Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
An essay about New York City
An essay about New York City
An essay about New York City
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: An essay about New York City
The movie begins in New York, in 1843, with a gang fight. Bill “the butcher” Cutting’s gang of “nativists” have challenged the “dead rabbits” (a gang of mostly Irish immigrants) to a fight to settle once and for all who is the most powerful gang in the area. After an intense battle the “nativists” win by killing the leader of the “dead rabbits”, also Amsterdam’s (the main character’s) father. Amsterdam is then led into an orphanage where he grows to be a man, all while Bill Cutting runs the Five Points, and most of New York. The Five Points is a district of New York City and obviously the most corrupt. Crime is all to common, and sickness runs rampant in the area. Although very underdeveloped, Amsterdam has sworn to revenge his father’s death and kill Bill “the Butcher.” When Amsterdam leaves he immediately sets his plan in motion. He begins by getting on Cutting’s good side, and eventually becoming somewhat of an apprentice to the crime lord. During this time Amsterdam learns the ways of corruption. To keep above the law Bill Cutting becomes partners with William Tweed, arguably the most corrupt politician of all time. Bill gives Tweed the Irish immigrant vote, and Boss Tweed keeps Cutting “high and dry.” Two subplots develop in the movie also. First, a love story, between Amsterdam and Jenny Everdeane. A pickpocket by trade Jenny first steals Amsterdam’s necklace. Because the necklace has much sentimental value, he tracks her down and gets it back, he also gets the girl. Second, the Draft Riots of 1863. The riots began because of the draft, instated because of the Civil War. The public was furious that you could buy your way out for 300 dollars. Also because of the corruption surrounding the draft. It was easy to get sucked into the draft if you were poor or underprivileged and it was easy to get out of the draft if you were wealthy (you could buy your way out for 300 dollars.) In the end Amsterdam reinvents the “dead rabbits” and schedules a fight with the “nativists” once again. It just so happens that the day they schedule the fight is the day the Draft Riots begin. The Union Army marches on the city and the Union ... ... middle of paper ... ...citizens, only one was reported as being stabbed. The film also shows East Asian people living in the Five Points. The Chinese didn’t begin moving to the U.S. until the transcontinental railroad, in the 1890’s. Finally, the Union Navy was ported in New York but never fired a round, as in the movie. Also, the Five Points were not the epicenter of the riots, in fact they were the opposite. William Tweed worked diligently to keep the peace in the area, and only three counts of murder and looting were reported over the four days the riots took place. I can only hope that this movie inspires viewers to discover the actual history. It’s extremely interesting stuff. The gangs of the Five Points established the model for the alliance of Irishmen, Jews, and Italians who created the more commonly known mobs during the 1920’s and prohibition. A path was established between the Dead Rabbits, the Plug Uglies, the Bowery B’hoys that continues today with the Latin Kings, the Crips, and the Bloods. The true tale is a gruesome part of history, but an essential part none the less.
He is strongly advised by Paul to stay away from any kind of narcotics, in which Henry tells him that he wouldn’t dream of doing that. Henry continues to used his connections that he made in prison to sell drugs while out of jail. Next comes the most historic score in their careers, The Lufthansa Heist. A robbery that took place at John F. Kennedy Airport, where the total return was in excess of six million dollars. After the heist Jimmy specifically told everyone not to go out and buy anything that might attract unusual attention Multiple people went directly against what Jimmy said and went out and bought multiple expensive things. Another problem arises, when the driver of the van that was used to transport the stolen money, was suppose to be taken to a junkyard and instead the driver went to his girlfriend’s house and celebrated with her. The van was found by the police and was staring to connect the dots. As you could imagine, this upset Jimmy, and he takes extreme caution as the police are starting to close in. Jimmy made the only decision he could make to cut all ties from these people, so he has some of the people that were involved killed as a way to protect himself, by not giving them an option of testifying against him. During this time Tommy is told he is going to be “made”, or become a “made man”. As he walks into the room where he is supposed to be made, he is shot in the head
Gangster films have always operated on but rarely explored the paradox of mob life. Gangs are created in order to rebel from society and its institutions, yet they themselves act like micro-governments. Most films have illustrated these institutions through the depictions of their protagonists, like “Goodfellas” Henry Hill. Gomorrah, however, exists in this paradox; its multiple story lines act as a medium for depicting the structure of the mob in a different way. Gomorrah, unlike most gangster films, explores the hierarchy of the mob. How the establishment itself rather than the rebellion towards the establishment makes the gears of the mob keep turning.
