Gangs Of New York Movie

It's hard to imagine what sort of films Martin Scorsese might have made -- if any -- had he remained in Queens. He draws laughs when he confesses to an audience here that he spent his first years in a two-family house there, with a tree out back. "It had leaves!" he adds in that rapid-fire voice of his, and they roar again at the notion that America's great filmmaker of the streets might have grown up around anything green.

The controversy over renowned director Robert Wise's newspaper column endorsing Miramax Film Corp.'s "Gangs of New York" for an Academy Award took a new twist Friday when a publicist working on the studio's Oscar campaign admitted that he actually penned the piece. Murray Weissman said he wrote the article praising "Gangs of New York" director Martin Scorsese.

Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" begins in the bowels of the Earth, which is appropriate, because he is digging deep -- perhaps deeper than any filmmaker has ever done before -- into the American past. As the movie opens, the Dead Rabbits, a legendary Irish street gang in pre-Civil War New York, is preparing for battle against their "Native American" (i.e., Anglo) rivals. Down in the cellars of the Old Brewery, the Rabbits sharpen blades, sharpen teeth, pick up crude clubs.

After years of increasingly blatant Oscar politicking, this Academy Awards season seemed comparatively gentle until Thursday, when a furor erupted over a "Gangs of New York" advertisement on behalf of Martin Scorsese, the film's director, that incensed some Oscar voters and led to an unusually harsh rebuke from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The flap began when Miramax Film Corp.

The controversy over renowned director Robert Wise's newspaper column endorsing Miramax Film Corp.'s "Gangs of New York" for an Academy Award took a new twist Friday when a publicist working on the studio's Oscar campaign admitted that he actually penned the piece. Murray Weissman said he wrote the article praising "Gangs of New York" director Martin Scorsese.

After years of increasingly blatant Oscar politicking, this Academy Awards season seemed comparatively gentle until Thursday, when a furor erupted over a "Gangs of New York" advertisement on behalf of Martin Scorsese, the film's director, that incensed some Oscar voters and led to an unusually harsh rebuke from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The flap began when Miramax Film Corp.

With some traditional financing sources drying up, producers of big-budget Hollywood independent films are crossing their fingers that a buying boom by German companies won't fizzle any time soon.

Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" begins in the bowels of the Earth, which is appropriate, because he is digging deep -- perhaps deeper than any filmmaker has ever done before -- into the American past. As the movie opens, the Dead Rabbits, a legendary Irish street gang in pre-Civil War New York, is preparing for battle against their "Native American" (i.e., Anglo) rivals. Down in the cellars of the Old Brewery, the Rabbits sharpen blades, sharpen teeth, pick up crude clubs.

It's hard to imagine what sort of films Martin Scorsese might have made -- if any -- had he remained in Queens. He draws laughs when he confesses to an audience here that he spent his first years in a two-family house there, with a tree out back. "It had leaves!" he adds in that rapid-fire voice of his, and they roar again at the notion that America's great filmmaker of the streets might have grown up around anything green.