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The scene in which Bill the Butcher uses the empty carcass of pig to demonstrate how to kill a human is very interesting. It immediately follows the scene in which Amsterdam sees another of the men who were once with the Dead Rabbits when he was a child.

The lighting is pretty normal, with daylight shining on the two of them inside the dark Butchers. Something about the light and the music creates a sort of intimacy between the two men, despite the morbidity of their actions. Bill becomes almost this sort of fatherly figure, instructing the young Amsterdam, who initially is curious and trusting.

The music from the previous scene flows into the music of the Butcher scene, and it is a bittersweet, lilting string solo. This music is maintained throughout this scene, even as the two of them hack at the flesh of the pig. The music actually gets louder when Bill passes the knife along to Amsterdam, increasing the intensity of the scene. As Amsterdam hacks at the pig, a more ominous sounding music layers over it to transition this scene to the next.

When Bill hands him the knife, the camera flashes to posters commemorating the Victory of the Natives over the Dead Rabbits, and then to a flashback of Vallem handing Amsterdam the razor 16 years before. This shows that Amsterdam has not forgotten how Bill took his father’s life. He shows some indecision, but quickly and precisely imitates Bill in stabbing the pig. The viewer is left wondering why this scene is important. Is Amsterdam joining in Bill’s efforts? Does he have any wish to continue in his father’s footstep in defending his Irish brothers and sisters? All we see is his indecision, but violent ability.

Gangs of New York begins with an iconic opening scene that works as the foundation of the plot, character development, and message of the film. Beginning with Neeson’s closed eyes and the blade to his throat, the film immediately establishes the zoomed camera angles used throughout the film. By delaying the full depiction of Vallon’s face, figure, and clothing, Scorsese determines the Priest’s role that echoes throughout the events 16 years later, as more of a legend than a man. Vallon dons clothing colored red, white, and blue; furthermore, both his blade and his cross shine in a similar manner. These details highlight violence, religion, and patriotism as the film’s central themes.

“No son. Never. The blood stays on the blade. One day you’ll understand.” In this one line, Priest Vallon transfers the heritage of violence and hatred for Bill Cutting to his son. Amsterdam accepts this burden immediately after his father’s death, drawing his father’s knife and slashing fearlessly. Later, Amsterdam struggles to renounce his heritage to work for Bill Cutting as many of former dead rabbits, because of this unique responsibility his father placed upon him. Making a religious allusion to define the black and white viewpoints of what it means to be American, Priest Vallon questions Amsterdam about Saint Michael. Here, a contrast is drawn between Priest Vallon and Cutting, even before his introduction. Both imagine themselves as Saint Michael, bringing order to paradise by casting out Satan, their counterpart, and both believe they are solely in the right.

The most important line of the movie comes at Priest Vallon’s death: “Oh my son. Don’t ever look away.” Again, Vallon stresses the importance of heritage. However, the camera angle nearly puts the audience in the eyes of Amsterdam, as if Vallon speaks to us. He commands us never to turn our heads from history, and to remember the mass bloodshed and hatred that has led to the civility we live in today.

One of, if not, the most powerful scene in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York is the storyline’s climax at the Chinese theater during the 18-year anniversary of the fight at Paradise Square, and the sequence starting from Bill’s attempt to kill Jenny during the knife-throwing event and ending at the Butcher’s marking of Amsterdam. The tension comes to a rise as Johnny’s exposes Amsterdam to Bill, thus inciting the rage of the Butcher that manifests itself within the tense spectacle of his and Jenny’s knife-throwing act. The fast-paced jump cuts between Bill’s throwing of the knives and Jenny’s reaction to her near-death encounters escalate the gravity of the situation in a way that heightens the audience’s fear for Jenny’s life. The closely cropped shots of each character’s face and the dimly saturated hues that cover the setting further accentuate the darkness of the subject matter, highlighting the insidious nature of Bill. Furthermore, the rhythm of the strings in the background adds to the suspense of the entire sequence, testing the boundaries of Amsterdam and Jenny’s relationship as the latter’s life is held in the balance of the former’s greatest enemy.

The dialogue that comes from Bill serves as an ominous warning of what is to come later on in the sequence, as he taunts Jenny with death in front of an animalistic live audience. The knife-throwing act is clearly a routine that they both have performed before, but with the newfound knowledge that the Butcher has of Amsterdam’s true identity, the trick becomes one filled with lethal intent and venomous rage. In that moment, the audience as well as the characters are able to truly see how Bill earned the title of “the Butcher.” Witnessing the sadistic triumph from Bill, Amsterdam advances in his agenda to murder Bill in one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie. Scorsese uses the image of fire to both as the focal point of the shot as well as manipulate the lights and shadows cast on the characters to spotlight certain people, specifically Bill and Amsterdam. Fire, being a symbol of power and destruction, serves as prelude and catalyst to the battle that ensues with the two men. In a fast-paced sequence, the chaotic transition from Amsterdam throwing the knife to Bill countering with his own attack emphasizes the severity of each person’s actions and confirms the inevitable turn of events.

