Gangs of New York

Bill:
You see this knife? I'm gonna teach you to speak English with this f***ing knife.

Amsterdam Vallon:
Lord, place the steel of the Holy Spirit in my spine and the love of the Virgin Mary in my heart.

Boss Tweed:
The appearance of law must be upheld, especially when it's being broken.

Happy Jack:
I come for my due and proper.

Boss Tweed:
They don't speak English in New York anymore?

Bill:
He was the only man I ever killed worth remembering.

Bill:
How old are you, Amsterdam?

Amsterdam Vallon:
I'm not sure, sir. I never did quite figure it.

Bill:
I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how I stayed alive this long? Fear. Fearsome acts. A man steals from me, I cut off his hand. If he lies to me, I cut out his tongue. If he stands up against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike and lift it up for all to see. A spectacle of fearsome acts. That's what maintains the order of things. Fear.

Bill:
I'm going to paint paradise square with his blood. Two coats.

Bill:
Mulberry Street... and Worth... Cross and Orange... and Little Water. Each of the Five Points is a finger. When I close my hand it becomes a fist. And, if I wish, I can turn it against you.

Bill:
Thank God. I die a true American.

Priest Vallon:
No son, never. The blood stays on the blade. One day you'll understand.

Bill:
Here's the minority vote.

Bill:
At my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we are met at this chosen ground, to settle for good and all who holds sway over the five points: us natives, born rightwise to this fine land, or the foreign hordes defiling it.

Priest Vallon:
By the ancient laws of combat, I accept the challenge of the so called "natives." They plague our people at every turn, but from this day out, they shall plague us no more. For let it be known, that the hand that tries to strike us from this land shall be swiftly cut down.

Bill:
Is this it priest, the popes new army, a few crusty b*tches and a hand full of rag tags?

Priest Vallon:
Now, now, Bill, you swore this was a battle between warriors, not a bunch of miss nancies, so warriors is what I brought.

Amsterdam Vallon:
When you get all of the Irish together, we don't got a gang, we got an army.

McGloin:
What's a n*gger doing in the church?

Bill:
Hey, have you met Amsterdam? He almost fish-hooked McGloin.

Boss Tweed:
We're burying a lot of votes tonight.

Amsterdam Vallon:
It took sand to be a turtledove.

Bill:
Ears and noses will be the trophies of the day. But no hand shall touch him.

Amsterdam Vallon:
When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die.

Bill:
This is a night for Americans.

Bill:
Anything in your pockets?

Jenny:
I ain't started working yet.

Boss Tweed:
You know why he wears short sleeves? So they can see he's got nothing stashed. I hope that never becomes the fashion.

Bill:
Is this the Pope's new army?

Bill:
Burn him, see if his ashes turn green.

Bill:
I don't give a tupenny f*** about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed sh*t-sack.

Walter 'Monk' McGinn:
Well that was bloody Shakespearian. Do you know who Shakespeare is? He wrote the King James bible.

Amsterdam Vallon:
I give you my word, this all will be finished tomorrow.

Jenny:
No, it won't.

Boss Tweed:
Look, a boatful of Americans.

Bill:
What Americans? A bunch of filthy beasts. What do they do for America?

Boss Tweed:
They vote.

Bill:
They vote for who the Archbishop tells them to vote for. And the archbishop gets his orders from their king with his pointy hat, sitting in Rome.

Bill:
My father gave his life, making this country what it is. Murdered by the British with all of his men on the twenty fifth of July, Anno Domini, 1814. Do you think I'm going to help you befoul his legacy, by giving this country over to them, what's had no hand in the fighting for it? Why, because they come off a boat crawling with lice and begging you for soup.

Happy Jack:
I'm paid to uphold the law.

Bill:
What the hell are you talking about?

Boss Tweed:
Remember the first rule of politics. The ballots don't make the results, the counters make the results. The counters. Keep counting.

Amsterdam Vallon:
Is there anyone in the five points you haven't f***ed?

Jenny:
Yes. You.

Bill:
A real NATIVE is someone who is willing to die fighting for his country. There's nothing more to it.

Bill:
On the seventh day the Lord rested, but before that he did, he squatted over the side of England and what came out of him... was Ireland. No offence son.

