BEVERLY HILLS, Oct. 8, 1999 — It was about time Ang Lee took on the Civil War.
After films such as “Eat Drink Man Woman,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “The Ice Storm,” which explored love and family feuds, it seems only natural Lee would take on a national feud. This time he helms the war epic “Ride with the Devil,” opening Nov. 24 in New York and Los Angeles.
Lee, who was born and raised in Taiwan but studied theater and film in the States, drew initial acclaim for his Taiwan-based “Father Knows Best” trilogy: “Pushing Hands,” “The Wedding Banquet” and “Eat Drink Man Woman.” The latter two films received Best Foreign-Language Film nominations at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes in 1993 and 1994.
When the call came for his first U.S. project, 1995’s sisterly romance “Sense and Sensibility,” Lee says he was surprised at the material.
“They thought I could do Jane Austen,” Lee said with a chuckle. “There was Emma Thompson, so I couldn’t resist – [but] I was totally scared. My first time doing an English-language film and it’s Jane Austen.”
But the film was reviewed as one of the year’s best, racking up Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. Although Lee was denied a nod for Best Director, the film and stars Thompson and Kate Winslet were nominated, and Thompson took home a trophy for Best Adapted Screenplay. Says Lee, “I think after that I only wanted to do period pieces.”
His next U.S. film catapulted him to another period altogether, a middle-class American suburbia in the 1970s, for 1997’s “The Ice Storm,” a drama about family and sexual awakening. The film, starring Kevin
Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen and Christina Ricci, was critically lauded but virtually ignored at awards time, and Lee looked to his next project.
“I’m always looking forward to something bigger,” Lee said. “I think I pretty much said what I want to say about family drama. I think I won’t do family drama for at least a long while.”
“Ride with the Devil,” based on Daniel Woodrell’s 1987 novel “Woe to Live On,” bounces Lee to another place and time: the Kansas-Missouri border during the Civil War. A group of pro-Southern young men called Bushwhackers adds two new members, childhood friends Jake (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull (Skeet Ulrich). As the war rages on, the pair encounter enemies from the North and within their unit, and find love in the form of a young widow (pop singer Jewel).
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The film is less an epic about war than a character study about outsiders changed by war. For the lead roles, the studios were pursuing Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, but Lee, who worked with Maguire in “The Ice Storm,” knew he was the one for the character of Jake when he read the book.
“I can never get tired of watching this guy,” Lee said of Maguire. “People say the lead character sometimes is the director himself. I found he has a lot of myself: passive, observant — which is hard to make into a leading man. You can watch him change in situation, be observant and you fall for him. And he has a demeanor that looks very believable. Most actors I work with don’t necessarily believe in the part that they play. But he does – with his whole body. I think he’s a director’s dream.”
Another character who required precise casting was Holt, a loyal former slave of a Bushwhacker who becomes Jake’s friend and confidant but doesn’t speak for the first half of the film.
“When I read the book, that character was the first one that caught my attention, that I identify with,” Lee said. “For years I was a foreigner here … There’s this thing about liberation and emancipation, but what moves me so much [was] his self awareness … self emancipation. The story is not really about the Civil War. The subtext is about civil rights, so that coming-of-age story really moves me.”
Jeffrey Wright (“Basquiat“) was the first actor Lee auditioned for the role of Holt, and the director said he stuck in his mind.
“I liked his eyes – I think his eyes captured me,” Lee said. “You think what is he thinking. I think they had a beautiful quality [he had a ] beautiful voice. Plus, he’s a good actor.”
Lee is currently shooting “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” an action film set in 19th-century China, another new direction for him.
“Doing a martial-arts film [is] something I always wanted to do. I don’t want to be pigeonholed; I want to grow as a filmmaker,” Lee said. “To me, this whole career is like a big film school … And this time I do a connection to the previous film, like relationship or social obligation vs. personal freedom and changing times. Just taking bigger strides.”
