《与魔鬼共骑》是我记忆中第一部不做事后诸葛亮的美国南北战争电影。影片中的人物似乎很奇怪：他们不知道北方最终会赢得战争，却也不怎么在乎。有一种说法是，所有的政治都是局部的，本片则认为一些战争也是局部的。故事发生在密苏里州——唯一支持邦联政府的奴隶州，主人公是一小群游击队员，其中包括一位黑人，他们为南方而战，却各怀心思。
本片由李安执导，一位出生于台湾，并于伊利诺伊州进修的天才导演（《理智与情感》，《冰风暴》），他以一个局外人的角度洞悉了美国内战的本质。基于丹尼尔·伍德里尔的历史小说，《与魔鬼共骑》的故事以密苏里州西南地区为中心。当地的游击队发动了一场反抗邦联军队（也称唳鹰）的游击战。这基本上就是一场关于邻里私仇的局部战争，而与意识形态无关。
故事的着眼点主要在于四个游击队员身上：Jake Roedel（托比·马奎尔），Jack Bull Chiles（斯基特·乌尔里奇），George Clyde（唐·山克斯）以及被解放的黑奴Daniel Holt（杰弗里·怀特）。影片以一桩农场婚礼作为开始，四人皆出席。后来农场被唳鹰突袭，其主人被杀害，四人目睹了整个过程。
Roedel and Chiles想要复仇。Clyde是南方人，一直信奉南方的传统价值观，却以各种复杂的理由给了Holt自由身。Holt的动机是最令人费解的，为什么一个曾经是奴隶的黑人会为南方而战？他表示，这是出于对Clyde的个人忠诚，因为后者解放了他，并说“我每天都信任他。”也可能是因为和同伴的友谊。但是Holt对此所言甚少，只有他的眼睛，似乎对所见所闻做着无声的评价。整部影片我们都在期待，期待他能吐露内心最深处的想法。
历史是由胜利者书写的。而南方也有自己的历史记录者，但是在本片之前，我还从来没有见过这样的内战故事：着眼于当地个人的感受，着眼于自己也说不清的个人动机，哪怕他们本质上是一群年轻人，只不过被迫拿起武器在自己的家园战斗。某种程度上而言，他们仅仅是在练习自我防卫。影片显然对他们的个性更感兴趣，而不是他们的冒险活动——却也没有明确指出他们的行为动机。角色们并不真正了解自己的情感，却要表现出与之相应的行为，没有什么比这更难的了。
影片显得缓慢而从容——或许太慢了些。它以神秘主角的亮相作为开始，然后让他们把大部分时间花在山上的藏匿点（他们从来没有想到过，如果他们把木头间的缝隙堵上，屋内可能会暖和些）。他们进行了大段的对话，却更像是说教而非日常交谈。
他们的藏匿点处在一户密苏里人家的土地上，后者支持的是邦联政府。不久，Chiles爱上了村里的寡妇Sue Lee（珠儿）。出于影片艺术性的考量，故事没有拘于传统的爱情片套路，而是安排绝望的Chiles和Sue Lee逃离不堪忍受的局面。影片颇有一些残酷的段落，诸如累累的伤口，截肢以及绝望的武装袭击……
参与本片的演职人员是第一流的。Frederick Elmes（摄影师，代表作有《冰风暴》）的镜头擅于表现寒冷和潮湿。演员们很好的融入于他们的角色之中——没有暴露作为一个现代人的全知神态。杰弗里·怀特（《轻狂岁月》主演）饰演的黑奴别有一番魅力，他始终守口如瓶，从不标榜自己。珠儿值得夸赞，很简单，因为她那令人信服而不做作的表演方式。在此，她是一位真正的演员，而不是一个尝试新爱好的流行歌手。乌尔里奇也很好，尽管托比·马奎尔的音调——紧张，内向，克制——开始让我有点烦了，尤其是在随后的那部《苹果酒屋法则》里，我觉得是时候让他去演一个哑巴少年了（不是我想看到它，而是为了清除蜘蛛网）。
看得出来，李安和他的老搭档詹姆斯·夏慕斯试图寻找某种严肃的东西。《与魔鬼共骑》没有获得传统电影奖项的认可，没有简化复杂的局面，也没有向商业妥协。但遗憾的是，它并不是一部非常有趣的电影。它是一场漫长的煎熬，除非你能发现它暗藏的玄机。它是那种能在历史课上激起有益讨论的电影，但是对普通的电影观众而言，它是沉闷而冷峻的。
原文：
"Ride With the Devil" is the first Civil War film I can recall that is not told with the benefit of hindsight. It's about characters who don't know the North will win--and sometimes don't much seem to care. It's said that all politics are local; this movie argues that some wars are local, too. In Missouri, the only slave-holding state that sided with the Union, it tells the story of a small group of guerrillas with such complex personal motives that it even includes a black man who fights for the South.
