| | | America Was Born In The Streets.
Features: DVD
This motion picture event from acclaimed director Martin Scorsese earned 10 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, along with 5 Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Song! Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic), Cameron Diaz (Charlie's Angels) and Daniel Day-Lewis (The Boxer) star in this epic tale of vengeance and survival!As waves of immigrants swell the population of New York, lawlessness and corruption thrive in lower Manhattan's Five Points section. After years of incarceration, young Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) returns seeking revenge against the rival gang leader (Day-Lewis) who killed his father. But Amsterdam's personal vendetta becomes part of the gang warfare that erupts as he and his fellow Irishmen fight to carve a place for themselves in their newly adopted homeland!
"A triumph of pure craft and passionate heart." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"A historical epic with the courage of its convictions about both scope and detail." Susan Stark, Detroit News
"Everything is vast and hugely ambitious in Martin Scorsese's magisterial, scrambled historical epic." Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"Scorsese creates a film so resonant that it is both a work of great art and an anthropological document." Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post
"A magnificent throwback to an almost vanished era of epic filmmaking by great filmmakers in thrall to their own passions..." Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
"...a spacious, robust movie that grabs hold of us and doesn't let go for nearly three hours." Rich Cline, Film Threat
"A grand achievement in history and anthropology, supporting its ambition and scope with a sumptuous re-creation of the period..." Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club
Editor's Note
Director Martin Scorsese revisits New York City's notorious past with this dazzling historical drama. A throwback to the epics of yesteryear, GANGS OF NEW YORK is set in the mid-1800s, when the streets of lower Manhattan were teeming with tension and violence. Leonardo DiCaprio is Amsterdam Vallon, the son of a revered gang leader (Liam Neeson). As a youth, Amsterdam witnessed the death of his father at the hands of William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), the maniacally driven ruler of the city's most powerful gang. Sixteen years later, Amsterdam is finally released from the orphanage that raised him. Determined to avenge his father's death, Amsterdam makes his way back to the volatile Five Points to track down Cutting and exact revenge. As he gradually infiltrates Bill the Butcher's camp and earns the crazed gangster's respect, he must also contend with the tumultuous, but beautiful, Jenny Everdean (Cameron Diaz). DiCaprio and Diaz are impressive in their respective roles, but it is Day-Lewis who steals the show. Resurfacing after a five-year retirement, the Irish actor delivers a performance that is at once cartoonish, electrifying, comical, sincere, and deeply moving. By paying tribute to the early days of New York City in such a grand, spectacular manner, Scorsese also pays tribute to cinema itself.
| Features | Audio: English, French DTS 5.1 Digital Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Teaser Trailer | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | The Five Points Study Guide: Luc Sante Introduction And Five Points Vocabulary | | Feature Commentary With Martin Scorsese | | Theatrical Trailer | | Exploring The Sets Of Gangs Of New York With Multiple Angles Utilizing 360 Degree Shots Of The Sets | | U2 Music Video "The Hands That Built America" | | Discovery Channel Special "Uncovering The Real Gangs Of New York" | | Costume Design Featurette | | Set Design Featurette | | History Of The Five Points Featurette |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Buena Vista |
| Release Date: 6/6/2006 |
| Running Time: 167 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2002 | | Catalog ID: 24017 | | UPC: 00786936165371 | | Number of Discs: 2 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (2003) | | | Michael Ballhaus, Nominee, Best Achievement in Cinematography | | | Sandy Powell, Nominee, Best Achievement in Costume Design | | | Martin Scorsese, Nominee, Best Achievement in Directing | | | Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr., Nominee, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song | | | Alberto Grimaldi, Harvey Weinstein, Nominee, Best Motion Picture of the Year | | | Daniel Day-Lewis, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | | | Jay Cocks, et al., Nominee, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen | |
Winner (2003) | | | British Academy Awards, Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | | | Golden Globe, Martin Scorsese, Best Director - Motion Picture | | | Golden Globe, U2 ("The Hands That Built America"), Best Original Song - Motion Picture | |
Nominee (2003) | | | Oscar, Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Actor in a Leading Role | | | Oscar, Michael Ballhaus, Best Cinematography | | | Oscar, Martin Scorsese, Best Director | | | Oscar, Thelma Schoonmaker, Best Editing | | | Oscar, Bono, et. al. ("The Hands That Built America"), Best Music, Original Song | | | Oscar, Alberto Grimaldi, Harvey Weinstein, Best Picture | | | Oscar, Jay Cocks, et. al., Best Writing, Original Screenplay | | | Oscar, Sandy Powell, Best Costume Design | |
Winner (2003) | | | Screen Actors Guild, Daniel Day-Lewis, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...GANGS OF NEW YORK is something better than perfect: It's thrillingly alive....A triumph of pure craft and passionate heart..." 01/23/2003 p.75New York Times
