I know I don't post nearly as often as I should, but sometimes I just don't have the time to watch a movie and take notes. So here is a shortened version today.
Despite liking Leonardo DiCaprio, I don't always get around to watching all the movies he's been. Though I will embarrassingly admit that I have seen The Beach several times on cable. However, Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York has been playing on cable. I started watching some of it, but I'll say it now, I only made it about half way through. Instead of working with the first half of the movie though, I'll give you my take on the first battle: the one where L*** N***** d__s.
Okay, that was your fair warning to stop reading if you didn't want to ruin the first 15 minutes of the movie.
So Daniel Day-Lewis, The Butcher, and Liam Neeson, Priest, are waging this massive gang battle for control over New York. Maybe because Liam Neeson has played such noble characters as Robert Roy MacGregor and Qui-Gon Jinn or maybe it's the fact that he's wearing a priest's frock and carrying a huge crucifix. Either way, you automatically get the feeling that he's the good guy. Whereas The Butcher wears a leather apron covered in blood and wields cleavers and meat hooks...
They end up fighting one another after killing many people along the way. The Butcher kills Priest and everyone stops what they're doing. Really, if that's usually the case why don't leaders just fight to the death to begin with, but I digress.
My mom saw this scene through slitted eyes (the violence was a bit much for her), and commented something to the effect of, "what a bad man."
But in The Butcher's defense, he acted quite nobly. You can imagine how he's feeling after having defeated his foe: proud and accomplished and possibly sorrow at having killed a man? To his credit though, he allows his enemy's body to be treated with honor: "Ears and noses will be the trophies of the day. But no hand shall touch him." This coming from a man who later states that he places the heads of his enemies on pikes and marches them around town.
And even though I'm working past the realm of the first gang battle, and I might not understand the full implication of it, The Butcher does have a small shrine to Priest set up in The Butcher's hangout.
The Butcher just did what he had to do in order to protect the invasion of his country; a patriot. The Butcher is probably the equivalent of the present-day, border-patrolling minutemen that also have that anti-immigration feel to them. (Don't misunderstand me though, I'm in no way stating that I agree with The Butcher. Just trying to give you insight to his possible perception of things.)
In fact, you could argue Priest is more "evil" considering that he's a priest and has taken a vow to uphold the word of God. I'm not a devout Christian or devout anything for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that one of the Ten Commandments is "thou shalt not kill." Almost seems like doing bad things is more compounded for Priest by the fact that he promised not to.
So there you have it, The Butcher is a violent, yet noble man based on the first 15 minutes of Gangs of New York. Maybe evilness: 2.5 for not really knowing how The Butcher pans out.
