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Ciné Live #48 (France) - Summer 2001 You can evaluate very quickly the privilege we
had of visiting the Gangs of New York set, Martin Scorsese's new film, director
generally hardly less secret than a Stanley Kubrick in one of his good days. His
epic of noise and fury on the social and maffioso construction of New York is
nevertheless filmed thousands kilometers from Manhattan. So, let's go to the
studios of Cinecittà in Rome, where the Master has his headquarters since last
September. By Grégory Alexandre part one Few people know, but it's been more than 20 years that Martin Scorsese has
been hidden, discreetly, in his suitcase of projects, Gangs of New York, hidden
epic about a war of gangs that brought together - at least in Herbert Asbury's
novel - some Bill " The Butcher " Poole and Amsterdam Vallon, in the heart of
the Big Apple in the middle of the XIX-th century. Twenty years in the course of
which this project will have been relegated to the fine bottom of the
aforementioned suitcase because of the impossibility to gather capital as the
professional skill necessities, twenty years marked also by Scorsese's growing
will to go towards a certain immoderation, but without losing sight of his
specificity as an author marked above all by the theme of redemption. In the
same way, after the intimist Bringing Out the Dead, it was time for him to dash
into a large-scale film, and Gangs of New York, in spite of its enormous
infrastructure, finally conquers investors, mainly Germans and Americans. The
postulate which attracts: a merciless duel between two rivals, mixed with a love
story, but especially, a film carried by the two "hottest" actors of Hollywood.
Officially, the estimate would only flirt with the hundred million dollar
bar, but considering the display of forces deserving of Ben Hur meets Cleopatra
on the deck of Titanic, it is allowed to doubt. Twenty years of reflection, so ,
for Scorsese, in the course of which the dreamer of the 70s, who originally
wanted to marry the New York of the 19th century to the music of the Clash, had
the time to reason with himself and to direct his project to a certainly furious
epic, but also sharply more classic in its shape. It is also ballasted by numerous rumours (which seem unfounded) on Leonardo
DiCaprio's whims, star among the stars summoned by Scorsese, that we penetrate
into the mytical Cinecittà's studios, a few cables' length away from Rome, where
the film founds its anchorage point. " It is about a film profoundly American,
but I've always imagined Gangs of New York conceived with an artistic,
italian-style mastery, mastery I've been admiring for a long time as a member of
the audience ", declared moreover Scorsese during a press conference. Of
Scorsese, this visit of studios will have it nevertheless only the distant
savour, the boss as his young stars refusing any media exposition before the
release of the film. Opening the doors had a price to be paid, so it will be
that one. THE CITY OF FILMS Superficialy speaking, seen from the outside, Cinecittà amounts to high wall
buildings in parme and ochre tones, constructions without windows and freshly
repainted warehouses, joined up together by internal axes geometrically drawn.
That is to say the certified true copy of a big American studio, except that if
you're not too familiar with this kind of architecture, let's say that all this
makes you think more about a gigantic interlacing of warehouses. Scattered palm trees shade some Roman bimbos inevitably blond and tanned,
maybe in search of a role or an extra part, and workers of any age and any
corpulence, generally wearing an untidy undershirt, warmed by the april nascent
sun, coming out of everywhere, ballasted by some burden. At the moment,
Cincecittà, which is on the way up again since its partial repurchase by the
Americans, is divided between two productions: Gangs of New York, that ends, the
other one, Ripley's Game, with John Malkovich, which starts hardly. At the end of a path encircled with high blind constructions, we make out
finally something like the architecture of the antique New York: a rough wooden
substructure which is higher than a building, indicating implicitly the entry of
the film set. In a way, the tip of an iceberg of about sixty thousand square
meters. Simply watched by a sloppy guard, the entry way throw us, in a few
seconds, from our burgeoning 21st century to the formless chaos of a town about
to be sprawling. Stony ground from which emerges a scattered vegetation, loose planks dumps
with unbalanced windows, this first shady alley which we go through set the tone
of the area that we're about to visit: It's Five Points, first outlet of all the
poverty of the world in this island of Manhattan, where landed up, during nearly
two hundred years, several million emigrants. The access to Paradise Square - Oh
Irony of the name! - is rather easy: all the ways lead to this big place of
vaguely triangular shape, among which our alley. And there, what a spectacle: this central, commercial and social knot of the
New York slums, usually livened up by a cosmopolitan and brightly coloured
crowd, has made way to a spectacle of desolation, battlefield destroyed by the
successive attacks that led there both opposite camps - our famous Gangs of New
York-, but especially by a troop of rioters who have sacked everyting. It is
necessary to say that it just remains some days of shooting, and that obviously
they kept for the end the scenes where all this universe is destroyed. On the right-hand, a big building of bricks, smashed open from top to bottom.