Amsterdam Vallon:
Nah none taken sir, I grew up here, all I ever knew of Ireland was from the talk of the others at the orphan asylum.

Bill:
And which part of that excrementitious isle where your forebears spawned?

Amsterdam Vallon:
I've been told Kerry, I lost proof of it in my language at the asylum.

Bill:
Civilization is crumbling

Bill:
WOOPSY DAISY.

Amsterdam Vallon:
New York loved William Tweed... and hated him but for those of us trying to be thieves, we couldn't help but admire him.

Boss Tweed:
You may or may not know Bill that everyday I go down to the waterfront with hot soup for the Irish as they come ashore. Its part of building a political base.

Bill:
I've noticed you there, you may have noticed me.

Boss Tweed:
Indeed I have. Throwing torrents of abuse to every single person who steps off those boats.

Bill:
If only I had the guns Mr Tweed I'd shoot each and every one of them before they set foot on American soil.

Bill:
You. Whatever your name is... what is your name?

Amsterdam Vallon:
Amsterdam Sir.

Bill:
Amsterdam... I'm New York... don't you never come in here empty handed again, you gotta pay for the pleasure of my company.

Walter 'Monk' McGinn:
I've got forty-four notches on my club. Do you know what they're for? They're to remind me what I owe God when I die. My father was killed in battle too, in Ireland, in the streets, fighting those who would take as their privilege what could only be got and held by the decimation of a race. That war is a thousand years old and more. We never expected it to follow us here. It didn't. It was waiting for us when we landed. Your father tried to carve out a corner of this land for his tribe. That was him, that was his 'Dead Rabbits'. I often wondered, if he had lived a bit longer: would he have wanted a bit more?

Priest Vallon:
Prepare to meet the true lord.

Bill:
Don't mind him. He used to be an Irishman.

Bill:
It's Election Day.

Boss Tweed:
Sweet Jesus, war does terrible things to people.

Amsterdam Vallon:
Suppose you back an Irish candidate, of my choosin', and I'll deliver all the Irish vote?

Boss Tweed:
That will only happen in the reign of Queen Dick.

Boss Tweed:
That man was right born for this.

Amsterdam Vallon:
He's killed 44 men, and laid low a couple hundred more.

Boss Tweed:
Is that right? We should have run him for mayor.

Killoran:
Monk's already won by ten thousand more votes than there are voters.

Boss Tweed:
Only ten?

Killoran:
Monk's already won by three thousand more votes than there are voters.

Boss Tweed:
Only three? Make it twenty, thirty. We don't need a victory. We need a Roman triumph.

Jenny:
When I was twelve years old, my mother was dead, and I was livin' in a doorway. He took me in-took care of me, in his way. After they cut out the baby... well, he doesn't fancy girls that's scarred up. But you might as well know in your own mind that he never laid a hand on me until I asked him to.

Bill:
Take a dollar for the locket?

Bill:
Dollar and a half?

Miss Schermerhorn:
Is that man drunk?

Happy Jack:
Och, dead as Good Friday, miss.

Amsterdam Vallon:
...And no matter what they did to build this city up again, for the rest of time, it will be like no one even knew we was ever here.

Bill:
May the Christian Lord guide my hand against your Roman Popery!

Bill:
Everything you see belongs to me, to one degree or another. The beggars and newsboys and quick thieves here in Paradise, the sailor dives and gin mills and blind tigers on the waterfront, the anglers and amusers, the she-hes and the Chinks. Everybody owes, everybody pays. Because that's how you stand up against the rising of the tide.

Boss Tweed:
Bill, I can't get a days work done for all the good citizens coming in here to harass me about crime in the Points. Some even go so far as to accuse Tammany of connivance in this so-called rampant criminality. What am I to do? I can't have this. Something has to be done.

Bill:
What do you have in mind?

Boss Tweed:
I don't know. I think maybe we should hang someone.

Bill:
Who?

Boss Tweed:
No one important, necessarily. Average men will do, back alley amusers with no affiliations.

Bill:
How many?

Boss Tweed:
Three or four.

Bill:
Which?

Boss Tweed:
Four.

Boss Tweed:
That's the building of our country right there, Mr. Cutting. Americans aborning.

