Ride with the Devil

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Movie
German title Ride with the Devil
Original title Ride with the Devil
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1999
length 138 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 14
Rod
Director Ang Lee
script Daniel Woodrell
James Schamus
production James Schamus
Ted Hope
Robert F. Colesberry
music Mychael Danna
camera Frederick Elmes
cut Tim Squyres
occupation

Ride with the Devil (Alternate title: Who rides with the devil and the devil Reiter ) is an American film by director Ang Lee in 1999. He tells the fate of two Bushwhackers in the American Civil War .

action

In 1862 a war raged in the border region between Kansas and Missouri between former citizens and peasants who have formed irregular troops. This war is taking place between the Jayhawkers , who support the North , and the Bushwhackers, who feel they belong to the Southern States , far from the battlefields chosen by the Union and the Confederates .

Jake Roedel, son of a German immigrant, and Jack Bull Chiles, son of a wealthy plantation owner, have been friends since childhood. Jake has to live with the distrust of the southerners sympathizers, as the Germans are known to be predominantly unionists. Although Jake's father sympathizes with the Union, the relationship between the two remains untroubled. After Jayhawkers kills Jack Bull's father, they both move out to join the Bushwhackers.

They are joined by the southern aristocrat George Clyde and a slave he has ransomed, the silent Daniel Holt. George entrusts his life to Holt, who knows how to handle the percussion revolvers very well .

You successfully take part in the first fighting against the Union troops and take some Union soldiers prisoner. In one of them, Jake recognizes a local guy. Since the Bushwhackers want to demand a ransom for the prisoners, they decide to send Jake's friend as a courier with the demands. Jake later learns that this friend is responsible for his father's death: he rode straight back into the village, denounced Jake and shot his father.

As winter falls, the guerrilla force splits up. In the winter quarters of the four men, Jack Bull meets the young war widow Sue Lee Shelley and falls in love with her. Intimacy ensues and Sue Lee becomes pregnant by Jack Bull. When Union troops attack Sue Lee's in-laws' farm, the four Bushwhackers pursue the cavalry unit . Jack Bull is seriously injured in the battle. When he got more and more wounded, Jake and Holt reluctantly decide to amputate his arm, which Jack Bull does not survive. The farming family then decides to go to Texas . Jake brings Sue Lee to a friend's farm far south.

In the spring, the men go back to battle, now joining William Quantrill's irregular troops . This moves towards Lawrence in Kansas to avenge the deaths of southerners who died in a Union prison after a mob had brought down the building. So Jake, George and Holt take part in the Lawrence massacre . All men in the city are rounded up and murdered by the rebels, as is the case with every colored person in the city. Holt is also attacked by some men, but can be protected by Jake and George. The four go to a restaurant to avoid further killing. They dine extensively there with other men of the guerrilla force, but then there is a confrontation with his comrade Pitt Mackeson, who storms the restaurant with some men and wants to murder the owner. Jake and the others stop Pitt at gunpoint. A word duel ensues in which Pitt threatens Jake with murder.

There is one last major battle: the Bushwhackers fail to fend off a cavalry attack by Union troops, the group is wiped out, George is killed and Jake is shot from behind by Pitt - but only slightly wounded in the leg. The guerrillas disperse, Jake and Holt ride to the farm in the south where they dropped Sue Lee. In the meantime she gave birth to Jack Bull's child.

Jake heals his wound, and slowly love develops between him and Sue Lee, which both try to cover up at first. Finally, the farmer brings a reverend to the farm who trusts them.

After Jake's leg has completely healed, he decides to leave for California with Sue Lee to establish a common existence there. Daniel Holt wants to accompany the two to the Great Plains . On the way there there is another confrontation between Jake and Pitt, who happen to run into each other. Pitt says that the majority of the troops were hanged in Dover, Kansas - and that he wants to go back to his hometown, although he knows that the same fate will meet him there. Without ending the argument, the two part ways once and for all. Arriving on the Great Plains, Jake and Daniel Holt parted ways - Holt sets off for Texas, assuming that his family has been sold there and that he wants to free them.

criticism

"The film is visually stunning and historically provocative, but the dramaturgy doesn't keep up."

“The Taiwanese director Ang Lee takes on the subject of the so-called Bushwhackers, whereby he is less interested in the external battle scene than he is concerned with the development of characters and conflicts. A broad-based, more thoughtful than action-loving film about a still not fully explored chapter of American history that requires patience and empathy. "

Awards

The film won the Harry Award for historical films in 2000 .

The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review of the film in the New York Times
  2. ^ Ride with the Devil. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used