Impressive. It is the " Brewery ", a disused brewery, meanwhile become the den
of Bill The Butcher and his henchmen, and that has just been blown up with a
cannon by the police forces during these popular riots, said " Draft Riots ". We
are in July 1863, and the common people rebels then as a single man against the
injustices of the conscription generalized in the army of the Union, from which
the richest could escape from. Riots, which, additionally, make the historic
counterpoint to the last confrontation between Bill The Butcher and Amsterdam.
At the bottom of the distillery, italian workers, all a little amazed to see
coming near external guests (We are well and truly the very first - and the very
last - visitors authorized on the set), dig, with a crane, a deep crater at the
edge of which stirs Dante Ferretti, the set designer, who arranges on the edges
rubber marionettes supposed to be corpses THE CRASH OF THE TITANS So, almost everything in Gangs of New York takes place near this poor area of
the South of Manhattan where are done fratricidal wars between the very big
first waves of immigrants, that is to say, in this case , before the 1880
italian wave. Therefore, no mafia around in Gangs of New York, but a duel to the
death between two men, two Irish. On one side Bill the Butcher, influential big shot of the local underworld,
born on the American ground, and who tries as he can to protect America from the
new influxes of immigrants, wearing rather beautiful behind his big mustache and
his top hat. Dragged out by Scorsese, after De Niro's failure, from his Irish
refuge where he would have set up a business of luxury shoe-repair shop, it is
Daniel Day Lewis who gives life to this dark and tormented character. Opposite, grievously fiery after a long stay in prison, the young Amsterdam
Vallon comes crying out for revenge, considering Bill the Butcher as the person
responsible for the death of his father (played by Liam Neeson in the prologue
of the film), several years before. In the part of the young Irish immigrant
(the Titanic is not far, but here the action takes place fifty years earlier),
Leo DiCaprio is again going to be able to make roar out his henceforth legendary
charisma. Since, in the manhunt which leads him, he is going to meet a young
lady, Jenny (Cameron Diaz), little insignificant swindler whose robberies in the
high society allowed moreover Gangs of New York some of its very rare scenes
filmed outside Cinecittà's walls (six days out for 100 days in the studios). The
film contains more than 120 speaking parts, among which John C. Reilly, Brendan
Gleeson, Henry Thomas, Jim Broadbent and Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot's dad). And,
to finish it with figures, including technicians and extras, about 12000 people
will have worked, closely or by far, on Gangs of New York. A piece of work
worthy of the more demanding guild... part two And that's really saying something that the set designers had the sense of
the detail to polish up this first category product, everything, even the
tiniest slight trembling of rubber on this rocky heap overhung by a hut, was
thought, drawn, chiselled with the love of the well done work. The smashed open
stores - from the undertaker's workshop to the grocer's one , from the the
nauseating saloon up to the bell tower of the local church - the show posters
stuck on the walls, loose cobbelstones (which make "knock knock " when you hit
them), you could be in Main Street Disneyland, but it is not really the case.
The glamour is completely absent from the hyperrealist immensity of this place,
where resounds the heavy echo of a world of decay and misery. As a reply to this sensation of anarchy mixed with hope, one of the numerous
ways which end to Paradise Square leads us to the port, where land a horde of
immigrants in the first scenes of the film. In a vast tank (which was used
notably for Cleopatra's filming), looking like a port but now empty, stand two
magnificent ships of about thirty metres long, among which, one sailing under
the French flag, and both decorated, at the prow, of a buxom siren which gives
itself, with arms outstretched. What a spectacle. At the stern, an immense wall
which will offer, with the help of blue screens, a view of the bay, some of the
rare digital special effects of the film. For Gangs of New York is well and truly a craftmen's film, based above all on
mechanical special effects, that is to say made on the set. " The films sets are
all real" insists the spokesman of the film. " Nothing to do with Gladiator,
where the amphitheater was for example divided in two by computer from a simple
section of the set". The definite bias remains nevertheless, mixing historic integrity (but few
documents were preserved about this area in that time) and the recourse of
imagination. " I want imagination inspired by reality" as Scorsese so nicely
formulated it. The director finds on this occasion Dante Ferretti, his official
set designer since The Age of Innocence. Ferretti, little man, half bald, squat
and with a high and sweet voice as the one of his alter ego Federico Fellini,
gets out for a moment from its last duties on this spectacular building site to
show us other film sets. At first, a visit to the interior of the famous disused distillery is
imperative, because it is there that often hides, in a muddy and stifling
atmosphere, the famous Bill the Butcher. His very shabby den rises up on several
levels, low ceilings and creaking floors, where, following one another, stand a
