Word: amsterdams
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...TIME: Tell me about Amsterdam Vallon, your character in "Gangs...
...TIME: What about Amsterdam's antagonist, Bill the Butcher, played by Daniel Day-Lewis...
...DiCAPRIO Bill the Butcher and Amsterdam both have their own politics. But it's played out on a primal, street level. Both of them you can understand. You can sympathize with each man's views on America and democracy - that was so interesting and complex to me. Bill was based on Bill Poole, a great leader of the Nativists, somebody who almost became a folk hero. There were definite changes as it was adapted into a screenplay; it's not entirely specific. But it gives you a feel of what it would be like to be immersed in the Five...
...larger historical event of the Draft Riots of 1863. In most movie epics - "The Birth of a Nation," "Gone With The Wind," even "Pearl Harbor" - the characters have a small but crucial connection with the huge event, the war. Here the Draft Riots happen independently of the antagonism between Amsterdam's gang and Bill's gang, don't they...
...Europe forming a new society in America. People had a different code of ethics at the time. For example, guns were considered a dishonorable weapon, not a manly way to settle your differences. More specifically, I think that branding has more to do with the dynamic between Bill and Amsterdam - with the ancient code of ethics that these men had, a code of respecting the person you're opposing, and fighting things out the old fashioned...