The film has been made by Ang Lee, the gifted Taiwan-born, Illinois-educated director ("Sense And Sensibility," "The Ice Storm") who is able to see the Civil War from the outside. Based on a historical novel by Daniel Woodrell, the story of "Ride With the Devil" centers on southwestern Missouri, where the Missouri Irregulars, known as Bushwhackers, waged a hit-and-run fight against the Union troops, called Jayhawkers. This is basically a local war among neighbors with personal animosities and little interest in the war's ideological underpinnings.
We follow four Bushwhackers in particular: Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire), Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich), George Clyde (Simon Baker-Denny) and the freed black slave Daniel Holt (Jeffrey Wright). The film opens with a farm wedding they attend; later they see the farm burned and its owners murdered in a Jayhawker raid.
Roedel and Chiles want revenge. Clyde, a Southerner, believes in Dixie values and traditions, but is complex enough to have freed Holt, once his slave. Holt's motives are the most impenetrable. Why would a former slave fight for the South? He indicates it is out of personal loyalty to Clyde, who freed him and says he "trusts him with my life every day." Also perhaps because of a bond with his comrades. But Holt says little and his eyes often make a silent commentary on what he sees and hears; we wait through the film for a revelation of his deepest feelings.
History, it is said, is written by the victors. The Southern side has had its share of historians, too, but before this movie I had not seen a Civil War story about characters whose feelings are local and personal, whose motives were unclear even to themselves, who were essentially young men with guns forced to fight by the time and place they lived in. To some degree, they are only practicing self-defense. The movie is more interested in their personalities than their adventures--but not so interested that it makes their motives very clear. There is nothing quite so baffling as a character who acts from psychological reasons but possesses little insight into those buried feelings.
The movie is slow and deliberate--too slow. It begins with the enigma of heroes whose cause we do not share, and then has them spend much of their time hunched inside a hideout they have built into a hillside (where it never occurs to them that if they'd fill the chinks between the logs it might be warmer inside). They have long conversations, delivered in language that seems more suited to sermons and editorials than to everyday speech.
Their hideout is on the land of a Missouri family who supports the Confederacy, and soon Chiles is falling in love with Sue Lee (Jewel), a war widow. To give the film credit, it doesn't degenerate into a conventional romance, but plays both Chiles and Sue Lee as desperate in their own ways for an escape from an intolerable situation. There are also grim passages involving wounds, amputations and desperate armed raids.
The technical and acting credits are first rate. Frederick Elmes, who also shot "The Ice Storm," has an uncanny ability to evoke cold and damp. The actors do a good job of being contained by their characters--by not letting modern insights peek through. Jeffrey Wright, who starred in "Basquiat," is especially intriguing as the freed slave, who keeps his own counsel throughout the movie without sending out signals about what he's doing. Jewel deserves praise for, quite simply, performing her character in a convincing and unmannered way. She is an actress here, not a pop star trying out a new hobby. Ulrich is good, too, although Tobey Maguire's tone--tight, inward, controlled--is beginning to wear on me after this and "The Cider House Rules." It's time for him to make a dumb teenage comedy (not because I want to see it, but more to clear the cobwebs).
Watching the film, I could see that Ang Lee and his frequent collaborator, screenwriter James Schamus, were in search of something serious. "Ride With the Devil" does not have conventional rewards or payoffs, does not simplify a complex situation, doesn't punch up the action or the romance simply to entertain. But it is, sad to say, not a very entertaining movie; it's a long slog unless you're fascinated by the undercurrents. It's a film that would inspire useful discussion in a history class, but for ordinary moviegoers, it's slow and forbidding.
微信公众号：肃评
正片
