Daniel Day Lewis as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting
How a story is told is called "perspective," and it's critical.
"Freedom versus Tyranny" is often depicted strictly as individual liberty versus despotism and dictatorship, but it's also individual liberty versus any centralized control, even individual liberty versus pure democracy as it is in the film, "Gangs of New York."
That's the thing about "Freedom" vs "Tyranny," there ARE two sides. Absent Hitler's ethnic cleansing, would an economy predicated on worker equality be seen as "evil?"
I'd argue an emphatic YES, others might disagree.
How about pure democracy? Yes, mob rule always seems to descend into madness, in short order, but it's almost always been in response to various establishment abuses.
Can the tyranny of pure democracy be defended? Sure it can. It won't be by me, but others have vigorously defended it.
For that very reason, Martin Scorcese's "Gangs of New York" is one of my favorite films. Sure, it, like "Braveheart" and other historical dramas takes historical liberties. Time often gets in the way of good storytelling.
"Gangs..." is a great film, because of a great cast and an equally great story.
Many of us look, but don't see the actual story here.
WHO is the "hero" in "Gangs of New York"?
NOT Leonardo DiCaprio's character (Amsterdam Vallon), no, not at all. He's a son who laments the loss of his father, but doesn't even understand what his father was.
The real hero of that story is the charismatic Daniel Day Lewis's character (Bill "the Butcher" Cutting). Not only is he the more charismatic character, he exhibits an admiration for and a deep understanding of the dead "Priest Vallon," whom he killed in the opening scene.
DiCaprio's character becomes exactly what Bill the Butcher said he was, "An unworthy successor to a noble name."
Boss Tweed, the Mayor and head of Tammany Hall is a weakling, and a would-be tyrant. In fact, he culls the immigrant vote to expand government powers, in hopes that when tyranny does come, it'll come through him.
Yes, Bill "the Butcher" Cutting was, as Tweed says, "On the wrong side of history," but more's the pity. Bill Cutting's stance is a natural and understandable one, defined in a response of his to Mayor Tweed, "My father gave his life, making this country what it is. Murdered by the British with all of his men on the twenty-fifth of July, anno domini, 1814. Do you think I'm going to help you befoul his legacy, by giving this country over to them that's had no hand in the fighting for it? Why, because they come off a boat crawling with lice and begging you for soup?"
Ironically enough, the Irish immigrants of that time, were being thrust into a new war, one to remake America.
For his part, Mayor Tweed is an unscrupulous, would-be tyrant; "The appearance of the law must be maintained, ESPECIALLY when it's being broken," and "The great thing about the poor is, you can always hire one half of them to kill the other half."
At the end, Amsterdam Vallon finds the true meaning of his father's legacy, but just as tyranny comes to New York, in the form of the pure democracy of the Draft Riot mobs, that a Centralized authority, the Union Army was brought in to put down.
At the end, the surviving Amsterdam Vallon laments, as the growing New York skyline emerges in the background, "It was four days and nights before the worst of the mob was finally put down. We never knew how many New Yorkers died that week before the city was finally delivered. My father told me we was all born of blood and tribulation, and so then too was our great city. But for those of us that lived and died in them furious days, it was like everything we knew was wildly swept away. And no matter what they did to build this city up again... for the rest of time... it would be like no one even knew we was ever here."
That appears a belated lament for old, original America.
Compare "Gangs of New York," even "Braveheart," or most other historical dramas to "Inglorious Basterds," and the comparison is sharp.
In all of Mel Gibson's offerings, the British (tyrants) are all depicted as venal, petty, terrible people, while the freedom fighters are all depicted nobly. It's the same with "Gangs of New York," once you understand the storyline, BUT in Quenton Tarintinno's "Inglorious Basterds," all of that is reversed.
Christopher Walz is the charismatic, yet gleefully despotic Colonel Hans Landa, while Brad Pitt (Reno Raines) a half white/half Cherokee Marine who forms a small Jewish reconnaissance strike force is a rough hewn, unrefined and vulgar opponent.
The contrast makes Nazi Germany seem cultured and refined, compared to a course and vulgar America.
Even more troubling is that none of the "Basterds" characters are ever fully developed, so it's hard to really connect with any of them.
Worse still, is Tarrantino's predilection for making the Nazis look noble. In one scene a German Sergeant stoically goes to his death rather than give up information on other German positions.
It comes way too close to coming off as pro-Nazi propaganda...but WHY?
To WHAT end?
The film offers a distorted and unsympathetic view of the "Basterds," and a noble, cultured and refined view of the Nazis.
Moreover, it, like "The Last Samurai" (the real "Last Samurai" was French, not American), takes history and not only compresses it, as "Braveheart" and "Gangs..." do, but fictionalizes it.
The real Basterds were a British commando force of largely Jewish exiles from Germany and Eastern Europe who were dubbed by Winston Churchill as X-Troop. Only the smartest and bravest were selected, and their knowledge of various European cities and villages was especially vital to the allied forces. Each man was given a British sounding name as it was imperative they not be signaled out as Jewish — Ganz became Grey, Stein became Spencer, and so on.
The commandos might not have been taking Nazi scalps, but each who joined the mission had a terrible backstory of leaving behind friends and family with the Gestapo and wanted revenge.
Sadly, the film "Inglorious Basterds" does a disservice to this history and, in many ways, makes the tyrants look better than those fighting for freedom.
Today, most of us are condioned to both see ourselves as "free," and to see those opposing "tyranny," as the "good guys."
That's natural.
What isn't natural is many people's inability to see which is which.
IF you're inclined to label disagreeing speech as "offensive" and "hate speech," YOU are defending and supporting tyranny.
IF you believe it's OK to attack those YOU disagree with, because YOU perceive their views as "hateful" and "tyrannical," YOU are the one supporting tyranny.
So many of us have been deliberately miseducated, we don't even know what "freedom" and "tyranny" are.
Tyranny is simply centralized control, in any form. It is also the forced equalization of individuals who are innately unequal. It requires a tyrannical government to take "excess" from the most productive, to give to the least productive.
Freedom/Individual Liberty, on the other hand, is the grinding burden of full self ownership and self responsibility. No authority to "share the wealth," nothing to rely upon other than your own wits, your ambition and abilities.
True freedom is really, REALLY HARD.
No wonder so many people DON'T much care for it and prefer a "soft tyranny" as "freedom," prefer pure democracy over a Constituionally restrained Republic...prefer a genteel slavery to hard scrabble freedom.
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