vast number of small rooms, filled with poor chairs and tables, guardrails and
weakly lamps, beds and beer stills. You realize that this place is in fact
situated in the basement when you find out that the ceiling of what looks like a
bar was crossed by tree roots, henceforth spread, as in weightlessness, over our
heads. A vision of nightmare to relieve the animal aspect of the darkest
character of the film. A little farther, the Pagoda of the Squirrel, a gigantic orientalizing
whorehouse where is situated a music hall stage flanked by heavy red draperies,
with, hanging from the ceiling, bamboo cages, conceived to support the
prostitutes offered to men. Dante Ferretti traipses round in his work with a
jovial humility, almost disturbing. The magnificence of the place is become so
ordinary to him. " You know, my job, it is just to make what the others want. I
too am a prostitute ! " But nevertheless, he has some sparklings in his eyes when he take us on a
Broadway's portion, recreated by the application of "sheets("leaves") on a
pre-existent street set. A rich victorian universe, decorated with calicos and
banners celebrating the conquering America, which contrasts sharply with
Paradise Square's greyness. Luxurious bourgeois interiors, accessible from this
famous main road warmed by the Roman sun, were not spared by the destructive
madness of the common people, and the spectacle of the interiors is worth to
see, like the first one, apocalyptic, we have seen. Torn up walls, overturned
furniture, places which you imagine left hurriedly by their occupants : by
attacking these representatives of the rising aristocracy, the people also
wanted to express its ulceration facing Tweed, the corrupt mayor, played by the
colorful Jim Broadbent. part three Going back to his crater and its moss corpses, Dante Ferretti enjoins us to
visit the costume wherehouse. The slightest garment of each and every extra has
been labelled, stamped and accompanied with a picture of the « belonger ». And
at a time where accessories made the suit, what could be more normal than to
discover at the bend of a corridor a room exclusively reserved for hats, or
another one for gloves, before getting into the workshop where masses of
wardrobe workers and dressers are fussing still surrounded by materials in the
kilometer. They are overseen by young English Sandy Powell (rewarded by an Oscar
for Shakespeare in Love) who finds herself relieved to see these two years of
hard labour coming to an end. On the wall, there are pictures of Daniel
Day-Lewis' costume fitting, steep as a « i » in its various tail coats. We look around, but there is no sign of pictures of Leo or Cameron (who will
have her hair red in the film). Could it be that they've been removed from the
panel in order to secure the surprise of their appearance? Ouf, we are allowed
to enter for a few seconds in the « saint of the saint », the room where they
store the costumes of the main actors. We don't catch it, but we fiddle with it.
With the impression of feeling the Holy Shroud! This coat of greenish cloth, the
very one that Leo wore during these eight months of shooting. Nothing in the
pockets? Too bad, it would have made a sweet souvenir... JESUS IS BACK Before heading to the exit, small cherry on the cake... Vic Armstrong, the
director of the second team is shooting a scene in the middle of Paradise
Square. One of the numerous scenes of the final riots sequence, where we can see
Cara Seymour (who was Bjôrk's neighbour in Dancer in the Dark) in rags,
transpierced at the chest with a picket of wood stained with blood, and giving
her last sigh in the arms of a thin and bearded male silhouette. In other words,
an inverted image of La Pietà revised and settled by Scorsese still and always
viscerally attached to the christian imagery. As an ornemental background sound, an explosion coming from te church and
ending at our feet in the springing of some stony blocks crashing on the ground
with the firmness of a Chamallow. But the detail of the blood stained picket
does not deceive Scorsese, does not enjoy, question of violence of practicing
the understatement. He shows the real frame. The press manager reassures us «
The violence was really unbearable in the first versions of the script, but it
was - a little - diminished since. Nevertheless, he admits that the film will be
inevitably rated « R » by censorship (whether prohibited to age 17 and under,
except if accompanied). » The price to pay for a movie which announces to be
ultra violent, but with the Scorsese's signature and and american release
planned for Christmas - already assures a number of nominations for the next
Oscars - It is always beautiful and warm in this paradoxical European dream
manufacture named Cinecittà. Dirty extras, in crossed-off knee breaches and hats
darkened by dust, discuss while drinking a coca, and sitting on boxes. The
Italian workers continue to look at us with their flabbergasted expressions
while we are taken gently towards the exit. On the side of a path, an old
barefoot guy rather weird sprays, a tiny square of earth sowed with pansies.
Surely a retired gardener who is kept by pity. He is introduced to us. He is
Michael Hausman, the film producer. « Look, he says, I placed these flowers in
the shape of G, N and Y for Gangs of New York » he tells us proudly. Fixed to a
lamp post, a plate commemorates « Michael Hausman's personal garden ». Welcome
to the tragic universe of the 7th Art. Part One and Two was translated by Lou, Part
Three by Pat from the Thai Boards - thanks a lot for your work ! * |