Controversial as ever, Jean-Luc Godard has some interesting things to say these days about America and history and storytelling. In his latest film, In Praise of Love, Godard suggests that we Americans, having no real history of our own, find it necessary to co-opt the history of others. We do this, according to JLG, not for money, power or any of the usual reasons. Godard maintains that we steal the history of other people in order to keep ourselves entertained. We do it to be assured of a constant supply of raw material for the stories we demand, stories dutifully churned out by the Hollywood dream factory. (It's a curious notion, recalling City of Lost Children's mad scientists, who, unable to dream on their own, steal the dreams of the very young in order to keep themselves sane and happy.)
There's truth in Godard's words, but he only got it half right.
Yes, the American appetite for stories is insatiable, but isn't that particular craving pretty much universal? And yes, the relationship between Americans and the whole "history thing" has always been a little problematic — but when it comes down to turning our own (admittedly brief) history into legend, or mythologizing the more extensive histories of others, Yankee artists will almost always opt for sticking close to home.
Godard, a lifelong devotee of American westerns and gangster movies, should have known better.
The truth of the matter is that we Americans are obsessed with our own history. Consider the case of Martin Scorsese, whose long-awaited, long-delayed historical epic, Gangs of New York, is finally about to see the light of day.
Gangs of New York is something different for Scorsese, a filmmaker acclaimed for his unflinchingly modern morality tales, character studies, and for his elaborate documenting of the Italian-American experience. Scorsese's enormously ambitious new film is a period piece taking place in the mid-1800s in New York City, where politicians, corrupt cops and ruthless street gangs vie for power. (Sound familiar?)
The drama plays out in the hellish, poverty-stricken streets of the Five Points, a "city of tribes" controlled by Bill "The Butcher" Poole (Daniel Day-Lewis), a rabidly jingoistic psychopath whose gang of native-born thugs keeps all the other gangs in line.
Although the film's canvas is huge and magnificently sprawling, its central focus is intimate and emotionally uncluttered, a tale that manifests all the power and resonance of classical myth. At its core, Gangs of New York is about a noble Old King murdered by a tragically flawed New King who unwittingly adopts the son of the man he has killed (Leonardo DiCaprio). The story becomes even richer when the son's plans for revenge are muddled by a growing affection for the very person who murdered his father.
The "New King" of the tale is Bill the Butcher, of course, and the "Old King" is Vallon (Liam Neeson, fresh from being killed in last year's Star Wars installment), spiritual and paramilitary leader of the city's growing community of fresh-off-the-boat Irish immigrants. Bill kills Vallon with gusto, but first he cuts out his own eye and sends it to the Old King as a sign of respect. In later years he keeps a shrine to his former adversary, and refers to him as the only man he ever killed whose name he remembers. The rituals and codes of honor on display here, strange and violent as they may be, are every bit as critical as those in Scorsese's contemporary mob movies.
There's a classical symmetry to the story too, that contributes to the feel of myth. Scorsese keeps the focus on Day-Lewis and DiCaprio, even as he's constantly layering his cinematic mural with additional characters, historical nuances and stories-within-stories. The movie doesn't really slow down at all until about an hour in, when DiCaprio and love interest Cameron Diaz pause to compare scars and lick each other's wounds. At the two-hour mark, when the final credits are rolling for most movies, this one is just gathering steam with a whole new round of blood feuds and gang wars.
Gangs of New York is certainly History Writ Large, but the bulk of it is as accessible as anything Scorsese's ever done. The movie is big, bloody, ornate, passionate and full of over-the-top emotions, like a grand opera re-imagined as a really cool comic book. Scorsese applies the same energy and attention to detail that he does in his best films, and the movie, for the most part, is a pleasure to watch.
The director has clearly done his homework, and the slang-strewn language, costumes, sets and behavior feel both authentic and incredibly strange, as much science-fiction as history lesson. The film's spectacle occasionally edges into the surreal, as in the scenes set in rickety, labyrinthine structures straight out of Fellini-Satyricon, or the moments when the Butcher's deadly gang appears en masse wearing impossibly tall, striped Dr. Seuss hats.
The performances are uniformly solid (DiCaprio, who's too blandly beefy to be considered a pretty boy any more, is better than expected), but Gangs is really Day-Lewis' show. Once you get past the nagging suspicion that the actor is channeling a young Bob DeNiro, Day-Lewis' character becomes riveting, then unforgettable. Bill the Butcher is one of the most monumental presences ever to appear on screen — a brutal, larger-than-life but all-too-human monster who defeats his enemies by consuming them — and Day-Lewis plays him with a wit and intensity that's as outrageous as it is thrilling.
The last half-hour of Gangs of New York is a disappointment in terms of what's come before, but the film still feels like a major accomplishment. At a critical juncture, Scorsese diverts our attention away from DiCaprio and Day-Lewis' mano a mano, and broadens the movie's scope with a blow-by-blow account of the draft riots of 1863. The movie expands at exactly the moment it should be simplifying, cramming a dizzying amount of historical detail, social commentary and foggy symbolism into its last act at the expense of amplifying the emotional essence that is its real strength. Gangs is a must-see, but it ends up almost feeling like one of those ham-fisted history lessons that moviegoers rush to avoid.
Another sort of history — one entirely manufactured in the mind of man, but feeling no less real than Scorsese's Five Points — appears this week in the form of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Peter Jackson's second installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's saga may be an even better film than the first, and that's saying a lot. It's stronger, better paced, more richly detailed, and communicates even more vividly the essence of the astonishing world it imagines — a place where the kingdoms of men co-exist with all manner of strange creatures and where magic supercedes science in a way that Harry Potter can only dream about.
On the down side, The Two Towers cuts right to the chase, so confident in its miraculous, self-contained universe that it races through some introductions or skips them altogether, and may wind up confusing viewers unfamiliar with the first film or the books.
For that reason, The Two Towers might seem to some a less satisfactory movie experience than the first film, which carefully sets everything up. At the same time, Two Towers colors in the world of Middle Earth in ways that the first film only hints at. The strengths and weaknesses of the new movie add to the argument that all the films of the trilogy are best taken together, as one massive epic that seems to be shaping up as one of the very best examples of fantastic cinema ever created.
Worlds collide and history is written in fire and blood in The Two Towers, and for most of the movie's three hours, the mother of all battles is constantly threatening to break out. This is the sort of film where Life As We Know It is usually a heartbeat from extinction, and men lift their heads to scan the horizon and solemnly intone, "So it begins."
No matter that the line is hopelessly corny. No matter that the promise of "beginnings" comes well on the way to the third hour of Jackson's new opus (or hour number six, if you're looking at the trilogy as a collective affair). The point is that the movie creates its universe, its mindset and its history with such verve, imagination and sheer skill that, frankly, we'd believe just about anything coming out of these characters' mouths.
Like Gangs of New York and other movies that do history right, the new Lord of the Rings installment is an epic enchantment that makes it easy to believe in the stuff of legends.
Lance Goldenberg can be reached at lgoldenb@tampabay.rr.com or 813-248-8888, ext. 157.
This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2002.