In 1999 Scorsese also produced a documentary on Italian filmmakers entitled
Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, also known as
My Voyage to Italy. The documentary foreshadowed the director's next project, the epic
Gangs of New York (2002), influenced by (amongst many others) major Italian directors such as
Luchino Visconti and filmed in its entirety at
Rome's famous
Cinecittà film studios.
With a production budget said to be in excess of $100 million,
Gangs of New York was Scorsese's biggest and arguably most mainstream venture to date. Like
The Age of Innocence, it was a 19th century-set New York movie, although focusing on the other end of the social scale (and like that film, also starring
Daniel Day-Lewis). The production was highly troubled with many rumors referring to the director’s conflict with
Miramax boss
Harvey Weinstein. Despite denials of artistic compromise,
Gangs of New York revealed itself to be the director's most conventional film: standard film tropes which the director had traditionally avoided, such as characters existing purely for
exposition purposes and explanatory
flashbacks, here surfaced in abundance. The original score composed by regular Scorsese collaborator
Elmer Bernstein was rejected at a late stage for a more conventional score by
Howard Shore and mainstream rock artists
U2 and Peter Gabriel (making commercial, if little historic or contextual sense). The final cut of the movie ran to 168 minutes, while the director's original cut was over three hours in length.
Nonetheless, the themes central to the film were consistent with the director's established concerns: New York, violence as culturally endemic, and sub-cultural divisions down ethnic lines.
Originally filmed for a release in the winter of 2001 (to qualify for
Academy Award nominations), Scorsese delayed the final production of the film until after the beginning of 2002; the studio consequently delayed the film for nearly a year until its release in the Oscar season of late 2002.
Gangs of New York earned Scorsese his first Golden Globe for Best Director. In February of
2003,
Gangs of New York received ten
Academy Award nominations, including
Best Picture,
Best Director, and
Best Actor for
Daniel Day-Lewis. This was Scorsese's fourth Best Director nomination, and many thought it was finally his year to win. Ultimately, however, the film took home not a single Academy Award, and Scorsese lost his category to
Roman Polanski for
The Pianist.
2003 also saw the release of
The Blues, an expansive seven part documentary tracing the history of blues music from its African roots to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. Seven film-makers including
Wim Wenders,
Clint Eastwood,
Mike Figgis, and Scorsese himself each contributed a 90 minute film (Scorsese's entry was entitled “Feel Like Going Home”).
Scorsese also had uncredited involvement as executive director with the 2002 film
Deuces Wild, written Paul Kimatian.