cameron diaz movies
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Chapter 7 - Lighthing, Production and Costume Designs
 Beyond authentic language and scenery, Scorsese wanted the look of Gangs of New York to capture the almost hallucinatory quality of this New York City unlike any we have seen in modern times. For this, he collaborated with director of photography Michael Ballhaus – their sixth time working together.“Filming with Marty is such a pleasure because he is so visual,” Ballhaus says. “He has so many images in his head, and to fulfill his vision, to bring it onto the screen is fantastic. I must say I feel this is the most exciting project Marty and I have ever done together. The film has so many elements – action, a great love story, a conflict between father and son in a way. I think this is the first movie that deals with this period in America, and that’s very exciting.”
Ballhaus and Scorsese wanted from the beginning to conjure a spell with the film’s lighting. “Before we began shooting, Marty gave me a book on Rembrandt that discussed the great painter’s philosophy of light,” recalls Ballhaus. “We wanted to understand it because we wanted to keep the source of light in the film very simple— a candle, a torch, fires burning in the street.”
He continues: “In those days, there was smoke and fog everywhere. It was before electricity. Gaslight was used, and people also smoked a lot. Things were always burning, lots of little fires everywhere. I used very few filters because of the smoke, and in some scenes very little light. Most of the film takes place in a part of town that’s very poor, so there is a lot of darkness and very little color.”
Ballhaus also worked closely with production designer Ferretti. “Dante is such an incredible artist. His sets are built as if they’re real, which allows you to work as if actually shooting on location. We were able to do some spectacular wide shots, photographing in every direction.”
He continues: “For example, we did a shot of the harbor at night, starting close on a couple of mourning women who are walking alone. We see the coffins of their loved ones, and then the camera cranes up and up and we see rows of other coffins. And the camera kept going way up over the ship and then panned over on the water. We also did a very complicated shot in the Chinese Pagoda, starting with Bill the Butcher on the Pagoda stage with the camera behind him looking at the audience. Bill is pontificating about America while he's throwing knives at human targets. The camera pivots around him quickly and then returns to its initial position, so that you get to see the entire Pagoda and everyone in it, in one shot.”
Academy Award-winning costume designer Sandy Powell, working with Scorsese for the first time, also played a crucial role in creating the ambience of this other New York City: a world of men and women in beggar’s rags and faux-Victorian finery. She began by pouring through whatever existing photographs from the period she could find. “It's an unusual period, not very much portrayed in movies, but we were lucky,” she notes.
“Daguerreotype photography had just been invented, so we had images to look over. And I also had access to the reams of research Marty had done. But I didn't want to rely too heavily on research. Marty was very specific. He wanted me to create a world that hadn't been seen before, but a world that was based on reality. I took that as a guide.”
One of her first tasks was finding a way to visually differentiate the various gangs. “Of course, the gangs didn’t wear uniforms, but I wanted them each to have their own look. One thing I learned about the Dead Rabbits was that when they went into battle they each had a red stripe running down the length of their trousers. I used that as a motif for them, incorporating the stripe in their shirts and some of the rest of their apparel. The Natives look different. They have more money and they’re a bit dandified. They also wear distinctive stovepipe hats.”
Powell had particular fun designing the wardrobe of Bill the Butcher, the flashiest and most dapper of the gangsters. “Marty had very strong ideas about Bill the Butcher,” she recalls. “He wanted him as a dandy. Just as gangsters today live in modest homes but wear flashy, expensive clothing, that was how he wanted me to dress Bill and the Natives.”
Daniel Day-Lewis also had specific notions as to how Bill the Butcher should appear. “Daniel wanted to accentuate his long-ness,” Powell says. “The character wears a full-length coat in many scenes, a kind of signature garment under which he hides his deadly cutlery belt. The coat accentuates Daniel’s height and his rail-thin frame. He’s very lean and we accentuated that look, making him appear even longer and narrower, with tight fitting garments. It gave him a spidery look. We also dressed him in bright, crazy patterns, with checks and pinstripes. Another thing I did to accentuate the color was to use African prints. They’re very vibrant and if you use them in a Victorian context they don’t look at all out of place.”
