08/05/10
Directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, etc.), edited by Tim Squyres (Gosford Park, Rachel Getting Married, Crouching Tiger, etc.), shot by Frederick Elmes (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Night On Earth, Broken Flowers, etc.), produced by Ted Hope (too many cool movies to name), starring loads of great people and based on Daniel Woodrell’s novel, 1999’s Civil War epic Ride With the Devil is, in a way, one of the more interesting films of the last 20 years. Here’s why …
Lee, who has made some major classics in his still-young career, has also made some smaller films. Smaller, such as Lust, Caution, The Ice Storm and The Wedding Banquet, but none so small as Ride With the Devil, a film that only played on eight US screens for a total of three days - less than 120 total US showings. The difference between the small productions of Lust, Ice and Banquet and that of Devil is that Devil cost a whole lot to make. It cost as much as many of the summer blockbusters coming out around the same time.
To put all that into perspective, this huge Hollywood production - mind you, that featured the work of so many great artists - was seen by less than 80,000 people in the US when it came out in late 1999. That’s about the number of tickets that sell every three hours for the current No. 1 film, Inception. Also, aside from a small spike when Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man film came out (both films star Tobey Maguire), the Devil DVD has never sold or rented remotely well. So, in short, Devil is a one-of-a-kind major production in that it’s beloved by critics and industry types, yet almost no one else has seen it. Some film buffs even consider it to be the best civil war film ever made.
There were no billboards or ads promoting Ride With the Devil. Maguire and Lee didn’t go on talk shows and newspaper’s didn’t run Roger Ebert’s review of the film. No soundtrack, no cross-marketing, no nothing. There are six theories often discussed when talking about why, after completion, Devil saw the studio treatment it did: 1) Matt Damon was originally signed on to star, but dropped out after the film had already gone into pre-production; 2) director Ang Lee was not given final cut of the film; 3) the studio heads simply thought the movie was awful; 4) the film tested poorly in the UK (only partially true); 5) a whole lot of loudmouth history buffs made public issue of a few inaccurate details; and 6) people hated the idea of a true-to-life sub-plot featuring a black man, John Noland, who joins the Confederate Army.
So no, people did not seen this movie, but they might now. The Criterion Collection just released what they’re calling the “definitive cut” of the film on both DVD and Blu-ray. The difference? Well, for starters, many of those original problems are no longer relevant. The main issue, the editing, has been fixed, Lee re-cutting the entire film in late 2009 on his own dime. So now, after 10 years, it’s here, the much discussed yet little-seen Civil War epic from Ang Lee, out on shelves just waiting for your cinephile hearts.
What do we at the ScreenTime offices think of the movie? Well, it’s fantastic. Of course it’s fantastic. Or, should we say, pretty much anything cinematographer Frederick Elmes photographs is worth feasting your eyes on. He’s one of the best working today, topped only by Christopher Doyle, Roger Deakins, Robert Richardson, Janusz Kaminski, Bruno Delbonnel, Vilmos Zsigmond, John Toll and a very few others. So yes, Ride With the Devil is a beautiful movie to look at … in fact, as is the case with every Ang Lee film, all of the technical elements are handled incredibly well.
The cast? Well, Maguire shares the lead duties with Skeet Ulrich and the great Jeffrey Wright. If that’s not enough, check out this list of supporting actors: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers; Mark Ruffalo; Tom Wilkinson; Simon Baker; James Urbaniak; Jim Caviezel; Jonathan Brandis and even the super underrated Margo Martindale. We were sold at Ruffalo, Wright and Wilkinson, though Urbaniak and Rhys-Meyers are great as well.
So is Devil the best Civil War film ever? Meh. Nah, we can’t agree with that, though we would agree that it‘s likely the best made Civil War film ever. As far as the best all around Civil War picturs, go, we’d probably go with either Edward Zwick’s Glory, John Huston’s The Red Badge of Courage or even Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain. Lee’s final cut is a fine one, sadly though, ScreenTime can’t quite give this movie the classic rating so many seem ready to give it. The cinematography and coloring are amazing. Amazing. But the storytelling and direction is too often forgettable for such high accolades. As great as the movie is, I get the feeling that, at times, Lee found the script tedious.
So how then, you ask, did Ride With the Devil make the prestigious Criterion Collection cut? Well, from what we gather, similar to when they did releases for The Rock and RoboCop, the folks at Criterion added Devil to their collection because, technically speaking, it’s that well made. It’s the kind of movie that any future Civil War film projects will have to consider before going into production. Is it the kind of movie you’ll watch over and over again? No, in fact, unless you’re as in love with the cinematography as I am, you might even struggle to finish it the first time. 8/10
Written by G. William Locke