The culmination of Amsterdam and Bill’s struggle hits its peak when Bill gains the upper hand over Amsterdam, and proceeds to showcase both Amsterdam’s deceit and Bill’s dominance in front of a crowd of rowdy spectators. In this moment, the theater becomes an arena, where strangers are calling for a gruesome death by the notorious Butcher. The tracking shot of the butcher knife in the air and landing next to Amsterdam’s head parallels the Jenny sequence with the knife throwing, thus emphasizing Bill’s superiority over everyone in the room. Scorsese makes it known just how brutal the world that the story is set in is, and how power is only achieved through violence and through loyalty.

This scene in particular drew my attention because of the execution of the shots taken to create a tense buildup of anxiety and suspense to the ending shot of Bill marking Amsterdam with the hot poker. Even after all the beatings that he gives Amsterdam, Bill gets the last laugh by putting salt in the wound of the victim, branding him as his own and essentially making him an outcast from his society. It is this intensity that creates the most vivid imagery and metaphor within Scorsese’s film.

Amsterdam (DiCaprio) is a character who lost his father early in the film. Skip forward 16 years, this same character is faced with several opportunities to seek revenge. He narrows in on one that empowers him to gain the trust of Bill (Day-Lewis), his father’s murderer. After given explicitly instructions to rob a ship, the scene that follows opens with a boat trailing through fog, carrying Amsterdam, his friend Jimmy, and several other members of the gang that works under Bill. This small clip solemnly fades into a shot of the dock, panning over several caskets and following a sobbing woman being consoled by a reverend. Amsterdam voices over the morbid clip, informing us that these are the bodies of soldiers while reminding us he has another job to complete. As Amsterdam and his friends board the larger ship, he comes across pools of blood which stuns him as he accidentally touched one.

So far, we are presented with a sad night of death, religious figures, and blood – three symbols that have already made a prominent presence in the movie thus far. As the scene continues with a man shooting a rifle, dying from a stab wound, and scaring the gang members back into the tiny boat, we are left with a recurring picture; one of a man on the brink of death attempting to send a final message. All of these factors are well-incorporated into the tale, however, we come across an external conflict that the gang is facing. Amsterdam and his comrades discover there is nothing on the ship to take.

While the rest of his crew wait in the smaller boat, Amsterdam decides he needs something to bring back to Bill to earn his trust. A close-up is shown of Amsterdam, thinking about what his next move should be. He places the knife of his dead father in his mouth and hoists the body up on his shoulders. At the last second, he throws the corpse into the boat and sells it to medical science. Upbeat folk music is heard as he receives payment by the scientists. He shows the coins to Bill, who complements the group for their efforts.  They are shown in the newspaper the next day and coined the “Ghoul Gang,” throwing Bill off-guard since he didn’t know what the word “ghoul” was. With the slow trust Amsterdam begins to build, he becomes one step closer to achieving the revenge he is seeking.

Reitano, Joanne R. The Restless City: A Short History of New York from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Walt Whitman characterized New York as a “proud and passionate city”, defiant and intolerant of limits. New York’s conflicts over religion, education, labor and home rule, sprouted from the city’s economic growth from 1840-1865, validated Whitman’s characterizations and provided a constructive chaos that confronted the human dynamics of change. Whitman understood the value New York placed on the new rather than the old, which led to the eventual acceptance of New York’s immigration influx that made it a “city of the world”.

New York became the center of the nation’s commerce, and not without the creation of a great economic disparity. By 1845 the top 4% accounted for 80% of the city’s wealth. Slums began to sprout in the five streets near Chatham Square, where the Old Brewery, a brewery turned tenement, became the last refuge of the poor. The growing unrest of the poor in the 1840’s led to the 1849 Astor Place Riots, which resulted in a total of 29 deaths. Born from the conflict between an English actor and an American actor over a part in Hamlet, the Astor Place Riots symbolized the intense hatred between the aristocrats and impoverished criminals of New York City. Gang members attended the English Actor Macready’s performance in the Astor Opera House, a symbol of aristocratic wealth in New York. At the start of the play, they hurled rotten eggs and chairs at Macready. Following this incident, a few of New York’s elite released an open letter urging Macready to return to the stage, promising him protection. Macready heeded the call to the stage, and the gangsters returned; however, this time the police were present and thwarted an attempted attack on Macready. While unrest grew amongst the protestors outside the Opera House, 350 militia members arrived to “missiles of rocks and paving stones.” Eventually the militia fired on the crowd, dividing the national discussion on disparity of classes in New York City. Several Philadelphia papers asked why the mob leaders were not simply arrested and the show closed, and why the militia was called upon to stop the protest. The oddity that was the Astor Place Riots brought New York to the center of class conflict discussion.

