‘Gangs Of New York’, world-building
Constructing and inhabiting narrative worlds, in films and games
Ed. This piece was originally published at cityofsound.com on 7 January 2003.
“Imaginative and wholly unbelievable, seems too big for any screen it could possibly be projected onto; it spills and sprawls off the margins, and you can imagine whole panoramic worlds outside the frame, worlds in which extras hired at union wages walk down cobbled streets, pick some pockets, toss back a few drinks — invisible symbols of the movie’s commitment to absolute authenticity. But at some point you have to stop building a world and start telling a story, and in Gangs of New York, Scorsese is so distracted and dazzled by his homemade universe he just can’t seem to hunker down.”—Gangs Of New York, in Salon
Well, why would he? He’s happier “building a world”, and to be honest, I’d be quite happy to pay a fiver just to experience the version of New York that Scorcese et al created. Here, I couldn’t give a fig about narrative, characterisation etc. I’d go and pay to sweep a virtual camera around the painstakingly envisioned sets, swooping in and out of the bustling 1850s street scenes, pulling back to count the ships jostling in a Hudson teeming with steel-hulled traffic, panning across into The Five Points …
