Gangs of New York (2002)

Daniel Day-Lewis: Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting

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Quotes 

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : How old are you, Amsterdam?

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands. He offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up so all on the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : At my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we have met at this chosen ground, to settle for good and all who holds sway over the Five Points: us natives, born right wise to this fine land, or the foreign hordes defiling it.

  Native Gangs : Yeah.

  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.

  Irish Gangs : YEAH.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Then may the Christian Lord guide my hand, against your Roman popery.

  Priest Vallon : Prepare to receive the true Lord!

  [the enemy gangs rush into battle] 

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Here's the thing. I don't give a tuppenny fuck about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed shit-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 I want you to punish the person who's responsible for murdering this poor little rabbit. Is that understood?

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : You. Whatever your name is... what is your name?

  Amsterdam Vallon : Amsterdam, sir.

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

• Boss Tweed : You killed an elected official?

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Who elected him?

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : [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-fucking-Hall, you come down to the Points again, and you'll be dispatched by my own hand. Get back to your celebration and let me eat in peace.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : He was the only man I ever killed worth remembering.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : You see this knife? I'm gonna teach you to speak English with this fucking knife!

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : WOOPSY DAISY!

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Thank God. I die a true American.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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, 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 out out the eye that looked away, I sent it to him wrapped in blue paper. I would've cut them both out if I could have fought him blind. And I rose back up again with a full heart... and buried him in his own blood. He was the only man I ever killed worth remembering.

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

  Amsterdam Vallon : Mm-hmm.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : 'S your mouth all glued-up with cunny juice? I asked you a question!

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : [smiling]  Oh, you got a murderous rage in you! I like it. So much life boiling up in you. That's good!

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : You mother-whoring Irish nigger.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Is this it, Priest? The Pope's new army? A few crusty bitches and a handful of rag-tags?

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

  [more Irish gangs arrive] 

  O'Connell Guard Leader : The O'Connell Guard!

  Plug Uglies Leader : The Plug Uglies!

  Shirt Tails Leader : The Shirt Tails!

  Chichesters Leader : The Chichesters!

  Forty Thieves Leader : The Forty Thieves!

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Bene.

• 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : [gleefully]  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 'The Butcher' Cutting : Why don't you burn him, see if his ashes turn green.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : A *real* native is someone who is willing to die fighting for his country. There's nothing more to it.

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : I don't see no Americans. I see trespassers, Irish harps. Do a job for a nickel what a nigger 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : That, my friends, is the minority vote.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : He ain't earned a death! He ain't a death at my hands! No, 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.

• [as a man is about to be hung] 

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : That's a fine locket. I'll give you a dollar for it.

  Arthur : It was me mother's...

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Dollar and a half?

  Arthur : Done.

• 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : What do you have in mind?

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Who?

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : How many?

  Boss Tweed : Three or four.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Which?

  Boss Tweed : Four.

• Amsterdam Vallon : Challenge.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Challenge accepted.

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : I can go down doing it.

  Boss Tweed : And you will!

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : What did you say?

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Not our future.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : I took the father, now I'll take the son.

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

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : What in Heaven's name are you talking about?

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

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Now that you've had a taste of my mutton, how do you like it?

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : [to Amsterdam, while watching an African American man dancing an Irish jig on top of a table in a brothel]  Look at that. What in Christ's name is that? Rhythms of the Dark Continent thrown into the kettle with an Irish shindig. Stir it around a few times, pull it out, it's a fine American mess. A jig doing a jig.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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 offense 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : 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 'The Butcher' Cutting : [about Priest]  Ears and noses will be the trophies of the day. But no hand shall touch him. NO hand shall touch him! He'll cross over whole. With honor.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Hey, have you met Amsterdam? He almost fish-hooked McGloin.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Anything in your pockets?

  Jenny : I ain't started working yet.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Is this the Pope's new army?

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Don't mind him. He used to be an Irishman.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Alright, line 'm up. It's Election Day!

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Careful, Tweedy. The Mort's Frenchified.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Pistols?

  Amsterdam Vallon : No pistols.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Good boy.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : You get to know a lot by 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.

• Miss Schermerhorn : How do you do, Mr. Cutting?

  [extends her hand] 

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : As of this moment, extremely well. Thank you. How do you do?

  [leans down and smells her hand] 

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Orange blossoms. Delicious.

  Happy Jack : Mr. Cutting is...

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : [to Mr. Schermerhorn]  What a peach! You had a fine career on the stage.

  Happy Jack : ...one of the Five Points local...

  Mrs. Schermerhorn : Please to meet you, sir.

  Happy Jack : ...leaders.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Mr. Greeeley!

  Horace Greeley : Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cutting.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : The Five Points welcomes you to these streets and you shall pass in safety.

  Happy Jack : Oh, I'll see to their safety. Thank you, Bill. This way. Good day lads. Criminals who brag a dote show, you see.

  Horace Greeley : [walking away]  He knows who I am.

  Happy Jack : Oh, in deed sir. You're well known in these parts.

  Horace Greeley : I find that - strangely flattering.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : This is a night for Americans!

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : [after stabbing Priest]  Look to me! Who is this under my knife!

• Bill The Butcher : This is a day for America.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Civilization is crumbling

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Whose man are you?

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : That's the spirit boys. Go off and die for your blackie friends. We should have run a better man against Lincoln when we had the chance.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Priest Vallon died a noble death. But his Dead Rabbits is *done* and outlawed! Let no one even speak their name from this time on.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : These two are just a pair of bug eating sons of Irish bitches. Just like you.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : What's that word?

  Amsterdam Vallon : Eh, it means bodysnatchers.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : I didn't ask the meaning. I asked the word.

  Amsterdam Vallon : Ghoul.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Ghoul? That's a good word. "Ghoul Gang Slaughters: A Fresh Outrage in the Five Points." That's a notice you can be proud of.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : I like a man who's willing to burn for his swag.

• Amsterdam Vallon : What happens at the finish?

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Then we have ourselves a rowdydow! Ain't you never been to the theatre before?

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : Amsterdam. Amsterdam! New York is calling you.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : [walking through an opium den]  Rise and shine, rise and shine. In this great country of ours, even hop fiends get to vote.

• Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : And I pray that the Christian God guides my hand, against your Roman Pot-Pourri!

• Amsterdam Vallon : I'm Irish, I just lost the proof of it in my language, at the Asylum.

  Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting : ...I've been to such an establishment myself.