与魔鬼共骑

《与魔鬼共骑》是我看李安电影里最无法 理解的，但直到我了解李安对于这部电影的想法后，我是有被吸引到的。 他以美国历史上南北战争中的战败方——南方人为切入点讲述，主要的人物还是在战争中比较尴尬的德国裔和黑奴，以多元化的角度描述战争带给人们的意义和思考。

他告诉我们战争爆发的两边人不是非黑即白的，就会有杰克这样的人，他实际上摇摆不定，左右不是，他本身还是善良不愿杀戮的，他还喜爱他后天居住的环境，他因为主人被北方人杀死，所以想和朋友为他报仇参加了南军，到后来其实是他朋友在主导着他，他也从男孩变成了男人，他自身还要融入那个杀人者的队伍，在群体中实现自我价值，而他本身是德国裔(支持北方的人)，这个尴尬的身份。

又有本是应该站在北方人那边的黑奴丹尼尔，他为了曾是他主人的朋友加入了南方的军队，而且根据史实记载南军中不乏黑人，

所以真实的战争里的两边人并不是我们传统认识到的那样，一边跟另一边为了各自的利益而战，然后正义且象征进步的那一方胜利了，可是谁又能看到那些在战争中挣扎的人呢，他们或许是为了在群体中实现自我价值，或许是为了仇恨，或许为了一个很好的朋友而"站错了边"，本身他们参加战争跟理念却无任何关系。

李安对于这个战争的思考却是与别人不同的，他尊重史实，且又把自己的思考加入了影片里面，他认为即使是战争中的南方人，也有人对未来具有前瞻性，预见那个新世界正在到来，他在影片中安排了一个忧郁的南方父亲角色，就在他遭逢丧子的巨变中，道出新世界来临的讯息。

而战争中的人们从来都没有对错之分，只有在战争后来临的新世界才最有意义。

后来的结局是黑奴丹尼尔和德国裔杰克俩人都得到了各自的自由，他们相互叫彼此的名字，相互尊重着，我想战争的意义便是在战争中人们比较快速的改变吧。

(还有我莫名的喜欢影片中那个阴柔的喜欢割人家头皮的恶人，他真是绝了，又美又狠挺适合耽美题材的角色呢☺)

《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.

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李安导演的这部电影，以美国南北战争为背景，剧情的细节，画面的细节都刻画的很好。双方交战之前的万籁俱寂，只有沙沙的树叶声;缴获的信件，是一位母亲对于生活琐事的交代，口吻平易的就像是全世界同款妈妈…一处处的细节都会让你泪目。 对于男主鲁德的身份，爸爸认为他是德国人，所以全力支持北方军，也想让儿子得到北方军的庇护，但是最后却死于北方军的枪下;男主一路跟随南方军，但是因为是德国人的身份，一直不被自己的南方军队友承认。所以战争当下，一点点小错误都会招来杀身之祸的情况下，复杂身份的人到底如何自处？ 随着战争接近尾声，一切都路归路尘归尘，就像鲁德说的那样:没有对错，就是这样。 所以不要去夸大战争，它只会给所有的人带来痛苦，不管一开始的初衷是什么？当然它会让你更珍惜亲情、友情和爱情。 最后一幕，丹尼尔霍特，杰克鲁德，就此别过，互道一声珍重！