D-Day has won his Oscar for his role as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, and I think none of us can argue with the sometimes erroneous desicions of the Academy. In our class, watching Scorsese’s Gangs of New York comes with it two distinct pleasures. The first being a glimpse into more of D-Day’s acting chops. The second pleasure of viewing would have to be the new knowledge I have of Old New York, the time period in which this film is set (during the Civil War).
D-Day is reportedly a method actor- meaning that he seeks his role from within himself, and plays that role on–and off–camera. As such, he is notoriously difficult on set, often aloof and in-character at moments that could easily make his fellow actors a little uncomfortable. His role in Gangs is that of Bill the Butcher (a real character from Herbert Asbury’s non-fiction novel of the same name as the film named Bill Poole, here named Bill Cutting). He is a ruthless Nativist who can throw a knife with great accuracy, and he can be very scary in the role (much like his role as Plainview in Blood), and I can imagine that his fellow players didn’t much enjoy being around the guy while he sat in his chair awaiting his cue to film, if he did in fact continue acting like a killer even when he wasn’t supposed to.
D-Day’s performance in Gangs holds up: he is electric in the film, and although Dicaprio does well to stand and face Bill the Butcher as both a man seeking revenge and a young actor looking to define himself as a tough guy, D-Day steals the show. He was nominated for Best Actor by the Academy, and for good reason. When he utters his final line: “I die a true American,” it is quite magical, if a bit stolid. Though his performance in no way measures to that of the nuanced and sometimes rather broad, breathtaking performance of Plainview, D-Day remains a pleasure to watch.
But perhaps even more pleasing than D-Day is Scorsese and his photographer’s shots of this magnificent set, one that the director, I believe, said may be “the last great set” or something of that sort. Here are built-in views of Jacob Riis’ 19th century photography of the streets in Old New York. One can literally pick out Riis’ “Bandit’s Roost” as Scorsese moves his camera through the Five Points–the central neighborhood where the events of this drama played out–because Scorsese asked his award-winning set designer Dante Ferretti to include them. Ferretti himself speaks in the special features of the DVD about how Scorsese shipped him all of his research: and Ferretti went to work building an entire neighborhood from the ground up. When asked whether Scorsese enjoyed shooting outside of Rome (where the film’s giant set was), Scorsese often replied: “I’m not in Rome. I’m in New York.” DiCaprio concurs in his interviews. As a passive viewer I must say it is a transporting experience. Scorsese takes liberties with his treatment of the historical material–and he is taking liberties from research like Sante’s Low Life and Asbury’s Gangs of New York, two books that most agree were taking liberties as well–but this is part of his mythos, and he speaks in Scorsese on Scorsese about such things, finally, and how he is trying to weave an American Epic, not just a period piece.
When I saw Gangs of New York in the theaters so many years ago, I was not “blown away.” Rather, I felt the script was sensational and a bit overwrought. Cameron Diaz was no choice for a leading role of such proportions, and D-Day, I thought, was pushing his accent and his character out the window. But watching the film again is a rewarding experience. It is always delightful to have a new knowledge to inform a viewing experience, and walking into such a film equipped with a new appreciation of both the actors of the film and the history that the film is based on certainly ups the ante, so to speak, in pushing on the power of Gangs of New York.