Throughout time, society has come in contact with individuals who are praised due to their bravery, loyalty, strength and a tendency to go beyond the limit. One may call this individual a hero, and if asked to give some examples of heroism, one may pick the classical literary hero Beowulf. According to Roger B. Rolling, Beowulf is classified as a Type I hero who, “if superior in degree to other men but not to his natural environment, … is a leader. He has authority, passions, and powers of expression far greater than ours but is subject both to social criticism and to the order of nature” (434). Beowulf’s heroism is exemplified first when he kills Grendel, then when he kills Grendel’s mother, and finally when he kills the Dragon. Also, Beowulf
Although a fiction film, New Jack City details a chapter of New York’s development in which the city struggled to regain control over its dwindling economy and increase in extreme poverty and criminal behavior brought on by crack-cocaine. The poor economy encouraged a desperate scramble for money, and the rush for money, by any means, became the channel through which individuals sought to achieve the American Dream. Further, they planned to realize that dream in any way possible even if it meant making a profit from the very thing [Crack] that brought on their demise in the first
Also, the movie place the famous Five Points built on the site of the filled-in Collect Pond. In the film it was really low and damp area for the kind of tunnels that were depicted in the film. In the finale of the movie the scene inspired by the great draft riot of 1863, was a complete exaggeration of what really happened. The film showed explosives going off from every direction, especially coming from the boats that were on the dock. They completely bombarded the entire city leaving everything in dust and people not being able to even see their own hands. This is just the illusions that Hollywood wanted to portray to make everything seem much more believable and realistic. Along with exaggerating the explosives in the film, the neighborhood was also very exaggerated when it came to the violence and it being god awfully dangerous. In fact, it is said that other than public drunkenness and prostitution, there was not much more crime being committed in Five Points than in any other part of the city. As well as, the hanging of many people for no reason just to prove a point that some people are more superior than
In 1975 many tired troops finally came home from Vietnam, defeated. Their efforts did not end communism and left countless numbers of Americans and Vietnamese people dead. The United States weak strategies, the public’s anti-war attitude, and the Vietnamese’s opposition to the government the United States had set up all contributed to the United State’s defeat in Vietnam. The most tragic part about the Vietnam War was that it took about sixteen years to lose a war that from the beginning we were not going to win.
Chinatown builds upon the film noir tradition of exploiting expanding social taboos. Polanski added an entirely new dimension to classic film noir by linking up its darkness with the paranoid and depressed mood of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, thereby extending the noir sense of corruption beyond the mean urban streets and to high governmental and privileged economic places. Chinatown may be set in 1930’s L.A., but it embodies the 1970’s. The film stands as an indictment of both capitalism and patriarchy going out of control. It implies that we are powerless in the face of this evil corruption and abusive power that is capable of anything, including incest: one of the most horrible breaches of human decency and social morality imaginable.
The reasons for the Vietnam War took place long before the war even began. For years, the Vietnamese had been under French colonial rule. But, when Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh came back to Vietnam, he established a group called the Viet Minh, the goal of which was to remove all French occupation from Vietnam. So, the fighting started, and Ho Chi Minh tried to get the US to support them. But, being true to their policies of containment, the US started supporting France. The United States' thoughts about Communism's potential growth can be summed up in one basic idea: the Domino Theory. This theory stated that if one country in a region fell to Communism, the surrounding countries would soon follow. Because of this, the US committed to keeping the North Vietnamese contained once the French withdrew from Vietnam. But, the thing that really pushed the US into sending troops into Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. On August 2nd and 4th, 1964, the North Vietnamese fired upon two US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Following this, Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964, which gave the president authority to send military troops into Vietnam without declaring war. So, President Johnson sent troops into Vietnam, which had already erupted into civil war, to aid the South Vietnamese.
Clockers is a 1995 American crime drama film directed by Spike Lee. In a Brooklyn housing project, a group of street level drug dealers sell and distribute, working for a local drug lord. The film is an adapation of the 1992 novel by Richard Price, who helped in writing the screenplay with Lee. The “clockers” are low-level teenage drug dealers working in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Brooklyn (Clockers, 1995). The war on crack cocaine in the 1990’s was controlled by racial disparity. This den...
