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How Historically Accurate is the movie Gangs of New York

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====How accurate is the movie====

While the movie is not generally regarded as one of Scorsese’s best, it is still highly rated by critics. Additionally, Daniel Day Lewis's portrayal of Bill the Butcher is one of the most fascinating and terrifying performances in cinema history. His performance alone makes <i>Gangs of New York</i> worth watching. Scorsese’s work also captures many of the issues of the time such as the tensions between natives and immigrants. It also manages to reconstruct the Five Points and gives the viewer a sense of this once infamous neighborhood.

However, there are many exaggerations and inaccuracies. These include overstating the violence that took place at the time in the Five Points. The nature of the gangs and their motivations is not portrayed particularly accurately. Additionally, all of the characters and gangs in the movie are all fictional. The most serious inaccuracy is the distortion of the Draft Riots of 1863. Hopefully, someone makes a movie that does accurately portray these riots. On this basis, it could be said that the movie does manage to capture something of the Five Points and its gangs but is not a realistic portrayal of New York in the 1860s.

====Related DailyHistory.org Articles====

* [[How accurate is the movie The Aviator?]]

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</div>While the movie is not generally regarded as one of Scorsese’s best, it is still highly rated by critics. Additionally, Daniel Day Lewis's portrayal of Bill the Butcher is one of the most fascinating and terrifying performances in cinema history. His performance alone makes <i>Gangs of New York</i> worth watching. Scorsese’s work also captures many of the issues of the time such as the tensions between natives and immigrants. It also manages to reconstruct the Five Points and gives the viewer a sense of this once infamous neighborhood. However, there are many exaggerations and inaccuracies. These include overstating the violence that took place at the time in the Five Points. The nature of the gangs and their motivations is not portrayed particularly accurately. Additionally, all of the characters and gangs in the movie are all fictional. The most serious inaccuracy is the distortion of the Draft Riots of 1863. Hopefully, someone makes a movie that does accurately portray these riots. On this basis, it could be said that the movie does manage to capture something of the Five Points and its gangs but is not a realistic portrayal of New York in the 1860s.

====Further Reading====

Barnett Schecter, <i>The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America</i> (New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005)

====References====

[[Category:Wikis]][[Category:Historically Accurate]][[Category:United States History]][[Category:19th Century History]]

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