Bill:
I don't see no Americans. I see trespassers, Irish harps. Do a job for a nickel what a n*gger does for a dime and a white man used to get a quarter for. What have they done? Name one thing they've contributed.

Boss Tweed:
Votes.

Bill:
Votes, you say? They vote how the archbishop tells them, and who tells the archbishop? Their king in the pointy hat what sits on his throne in Rome.

Bill:
Well draw it mildly son. Happy Jack don't fill his lungs without I tell him he may do so.

Priest Vallon:
Now, son, who's that?

Young Amsterdam Vallon:
Saint Michael.

Priest Vallon:
Who's that?

Young Amsterdam Vallon:
St. Michael, the Archangel!

Priest Vallon:
And what did he do?

Young Amsterdam Vallon:
He cast Satan out of Paradise.

Priest Vallon:
Good boy!

Amsterdam Vallon:
Challenge.

Bill:
Challenge accepted.

Bill:
We hold in our hearts the memory of our fallen brothers whose blood stains the very streets we walk today. Also on this night we pay tribute to the leader of our enemies, an honorable man, who crossed over bravely, fighting for what he believed in. To defeat my enemy, I extinguish his life, and consume him as I consume these flames. In honor of Priest Vallon.

Bill:
Have cunny juices glued your lips together?

Boss Tweed:
You're a good one for the fighting, Bill. But you can't fight forever.

Bill:
I can go down doing it.

Boss Tweed:
And you will!

Bill:
What did you say?

Boss Tweed:
I said, you're turning your back on the future.

Bill:
Not our future.

Bill:
I killed the last honorable man, 15 years ago. Since then it's... You seen his portrait downstairs?

Amsterdam Vallon:
Mm-hmm.

Bill:
's your mouth all glued-up with cunny juice? I asked you a question!

Amsterdam Vallon:
I said I *seen* it, sir.

The Five Points. Paradise square! The streets here are always livelier in the evening.

Who are the gangs around now?

We got the Daybreak boys and the Swamp Angels. They work the river, looting ships. The Frog Haulers shanghai sailors down around the bay. Shortails were rough for awhile, but they became a bunch of jackrolling dandies. Lolling around Murderer's Alley looking like Chinamen. The Plug Uglies they're from somewhere in the old country. They got their own language. No one understands what they're saying. They love to fight the cops. And the Nightwalkers and Ratpickers. They work on their backs and kill with their hands. They're so scurvy, only the Plug Uglies will talk with them. But who knows what they're saying. The Slaughterhouses and the Broadway Twisters are a fine bunch of Bengal boys! And the little Forty Thieves.

Bill:
You. Whatever your name is... what is your name?

Amsterdam Vallon:
Amsterdam, sir.

Bill:
Amsterdam... I'm New York... don't you never come in here empty handed again, you gotta pay for the pleasure of my company.

Jenny:
[after running into Johnny] Look where you are going, Johnny!

[notices Amsterdam]

Jenny:
You look stunned and poorly, sir.

[both of the men are silent and nervous]

Jenny:
[sarcastic] Quite a pair of conversationists, aren't you.

Amsterdam Vallon:
Maybe not. We're deep thinkers.

Jenny:
[chuckles] Well then. Gentlemen, I leave you in the grace and favour of the Lord.

[walks off]

In the second year of the great civil war, when the Irish brigade marched through the streets, New York was a city full of tribes. War chiefs. Rich and poor. It wasn't a city, really. It was more of a furnace. Where a city some day might be forged.

Bill:
[Smirking] Is this it, Priest? The Pope's new army? A few crusty b*tches and a handful of rag-tags?

Priest Vallon:
Now, now, Bill--you swore this was a battle between warriors, not a bunch of Miss Nancies. So, warriors is what I brought.

[Vallon's Dead Rabbits are joined by a coalition of other gangs; the O'Connell Guard, the Plug Uglies, the Shirt Tails, the Chichesters, and the Forty Thieves; each gang's leader identify themselves as they arrive.]

O'Connell Guard leader:
The O'Connell Guard!

Plug Ugly leader:
The Plug Uglies!

Shirt Tail leader:
The Shirt Tails!

Chichester leader:
The Chichesters!

Forty Thieves leader:
The Forty Thieves!

