When Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York debuted in 2002, I didn’t go to see it right away, and when I finally did I remember feeling like it seemed sort of silly, and that Cameron Diaz was terrible. Diaz is still a weak link for me, but a recent article on Medium got me interested in watching the film again, and revisiting its themes of race, anti-immigration, corrupt politics, and the specter of “foreign influence” through the lens of America in 2017. It’s a great piece by Daniel Suarez. Here’s a bite…

A few days ago I re-watched Gangs of New York, and it brought home to me something relevant to our present political situation: America’s divisions on immigration, race, class, religion, and ‘foreign influences’ have always been with us. In fact, those divisions have been far worse in the past. Nonetheless, we still survived as a nation, moved beyond our instinctive fears, and achieved remarkable things together.

Americans might not like to hear it, but throughout our history we have seldom lived up to our rhetoric on liberty and justice. From the outset we were an imperfect experiment in democracy (with slavery, genocide against indigenous people, civil rights violations, limited suffrage). Given our differences, America was constantly at risk of imploding or exploding.
That we are here at all is a testament to the many activists and idealists who ignored the tide of human history, ignored their personal safety, ignored our longstanding ethnic and religious hatreds, our class divisions, and more — and urged us toward our professed ideals. Every advance we have made as a nation can be attributed to the greater openness and diversity they championed in the face of intimidating odds.

This is on full display in Gangs of New York — but you have to look closely to see it.

Read the rest of this illuminating article at the link above — trust me if you are having a panic attack about the end of democracy this will give you some needed perspective. This YouTube link isn’t the best way to enjoy a movie that I’ve come to love more on every viewing, but it’s enough to see that we’ve come a long way even if we still have a long way to go.

Dead Rabbits, forever!

In celebration of its 15th birthday, here’s the film…

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Between the ages of about 9 and 12, I was a little more than obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons. I loved creating dungeons and DM’ing the campaigns that my brother’s character would adventure through. Learning how to manage the complex action while also marrying the player’s choices to a fantastic narrative was challenging and fun, and it was always rewarding to create a world full of tricks, traps and treasures.

I also loved the look of game: the graph paper dungeon drawings, the painstakingly painted miniatures and — of course — the books! I’d spend hours poring over the Monster Manual and the Player’s Handbook learning about creatures and spells and classes and characters, but always taking time to linger over the rad illustrations.

That’s why last week’s news about the death of David A. Trampier was so sad. The TOR site has the details…

Trampier was doggedly reserved throughout his life, to such an extent that most D&D fans know his work more than they know his name. He disappeared in 1988, leaving his ongoing comic D&D Wormy abruptly unfinished, and retired from illustration to drive a Yellow Taxi in Carbdondale, Illinois…

Take a look at Trampier’s iconic illustrations below:

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The film Salò is set in Fascist-occupied Italy in 1944. It tells the story of what happens when a Duke, a Bishop, a Magistrate and a President take 18 adolescent boys and girls captive and travel to a remote palace. What follows is one of the most extreme sociopolitical criticisms ever committed to film. Based on the book 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade, the four wealthy men spend the next four months exposing their helpless captives to extreme violence, sadism, sexual and mental torture. Wiki’s matter-of-fact summation of the film’s debut is laughingly blunt:

Because of its scenes depicting intensely graphic violence, sadism and sexual depravity, the film was extremely controversial upon its release, and remains banned in several countries.

Although the movie is not generally categorized as a horror film, Salò was named the 65th scariest film ever made by the Chicago Film Critics Association in 2006. It’s also the subject of an article in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. Even spookier — Salò was the director’s last movie: He was mysteriously murdered after making the film.

While Salò′s 1975 premiere created shock waves, connoisseurs of director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s work might have been less shocked – the director’s earliest films were full of controversial content that found Pasolini at odds with government officials in Italy. His first efforts also displayed the unusual methods and preoccupations that would define his cinematic oeurve: the use of non-professional actors; an empathetic preoccupation with impoverished characters and settings; and a poetic understanding of the sacred nature of images. Pasolini was also the author of 25 novels and half-a-dozen books of poetry.

This 1966 episode of the French TV series Cinema of Our Time features an interview with Pasolini talking about his first films, offering illuminating insights regarding poetry, cinema, politics, aesthetics, philosophy and class.

“Pasolini: The Rebel”

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