The growing class conflict of the mid-19^th century was in many respects a direct result of the colossal influx to New York of Irish immigrants during the potato famine crisis. The Irish were thrown to the depths of society, constituting half of the people arrested and 70% of alms recipients. The arrival of so many Irish immigrants sparked a nativist movement in New York, built upon the clashes of Protestantism and Irish Catholicism. This anti-Catholic sentiment lead to the founding of many New York Catholic parochial schools. Because the Irish were impoverished, these schools were underfunded; Bishop John Hughes politicized the funding of religious schools, amassing great support for the Democratic Party. The Catholics’ efforts eventually led to the establishment of a nonsectarian education board, making education more “ecumenical”.

While some responded to the growing Irish Catholic presence with attempts to convert them to Protestantism, many preachers engaged in harsh anti-Catholic that inspired violent conflict. However, nativism conflicted with New York culture, and was destined to fade into the past.

Fernando Wood, a controversial figure of the mid-19^th Century, served three terms as mayor, demonstrating both corruptness in his elections and generosity in his work with the impoverished. Wood naturalized immigrants and allowed gangs free reign on election days to ensure that these immigrants voted for him. On the positive side, however, Wood promoted architectural safety, efficient transportation, education, and public works that celebrated the glory of NYC. Most notable was Wood’s struggled with State politicians for control of New York City affairs, which led to Wood’s call for a “free city”, or essentially a secession from the state. In Wood’s final year as mayor, panic ensued. The 1857 Excise Law made “liquor license fees too expensive for small businessmen, restricted the sale of alcohol by the drink, and prohibited the consumption of alcohol on Sundays and election days.” This Republican law was a direct attack on the German and Irish immigrant culture; the main purpose of the law was to curb Wood’s political corruption and alcohol consumption at the same time. Republican followed this law with the Metropolitan Police Act, making the New York City police department independent of the city and removing Wood from its control. Wood’s opposition to the law caused police officers to choose between the Metropolitan and Municipal forces. Wood’s continued defiance incited the first of many riots in his final term as mayor, culminating in the 1857 Bread Riot, in which people demanded work as a right to live. The conflicts caused by the Republicans successfully removed Wood from office causing him to lose his next election.

New York class conflict was epitomized in the 1863 Draft Riots. In the worst riot in U.S. history, the mob attacked the provost marshal’s building where the draft lottery was taking place. The central issue to the mob was that the rich could buy substitutes for 300 dollars, a sum unaffordable by any of the working class. All week long, they targeted Republican sites spanning New York City, and expanded their violence to African-Americans, Jews, Germans, and Chinese. These riots were the pinnacle of lower class outrage in the 1800’s; the riots resulted in Republicans convincing Lincoln to halve New York State’s draft quota, and the organization of an emergency fund to substitute any firemen, policemen, impoverished family men by William Tweed. Furthermore, the riots drove many blacks out of New York. The significance of these riots in the context of the time period are often forgotten. At a time of great national divide, the draft riots evoked fear that New York would secede from the nation, damaging the financial center of the union. Whitman, truly discouraged by the 1863 riots, found hope that the city “which could raise such as the late rebellion, could also put it down.”

Henry Burby

2/16/16

HNRS 10201

Summery of Painter’s “The First Alien Wave.”

Because of its early dependence on black slavery, racism on the basis of skin color has a long and established history in America. However, there was a parallel system of racism against groups now considered white. At this time, racial identity was decided by religion as well as skin color, and religious hatred, the older of the two, ensured that Irish Catholics were treated similarly to the blacks. By 1840, protestant Saxon Americans, the dominant national group, were labeling the Irish “Celts” and grouping them with the oppressed nonwhites, despite their skin color. While many Protestant Irish had already immigrated to the USA, their common religion and lower numbers had allowed them to integrate fairly easily. Catholic Irish, however, had always been greeted as outsiders by both groups, and the huge wave of immigration after 1830 increased this tension massively. History explains the source of this intolerance.