Priest Vallon:
[after all the other gangs are gathered] Well, what do you think of us now, Bill? Together with the other five gangs, my new army matches the number with yours. What say you, brother?

Bill:
[Smiling] Uh-huh. Well, I guess we're even then. Let's get started then. [to his fellow natives] Bené? [Two Natives remove Bill's overcoat and top hat; Bill and the other Natives then arm themselves as the leader gives his pre-battle speech] On my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we are met at this chosen ground, to settle for good an' all who holds sway over the Five Points; us, Natives, born right-wise to this fine land, or the foreign hordes defiling it.

Natives:
Yeah!!!

Priest Vallon:
By the ancient laws of combat, I accept the challenge of the so-called "Natives"--you plague our people at every turn; but from this day out, you shall plague us no more, for let it be known that your hand that tries to strike us from this land shall be swiftly cut down.

Dead Rabbits and other gangs:
YEAH!!!

Bill:
Then may the Christian Lord guide my hand against your Roman popery.

Priest Vallon:
[Priest unsheathes his sword] Prepare to receive the true Lord!

[With a final cheer, the Natives and the other gangs charge at each other.]

Bill:
No, I don't never sleep too much. I have to sleep with one eye open, and I only got one eye, right? How old are you, Amsterdam?

Amsterdam:
I'm not sure, sir. I never did quite figure it.

Bill:
I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how come I stayed alive this long? Fear. A spectacle of fearsome acts. A man steals from me, I cut off his hands. If he offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises up against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike. Raise it up high so all on the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear. That one tonight, who was he? A nobody. A coward. What an ignominious end that would have been. I killed the last honorable man fifteen years ago. Since then, it's... You seen his portrait downstairs?

Amsterdam:
Mm-hmm.

Bill:
Is your mouth all glued up with cunny juice? I asked you a question.

Amsterdam:
[angrily] I said I seen it, sir.

Bill:
[smiles] Oh, you got a murderous rage in you, and I like it. It's life, boiling up inside of you. It's good. The Priest and me, we lived by the same principles. It was only faith divided us. He gave me this, you know. That was the finest beating I ever took. My face was pulp, my guts was pierced, and my ribs was all mashed up. And when he came to finish me, I couldn't look him in the eye. He spared me because he wanted me to live in shame. This was a great man. A great man. So I cut out the eye that looked away. Sent it to him wrapped in blue paper. I would have cut 'em both out if I could have fought him blind. Then I rose back up again with a full heart and buried him in his own blood.

Amsterdam:
[pause] Well done.

Bill:
He was the only man I ever killed worth remembering. I never had a son. Civilization is crumbling. [places a hand on Amsterdam's head] God bless you.

Bill:
I said no less than 15. - Is this fresh?

Amsterdam:
- Four hours most.

Bill:
Much obliged, gents.

Bill:
What's that word?

Amsterdam:
- It means body snatchers.

Bill:
- I didn't ask the meaning. I asked the word.

Amsterdam:
Ghoul.

Bill:
Ghoul? -That's a good word :)

Bill:
[after foiling Amsterdam's attempt to kill him] I want you all to meet the son of Priest Vallon. I took him under my wing and see how I'm repaid. He saved my life one day so he could kill me the next like a sneak thief, instead of fighting like a man. A base defiler, unworthy of a noble name. [pulls the knife out of Amsterdam's chest]

Amsterdam:
Oh, God! Jesus!

[Bill hits him in the face. Amsterdam falls to the floor and McGloin begins to search him for hidden weapons]

Bill:
That'll do, McGloin. Spread him out.

[Amsterdam is spread out on a table. Bill climbs on it with cleaver in his hand]

Bill:
This is fresh meat! You know what I mean? [drives a cleaver into the table] We need to tenderize this meat a bit. Alright, lets kiss goodnight to that pretty face of yours!

[Bill leans down and actually tries to kiss Amsterdam, who spits in his face. In response, Bill screams furiously and headbutts Amsterdam several times]

Jenny:
No!

Bill:
[stands up and grabs the cleaver] What'll it be then? Rib or chop? Loin or shank? [throws the cleaver up in the air; the cleaver is shown going up, and then falling, in slow motion, and eventually hits the table right next to Amsterdam's head]

Crowd:
The liver! The spleen! The kidney! The lung! The liver! The tongue! The heart! The heart!

