Birth of the Modern

That a story which takes place in New York City can feel parochial is, perhaps, an achievement of note. Beyond the nativist versus immigrant violence which mainly characterizes Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, a violence that is, at turns, political, sexual, spatial, economic, and, mostly, physical, are the currents of history which frame the characters and the story. The influx of the immigration - particularly from Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine - to the United States would, by sheer force of numbers alter the political balance of power. Changing relationships of fealty to familial, religious, ethnic, community, state and national institutions and ideologies would demand a re-organization and re-constitution of a man's, and a society's, overlapping structures of power. The growth and centralization of the political aspect - herein the birth of Tammany Hall - through box-stuffing, the buying of influence, and recognition of differing power-bases, all of these, we might suppose, would eventuate grasps at influence and authority, cause no small bit of hope amongst some and consternation for others. Yes, a political reading (power) to be sure, but Gangs of New York, while it supposes to be about freedom, and America, and inequality, and honor, and other assortments of specifically Americanized, masculine tropes, ends as a statement about how power will be exercised in a society suffering her birthing pangs.

I say parochial because all the machinations and concerns of the rival gangs of the Five Points eventually pale in comparison to the awe-inspiring destructive ability of the Union government. Let these thugs debate the extent to which they will allow pistols in their inconsequential street skirmishes. Make no mistake, if the Union feels threatened it will not hesitate to turn heavy artillery onto the City of New York. Indiscriminately taking the wicked with the innocent, this mechanized government will not allow the quarrels or complaints of such marginal power brokers to interrupt the assertion of one country suffering mortal combat for an even greater cause. The force of violence and the power of persuasion eventually rest in the hands of a government and its new-found ability to conscript its citizens (this is not an attempt to assess the historical accuracy of the work). Herein lies the parochial problem. There is never any sense until the film's climax that the broader effects of the war or a changing society are impacting the concerns of these gangs. In the isolated enclaves, they seem to be at-turns engaged in battle and uneasy truce with one another, separate from the broader city, state or country. While the force of law may seem almost non-existent (sorry John C. Reilly), it will strike back with a vengeance terrible to behold. Are we left to believe, as Bill and Vallon battle it out, that they remain unconcerned with, or unaware of the changes of, and consequences that come with living in, a society around them? There's is but a footnote in the broader tale of America's birth into a modern, mechanized age. Concerns over immigration versus nativists, the rights of whites and blacks, Tammany Hall versus neighborhood independence, draft riots versus law and order, all feel as though they pale at the hands of coming mechanisms and control by a domineering government. The flows of time move around the Five Points and the gangs. In Scorsese's work the characters seem untouched, until they are. Thus, their story cannot help but feel marginalized. While it may seem that history frames the conflict and feud, as we step back, and become displaced from perspective of the tale, we rather become aware that this story inhabits one small corner of a broader picture. The manner of the sudden displacement, however, draws our gaze away from this single stroke, and we wonder had this moment been different would it have changed the broader work at all? To what end these efforts?