| GONY Opinions from AICN |
March, 2000: DEAD RABBITS, NATIVE AMERICANS, AND MARTY Can’t wait to see Martin Scorsese on Roger Ebert’s show next week. The two of them will be discussing the Best Films of the ‘90s, a topic that, as you know, I’ve written a few words about. Yes, yes… they’re coming. I promise. You can blame Scorsese and his sometimes-collaborator Jay Cocks for distracting me for a good chunk of this past weekend. I ended up burying myself in the latest draft of GANGS OF NEW YORK, the epic story of New York’s underworld as it worked in the mid-1800s. I’m not sure who Robert De Niro is playing in the film –- Bill the Butcher, Boss Tweed, or even Monk would be the logical guesses -- but it’s obvious from page one who Leonardo Di Caprio is supposed to be. Amsterdam Vallon is a great role for any young actor, and in Di Caprio’s hands, there’s a chance for Amsterdam to be iconic. The film is certainly painted in grand enough terms. Knowing that Disney is spending the money to do this right makes me very excited. The opening of the film is a glorious 15 page set piece that feels like something out of George Miller’s THE ROAD WARRIOR. It’s like science-fiction, otherworldly. When the title finally comes up at the end of the scene and sets the time and place -- “New York City, 1851” -– it seems impossible. Scorsese has discovered this wealth of material, previously untapped on film, about the way the whole pecking order broke down in New York’s underworld. I’ve read quite a bit about this as well, much of it while researching Adam Worth, the loser that Arthur Conan Doyle claims to have based me on. HA! As if I could be a mere copy of some hood like him. I don’t really want to spoil much of the script this far out. It’s so bizarre, so richly painted, that it’s one of those experiences I believe will overwhelm viewers. Like the wonderful script for FROM HELL that Terry Hayes wrote for the Hughes Brothers, this film paints a real picture of a historical period that we all have a faulty picture of in our heads. It’s amazing how sanitized and proper some people think recent history was. A film like GANGS OF NEW YORK promises to remind them that no matter how far we think we’ve come, the world is the same, and people don’t change. |
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