursula Andress (again, circa 1965) would have been better as the "soiled dove" than Cameron Diaz was.

On top of that, the movie had a gratuitous "token Negro," class warfare nonsense, and blatant Protestant bashing. FReepers, save your money by avoiding this horrid movie and contribute to the latest fund drive for this Web site!

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[aculeus]

For more of Stern on Hughes go here

[martin_fierro]

Ditto all that. This movie sucked, and hard.

[Buckeye Bomber]

I thought the movie was really well shot and the story was decent. Daniel Day Lewis's performance was fantastic, although Cameron Diaz and Leo left something to be desired.

You complain about there being class warfare, but that's what happened. The draft riots actually did happen, roughly in the manner they were depicted. If you tell the truth, is that bad? I'd rather see the hard truth than the comforting falsehood. I think it's valuable to see how far we've come, and how far we will continue to go if we let the Capitalist system do its work.

And honestly, Protestants didn't want Catholics in New York. Are you denying that? Al Smith was defeated for president largely due to his Catholicism. I ask once again, is the hard truth worse than the soft comfort of myth?

[Happygal]

Haven't seen the movie yet, but plan to this week this time. I'll get back to ye, when I have.

Thanks for the ping :-)

[AM2000]

I ask once again, is the hard truth worse than the soft comfort of myth?

Yes. Next question, please.

[maica]

Michale Barone has written a very instructive book about immigration to America: The New Americans

The chapter comparing the Irish experience in the nineteenth century to the AfricanAmerican in the twentieth century is quite thought-provoking.

[wardaddy]

Interesting. I haven't seen the movie...2 in diapers makes it difficult for sitters for movies.

I know it covers the WBTS draft riots, does Martin gloss over the massive lynchings of black freedmen and escaped slaves by NYers?

[discostu]

I'm a big Scorcese fan, I like his visual style and I love his use of music. And I was looking forward to this movie until I saw a preview that included a scene with a bunch of people wearing stovetop hats squaring off for a rumble, almost fell out of my chair laughing. That might be historically accurate but it just looks damn silly, I would expect a director of Scorcese's calliber to know when to ditch accuracy for the sake of the movie.

[Peter Libra]

Due to my own boycott of Hollywood I have only seen two movies in two years. The Count of Monte Christo and Gangs. If anyone has read these books by John Updike ,the first two Rabbit series set in 1958 and 1968 in Pennsylvania. (Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux), they may compare this criticism.

The story may be sordid, it may even be slightly degenerate to some extent. One saving grace though,both in these books and the film, is that what they have in common is that the imagery is absolutely superb . It is many, many years, since such a re-creation of a scene long gone, has its equal in movie making.

Worth seeing for that alone. Yes, the Irish have come a long way. I seem to remember as a kid a 1940's movie, with the St Patricks Day parade. Judy Garland gave it all she had, singing. It's a great day for the Irish. Fortunately we were given a legacy by the photographer Jacob Riis (sp) which tend to bear out something of the despair of the immigrant, even thirty years or so later.

[Peter Libra]

To self. Hollywood hokum and family fun movie. "Little Nellie Kelly" is the film(1940). This film more contemporary than Gangs does show the vibrancy of the Irish,and their little family troubles. Does Garland ever belt out, It's a great day for the Irish!

Jacob Riis, spelling is right, chronicled life in New York of the 1890's some thirty years after the draft riots. Gangs should be seen, be prepared though for a lot of violence etc.

[Bonaparte]

Stern: "...the Civil War was... an intensely moral struggle to free the slaves, in which Americans of all backgrounds gave their lives."

Stern may know about the history of immigration, but needs to catch up on Civil War history. From Paul Craig Roberts --

The War Between the States was not fought over slavery. Lincoln fought the war to preserve the Union. In the second year of the war, Lincoln told the abolitionist Horace Greeley, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.”

The South wanted out of the Union because the tariffs that protected Northern manufacturers were a drain on Southern agricultural incomes. It is true that there were bloody-minded abolitionists in the North and hotheads in the South, but the Civil War was not fought over blacks.

The war was more than half over when Lincoln, reluctantly and under great pressure from the Radicals, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a lukewarm document that freed only certain slaves in certain states. Freeing the slaves was a special project of the Radicals and abolitionists, a goal they accomplished only after the war's end. But "historians" like Stern will perpetuate the same myths forever.

[aculeus]

I may see the film sometime but I found Stern's account of John Hughes role in early NY history (ignored apparently in the movie) most fascinating.

[ShadowDancer]

I was happy to read what you wrote. We were going to see it this weekend but never did. I want to and still plan to and I never, ever go to the show so that says a lot. Thanks.

[Wallace T.]

The movie glossed over what was essentially a pogrom of the blacks by the Irish rioters. Few, if any, rich Anglo-Protestants were lynched by the mobs while dozens of blacks were, even the inhabitants of a black orphanage. Scorcese gave the riots a Marxist class warfare spin when such was not the case. Had the riots truly been class warfare, why would the Irish not have allied with the blacks and working class Anglo-Protestants (and not just German and Polish immigrants) to overthrow New York City's elite?

Some of the Irish in New York City were sympathetic to the Confederacy, as Ireland's desire to break away from the United Kingdom resembled Dixie's desire to secede from the United States. Also, Southerners saw themselves as the successors of the English Cavaliers, who were allied with the Irish Catholics on the Royalist side during the English Civil War. The Anglo-Protestants of the Northeast were, to a considerable extent, the descendants of Puritans who sided with the Roundheads, the Royalists' opponents. None of this was depicted. Indeed, the nativist leader played by Daniel Day Lewis was shown as anti-Lincoln and pro-slavery while DiCaprio's Irish gang boasted its very own "token Negro." In fact, most Know-Nothings became Republicans after their movement collapsed.

There are other examples of PC thought in this movie. "Faith based" social help is shown as hypocritical and obtuse, as reflected by DiCaprio's snotty attitude toward it (tossing a King James Bible he received at an orphanage into a river; telling a Protestant minister running a charity dance to "go to hell" when he mentioned when services were held). When Cameron Diaz engages in theft, or Leonard DiCaprio and his friend steal the prized possessions of a fellow Irish immigrant whose home caught fire, their poverty and oppression, of course, justify their thievery.

What production qualities were in the movie, as well as Daniel Day Lewis' performance, are outweighed by the miscasting of DiCaprio and Diaz, the historical inaccuracies, and the leftist ideology in the story.

[Bonaparte]

Bandits' Roost, c. 1890
Jacob A. Riis
Hand-colored glass lantern slide
The Jacob A. Riis Collection, 90.13.5.59