Bill:
The heart? This boy has no heart.

Crowd:
Then kill him!

Bill:
He ain't earned a death! He ain't earned a death at my hands! He'll walk amongst you marked with shame. A freak! Worthy of Barnum's museum of wonders. God's only man, spared by the Butcher. [grabs a red-hot knife and burns a mark on Amsterdam's cheek]

Bill:
Tell me, this charge. Does it sit on easy with you?

Happy Jack:
No. Not uneasy , Bill. I wouldn't say that. But.....my allegiance is to the law. I'm paid to uphold the law.

[Bill lowers his head, lets out a sigh of frustration, makes a slow facepalm and then spreads his hands - all in theatrical manner - before finally answering]

Bill:
What in Heaven's name are you talking about? You may have misgivings, but don't go believing that, Jack. That way lies damnation.

Happy Jack:
I'm in no danger of damnation, Bill.

Bill:
Here's the thing. I don't give a tuppenny f*** about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed sh*t-sack. That's more or less the thing. And I want you to go out there... You, nobody else. None of your little minions. I want you to go out there. And... [feigns crying] I want you... to punish... the person... responsible [sobs loudly] for murdering this... poor little rabbit [sobs again, twice, then becomes serious] Is that understood?

Boss Tweed:
You killed an elected official?

Bill:
Who elected him?

Boss Tweed:
You don't know what you've done to yourself.

Bill:
[taps his glass eye with a knife] I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. You can build your filthy world without me. I took the father. Now I'll take the son. You tell young Vallon I'm gonna paint Paradise Square with his blood. Two coats! I'll festoon my bedchamber with his guts! As for you, Mr. Tammany-f***ing-Hall, you come down to the Points again, and you'll be dispatched by mine own hand. Get back to your celebration and let me eat in peace.

Amsterdam Vallon:
It's a funny feeling being taken under the wing of a dragon. It's warmer than you'd think.

Amsterdam Vallon:
You know there's more of us coming off those boats everyday? Some say 15,000 Irish a week! Get all of us together and we ain't got a gang, we got an army!

Amsterdam Vallon:
The past is a torch that lights our way. Where our fathers have shown us the path, we shall follow. Our faith is the weapon most feared by our enemies. For thereby shall we lift our people up against those who would destroy us.

Amsterdam Vallon:
Our name is called "The Dead Rabbits" to remind all of our suffering, and as a call to those who suffer still to join our ranks. However far they may have strayed from our common home across the sea. For with great numbers must come great strength in the salvation of our people.

Amsterdam Vallon:
In the end, they put candles on the bodies so's their friends, if they had any, could know them in the dark. The city did this free of charge. Shang, Jimmy Spoils, Hell-cat, McGloin, and more. Friend or foe, didn't make no difference now. It was four days and nights before the worst of the mob was finally put down. We never knew how many New Yorkers died that week before the city was finally delivered. My father told me we was all born of blood and tribulation, and so then too was our great city. But for those of us what lived and died in them furious days, it was like everything we knew was mildly swept away. And no matter what they did to build this city up again... for the rest of time... it would be like no one even knew we was ever here.

William "Bill The Butcher" Cutting:
[to Amsterdam] You get to know a lot butchering meat. We're made up of the same things - flesh and blood, tissue, organs. I love to work with pigs. The nearest thing in nature to the flesh of a man is the flesh of a pig...This is the liver. The kidneys. The heart. This is a wound—the stomach will bleed and bleed. [stabs the pig] This is a kill. [stabs the pig] This is a kill. Main artery. [stabs the pig] This is a kill.

William "Bill The Butcher" Cutting:
[to Boss Tweed] I don't see no Americans. I see trespassers, Irish harps. Do a job for a nickel what a n*gger does for a dime & what a white man used to get a quarter for.

William "Bill The Butcher" Cutting:
On the Seventh Day the Lord rested, but befores that he did, he took a squat over the side of England and what came out of him... was Ireland. [To Amsterdam] No offense son.

Walter 'Monk' Mcginn:
A glorious resurrection will spring from the depths... to which these miserable creatures have fallen. In God, they will find their true home.