"...GANGS OF NEW YORK is an important film as well as an entertaining one. With this project, Mr. Scorsese has made his passionate ethnographic sensibility the vehicle of an especially grand ambition..." 12/20/2002 p.E1 USA Today
"...It has as much greatness in it as any movie this year..." 12/20/2002 p.1E Entertainment Weekly
"...The complicated and brilliant Day-Lewis makes all of old New York come alive; he's the furnace that stokes the story, and he gives off real, exciting heat..." 01/03/2003 p.43-4 Variety
"...GANGS OF NEW YORK bears all the earmarks of a magnum opus for Martin Scorsese....A richly impressive and densely realized work..." 12/02/2002 p.38-44 Premiere
"...Unsparing, hallucinatory, spectacular, it's personal moviemaking on an epic scale, a vision that will take your breath away and hold it for the movie's entire running time..." 02/01/2003 p.20 Film Comment
"...GANGS OF NEW YORK may be the last of its kind -- a costume picture made entirely in a studio by a superbly creative director in collaboration with mater craftspeople..." 01/01/2003 p.24-7 Movieline's Hollywood Life
"...Day-Lewis does a superb job of making the villain charismatic and complex..." 02/01/2003 p.62 Uncut
"Big, brilliant, brutal and beautiful." 02/01/2003 p.100 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 8 of 10
With Gangs of New York, Scorsese has both hit and missed. This is inarguably the most ambitious motion picture of his long career, the first time he has attempted a pure epic. There is much to appreciate about the spectacle, and about the meticulous manner in which the director has brought to life the turbulence of New York in the mid-1800s. We see here the birth pangs of the greatest American city in all of its ugliness. Yet, in presenting such a large tapestry, Scorsese occasionally seems to lose control of the flow. There are times when the movie meanders and the psychological depth of two of the three principal characters falls far below what we have come to expect from the director of the masterworks Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas. Gangs of New York is an example of a production in which the whole is less than the sum of its elements. Despite some reservations, however, the movie never lost my interest, and I consider it to be worth a trip to a theater to see. - James Berardinelli
San Francisco Chronicle 8 of 10
It's the movie's one great achievement and can't be dismissed. Scorsese takes us to a New York we never knew existed and shows us so much we can almost smell it. He also never bores us, and in a 166-minute movie that's not a small thing, either. Yet for all the epic size and epic investment, Gangs of New York lacks the one quality that might have tipped it into greatness--an epic grandeur. Though big in size, "Gangs" isn't big in ideas. The lavish setting just lends color to what turns out to be a very simple story. - Mick LaSalle
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" rips up the postcards of American history and reassembles them into a violent, blood-soaked story of our bare-knuckled past. The New York it portrays in the years between the 1840s and the Civil War is, as a character observes, "the forge of hell," in which groups clear space by killing their rivals...All of this is a triumph for Scorsese, and yet I do not think this film is in the first rank of his masterpieces. It is very good but not great. I wrote recently of "GoodFellas" that "the film has the headlong momentum of a storyteller who knows he has a good one to share." I didn't feel that here. Scorsese's films usually leap joyfully onto the screen, the work of a master in command of his craft. Here there seems more struggle, more weight to overcome, more darkness. It is a story that Scorsese has filmed without entirely internalizing. The gangsters in his earlier films are motivated by greed, ego and power; they like nice cars, shoes, suits, dinners, women. They murder as a cost of doing business. The characters in "Gangs of New York" kill because they like to and want to. They are bloodthirsty, and motivated by hate. I think Scorsese liked the heroes of "GoodFellas," "Casino" and "Mean Streets," but I'm not sure he likes this crowd. - Roger Ebert
ReelViews 8 of 10
Gangs of New York is a bold, epic spectacle brought to the screen using more of the old-fashioned Hollywood techniques (elaborate sets, large groups of extras) than the new ones (CGI). Visually, it is stunning, and the storyline encompasses a grand scope, using a fascinating and turbulent period of American history as the canvas upon which master cinematic painter Martin Scorsese crafts his images. Yet, despite all of this, Gangs of New York doesn't come close to masterpiece status. There are some great individual scenes and a tremendous performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, but the connecting material is mediocre, leading to the occasional twinge of dissatisfaction...This is inarguably the most ambitious motion picture of his long career, the first time he has attempted a pure epic...We see here the birth pangs of the greatest American city in all of its ugliness. Yet, in presenting such a large tapestry, Scorsese occasionally seems to lose control of the flow. There are times when the movie meanders and the psychological depth of two of the three principal characters falls far below what we have come to expect from the director of the masterworks Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas. Gangs of New York is an example of a production in which the whole is less than the sum of its elements. - James Berardinelli
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