Throughout the epic of Beowulf the central theme of good versus evil (Paganism versus Catholicism), is surrounded by the idea of a “Germanic Hero”. When you think of a “hero” certain attributes may come to mind. Courage, strength, and loyalty may be a few. Through various phrases and inferences, the reader depicts that the author of Beowulf is trying to give life to the idea of a typical “Germanic Hero”. This is done through the character of Beowulf.
Throughout Bill and Stephen’s journey, they experience many mental difficulties and problems that leads to them giving up on their journey. Firstly, Katz is a destroyed man looking to shape himself through the hike. Katz was a drug addict and an alcoholic. Going on the hike means giving up all his bad habits and starting off the hike like new person. It is not easy, he always thinks about it and being away for it made him angry and grumpy most of the time. Eventually, Katz does break his promise, thus this effects their friendship greatly, as Bryson says “I was furious, livid - more furious than I had been about anything in years. I couldn’t believe he was drinking again. It seemed such a deep, foolish betrayal of everything - of himself, me, what we were doing out here” (251). This signifies how Katz had a bad mental breakdown when he took the break from the hike. He had to drink in order to calm down, which makes Bill furious, since he is attempting to make Katz a better man. Secondly, Bill’s starts to develop a fear of mental isolation. When Bill is walking through the claustrophobic forest he says, “personally, I would have been pleased to be waling now through hamlets and past farms rather than through some silent ‘protected corridor.’” (202), he explains that being trapped in a confined forest makes him feel isolated and he would rather be out in open spaces able to “breath”. Having Katz being a slow walker even made it worst for Bill. He had no one to talk to, no one laugh with, or discuss his problems with during his walk. This makes him miss home, he wanted his wife to love him and kids to play with. Lastly, Bill losing his stick made him extremely homesick, “that stick ... had become all but part of me. It was a link with my children, whom I missed more than I can tell you. I felt like weeping” (161). This shows how the stick was the
The film begins in Dublin Ireland in the year 1916, the setting was during the Easter uprising which was a rebellion that was started by a group of Irish nationalists against the British Government that was in Ireland. Within the first few minutes of the film, the leaders of the rebellion were taken by British troops and executed by firing squad. Michael Collins at this time was not in a leadership role and therefore was not as much of a threat. He was however imprisoned along with Harry Boland for their role and after a few months, were released in December. Eamon de Valera, who was one of the leaders and played a significant role in the film, was taken to jail and put into a holding cell awaiting his execution and then Michael Collins and Harry Boland, broke him out of jail. Historically, that did not happen. Valera was sent to jail but was not executed because he was born in America and was released approximately one year later...
Entrails torn from the body with bare hands, eyes gouged out with razor blades, battery cables, rats borrowing inside the human body, power drills to the face, cannibalism, credit cards, business cards, Dorsia, Testoni, Armani, Wall Street; all of these things are Patrick Bateman’s world. The only difference between Bateman and anybody else is what is repulsive to Bateman and what is repulsive to the rest of the world. Bateman has great interest in the upper class life, fashions, and social existence, but at the same time he is, at times, sickened by the constant struggle to be one up on everybody else. On the other hand Bateman’s nightlife reveals a side of him never seen during the day. Bateman is relaxed, impulsive, and confident while torturing and killing. He doesn’t have to worry about being better than anyone else. The only competition he has is his last victim. Torture and murder are the two true loves of Patrick Bateman.
The movie begins with distinguishing and giving each gang member a character profile. In the start they are shown to us as uneducated people who gambled and played with dice but were unable to count the dots. Only a failed teacher with the name Boston is ab...
Chinatown, a 1970s film, is inspired by the Southern California water history (Valle). This film has many elements of film noir. Film noir, is a point-of-view, tone, mood, and style of a film created during World War II. It reflects the tensions and insecurities of a particular time period, usually showing the loss of innocence, bareness, and the paranoia of an event (“Film”). The criminal and greedy perspectives of the characters are clearly seen, like the character Noah Cross, reflecting society’s evils. Also there is no happy ending in Chinatown. For those viewers who don’t know the history of Southern California, this might just be another detective film, but it is more than that, it has numerous themes that can be dissected. The film constructs racial, gender, and class identities.