America had inherited anti-Irish and anti-Catholic tendencies and laws from its English founders, many of which remained until nearly the mid 19^th century. Parallels between American and British treatments of racial minorities were noted by several social commentators of the time. Gustave de Beaumont blamed poverty and oppression for Irish squalor, which he considered more severe then among the natives and black slaves of America. The popular Thomas Carlyle took the opposite view. He called their poverty a symptom of their status as a lesser race of savage, uncultured, lazy, uncreative animals. By the 1840s, Carlyle’s view had gained massive support in America, where two million Irish had already arrived. Many anti-Irish groups and newspapers formed, ideologically supported by popular intellectuals. Samuel Morse claimed that catholic European kingdoms were flooding America with Irish in an attempt to convert it. Henry Ward Beacher attacked Europe for trying to destroy American democracy. These men drew the support of the lower classes, and incited violence and arson against Irish immigrants.

Maria Monk’s pornographic “Confession” portrayed the catholic church as a haven for lechery and rape. The wildly popular book, and the numerous other publications it inspired, spurred anti catholic hatred to greater heights.

The late 1840s was a time of great uneasiness for the traditional western world in general. Massive sociopolitical unrest in Europe caused several revolutions of poor against rich, and attempts were being made to secure suffrage for poor men, and even women. Backlash against threats to the social order often took the form of racism. European unrest, poverty, and famine  raised the number of immigrants from other European countries, as the number of Irish continued to grow. According to the first US censuses, nearly as many Germans fled danger in their countries. However, Germans were largely middle class, educated, protestant, domestic, and they settled larglyinthe Midwest. As a group, they seldom organized radically, unlike the Irish.

By 1855, the stereotypical “Paddies” overwhelmingly supported the democratic party, and were drunken, violent, lazy, poor, and criminal. Leading minister Ralph Waldo Emerson drew on these stereotypes. He showed the American willingness to discriminate against whites grouping the Irish, Hungarians, and Poles in with with the blacks, Chinese, and Native Americans, other races he considered hopeless. Anti-Irish attitudes were also spread via political cartoons, “Celts were compared unfavorably with Anglo Saxons.

Cartoons were also used to equate the Irish with the blacks. Abolitionists typically labeled the Irish as the northern white equivalent of the southern blacks. Pro-slave southerners usually equated the two even more closely, advocating the enslavement f both groups. Northerners advocated the emancipation of the Irish and the Blacks, seeing their situations as analogous. However, the urban Irish themselves opposed the comparison, and used their white skin color to gain an advantage over free blacks. They voted to allow slavery, and mobilized against blacks on several occasions, notably the several draft riots in the northeast. Irish nationalism also rose, countering British claims of genetic superiority by recasting themselves as the better race, and condemning the barbarism and violence of the Anglo Saxons. Outsiders also adopted this view, usually to attack the English, although their compliments usually portrayed the Irish as a quiet, race of simple primitives, with little common sense, who couldn’t stand up to the Anglo Juggernaut. Surprisingly, these view became popular with the Irish themselves, perhaps because, if they had to be a race, at least this one was preferable to Nast’s.  some Irish rewrote their own history yet again, this time descended from pre-Christian Spanish nobility. regardless of stance, most Europeans saw the Irish as a race unfit to rule themselves. American racism, however, changed, pertly because religion was less of an issue. When compared with European religious wars and national faiths, America was remarkably tolerant. The separation of church and state kept one faith from gaining power, and kept religious violence from becoming traditional. Another difference was that Britain had been debating the Irish problem for hundreds of years, whereas in America, abolition was more pressing. There was still struggle, however, as shown by the rise of nativism in the 1840s

The rise of nativist organizations both in politics and on the street increased anti-Irish violence enormously. While Irish churches and houses burned, politicians began attempting to pass discriminatory legislation preventing immigrants from voting. However, these groups were usually formed spontaneously. With the rise of the Know Nothing party in 1850, nativism gained even more power and organization. The club, which was open only to at least second generation American protestants, advocated temperance and attacked corruption, but their main focus was the Irish Catholics. They advocated American nationalism, and celebrated the heroes of the revolutionary war. The Know Nothings raised mobs across America, attacking catholic figures and communities, killing nearly 100 in the 1844 Philadelphia riots alone. They also swept into political power, becoming governors, congressmen, and mayors in the 1854 elections. They presented numerous anti immigrant laws, though few were enacted. The Know Nothings were also popular in the south, though the issue of slavery drove the southern and northern halves apart in 1855. Nativism survived the split, but faded in power, ending the worst of the violence against Irish Catholics. Though they were still considered a separate race, their light skin gave them a considerable advantage over America’s other “Lesser Race,” the blacks.