Despite the overwhelming number of intense scenes to choose from the film Gangs of New York, I took particular interest in the fairly short scene between Bill the Butcher and Monk after his “victory” in the election for sheriff. This scene is one of many that depicts the irony in the savagery of the nativists who oppose the Irish immigrants reproached for their barbarism. Monk walks out of the barber shop dressed in traditional Irish colors, orange and green, and is prepared to allow Bill into the establishment to have a cordial discussion, but Bill will not stand for that. Dressed in a red coat, significant of his reputation for bloodshed, Bill ruthlessly murders Monk with a hatchet. The two characters are physically juxtaposed in that the lower class Irishman is on higher ground than the American native, and moreover on camera, Monk is consistently shot on the background of the barbershop, an establishment for the well groomed, while Bill’s background is of the common people. The classic two-shot is employed here; however, a conversation is not really taking place but two individual speeches—one of words the other of deadly blows.