Says Day-Lewis: "Before filming started, Sandy and I had a chance to meet in Dublin and talk about our ideas. She spoke from her point of view and I spoke from mine. She showed me a collection of images--pictures, etchings, ideas plucked from here and there--that were beginning to stir her imagination. And then we went our separate ways. To my astonishment, a month later I found a rack of clothes she had created, and – well, I was certainly surprised by them. I hadn't imagined the character as being such a peacock. And it was a moment of discovery for me, a really wonderful one. Suddenly you're presented with something that changes what you were thinking about, just a little, and yet it works perfectly. And that's how it was here."
The look of the gangs and the way they dressed stimulated the entire cast’s imaginations. Summarizes Leonardo DiCaprio: “I relate it all to the 1980s and the gangs in Los Angeles when I was growing up, the Crips and the Bloods. Each of those gangs had on a piece of clothing that marked them as members, something that only they would recognize, that would signal to one another who belonged and who didn’t. I imagine it was the same with the Dead Rabbits.”
Designing the women’s clothing for GANGS OF NEW YORK – and especially the outfits for Jenny, who moves between New York’s aristocratic uptown crowd and the seamy, dangerous Five Points – also provided a fresh challenge for Powell. "The costume for Jenny in the Villa Borghese is traditional Victorian, with the traditional Victorian silhouette created by crinolines," Powell says. "It contrasts greatly with the clothes she wears in the Five Points. For the women in the Five Points the important thing for us was to get away from the Victorian silhouette, and the crinolines.”
"The task was to figure out how we could make the women of this world stand alongside the men because Marty wanted Jenny and her girls to form a gang. I wanted to make them look tougher. I was lucky enough to discover in reference books images of women who actually wore trousers underneath their skirts in the 1850s. They were called Dress Reformers, early day feminists whose movement never caught on. They made trousers out of material they cut away from their skirts. And they also wore jackets and vests like the men. And that's how we dressed Jenny."
Throughout it all, Powell was impressed by Scorsese’s intense interest and knowledge about costuming. “He understands and loves clothes,” she notes. “And he has the most fantastic memory – he’s a master of detail. I can show him reference pictures and months later he’ll still retain what he saw. He’ll say, ‘Yes, that’s an 1857 sleeve, the other sleeve didn’t come into fashion until1860.’ He’s able to tell the difference.”
The character of Bill the Butcher has another appearance quirk that sets him apart. He wears a glass eye to replace the one he lost in battle, and engraved on the eye is the emblem of the American eagle. To create the effect of the false eye, Manlio Rochetti, the film's Academy Award-winning key makeup artist, created a soft contact lens he would insert into Daniel's eye before shooting each day.
Leonardo DiCaprio also underwent extensive makeup in the scenes after he receives a savage beating by Bill the Butcher and is nursed back to health by Jenny. DiCaprio was required to undergo four-hour makeup sessions in order to reveal the character in his most stripped-raw and vulnerable state.
“Marty felt it was necessary to show that Amsterdam’s recovery was gradual, that in fact it took a very long time, so we developed five different stages of recovery to show the progression of time,” says DiCaprio’s makeup artist Sian Grigg. “The makeup process for all this involved the use of prosthetics, a painstaking process. It was a new experience for Leo. It meant having to sit still for a long period of time, but I think he enjoyed it.”
DiCaprio also contributed numerous concepts to Amsterdam’s shifting look, which rises along with his fortunes. Says Grigg: “At the beginning of the film, Amsterdam is newly released from the House of Reform but as the film progresses, he becomes more fit. Leo took part in the discussions about how to reveal the changes both inside and out. He’s got very good ideas.”
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Filming on Gangs of New York wrapped March 30, 2001 after 137 shooting days.
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