Ang Lee Braves New Territory

TORONTO — Audiences and critics think nothing of an American director making a movie about any subject under the sun, but for some reason everyone is breathless when a foreigner does likewise. Case in point: Taiwanese director Ang Lee, whose Civil War film, “Ride With the Devil,” makes its debut at the film festival here.

Lee’s producing partner, James Schamus, says: “Every time we go to one of these [interviews], I start by turning to Ang and going, ‘Ang Lee, you’re a yellow Asian guy. How is it possible that you can make movies about white people?’ When people ask me that, I say, ‘Because he’s really good at what he does.’ ”

“Ride With the Devil” is the director’s latest exercise in cross-cultural filmmaking. It’s the story of a first-generation German immigrant (Tobey Maguire) who sides with the Confederacy during the Civil War and joins a band of irregulars known as Bushwhackers. Between skirmishes, he befriends a black Confederate guerrilla (Jeffrey Wright) and a comely widow / single mom (singing star Jewel, in her feature debut), causing him to reassess what the war is all about. He realizes he’s fighting for a society in which there is no room for people like him--much less a single mom or a black soldier.

Venturing into new territory has become a trademark of Lee’s career. In 1995’s “Sense and Sensibility,” he dramatized Jane Austen’s tale of class, money and marriage in 19th century England. In 1997’s “The Ice Storm,” from the novel by Rick Moody, he plunged into a small New England community in the early ‘70s whose values are upended by the sexual revolution.

Far-Ranging Films Share Underlying Theme

As different as these films are, what they have in common is a preoccupation with social structure, a subject Lee, who comes from a traditional society that has been under assault by Western--and particularly American--values, obviously relates to. In fact, it is the Americanization of everything that attracted Lee to “Ride With the Devil,” which is based on the novel “Woe to Live On,” by Daniel Woodrell; the film is scheduled to open in Los Angeles on Nov. 24. Lee feels that ideas of equality, tolerance and industry began their inexorable march outward with the American Civil War.

“I grew up with it, and I see more and more of it happening as I go around the world,” Lee says. “As I read the material, it looks like that [the Civil War] is where it begins. The [Southern] characters are speaking the same words as my parents. . . . You lose some of your culture. How do you cope with it? Your head is going one direction, you heart still remains in the other. It’s very universal.”

Lee is an expert at cultural dislocation. Although raised in Taiwan, he has lived in America for more than 20 years, attending the University of Illinois and New York University, where he received a master’s in film production. After graduation, he languished for half a dozen years without getting any films made before hooking up with Schamus and his company, Good Machine, which subsequently produced all of his films, starting with what Lee calls his “father knows best trilogy”: “Pushing Hands,” “The Wedding Banquet” and “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.”

Lee, 44, and Schamus, 40, make an amusing, complimentary pair. Whereas Lee speaks haltingly and doesn’t call attention to himself, Schamus is loquacious and professorial (he teaches at Columbia University), wearing little round glasses and a bow tie. In addition to producing all of the director’s movies, Schamus has written a number of them (“The Ice Storm,” “Ride With the Devil,” parts of “The Wedding Banquet”).

“I get addicted to his writing because it’s unlike the scripts sent my way,” Lee says. “They [Hollywood scripts] are built like battleships, unsinkable. There isn’t room for the filmmaker to do his own thing.”

For his part, Schamus says that he marvels at the director’s ability to get people to do what he wants. Crews love him, though he pushes them to a degree that’s surprising in someone so soft-spoken and seemingly recessive. With Lee, actors and crew are willing to put up with a lot.

“That’s a real mystery to me,” Schamus admits. “I think it has something to do with the accent, or I don’t know what. The [expletive] this guy can say and have actors just laugh and not storm off to their trailers screaming, it’s unbelievable.”

“English orders skill is not my thing. I just spill out straight,” Lee says coyly in his sometimes aphoristic English. “I guess most directors don’t do that. Apparently, sometimes it could be rude, but I’m a nice guy. They [the actors] flinch at times.”

When he wants to, Lee can make himself clearly understood. But as Schamus dryly remarks, “Ang has a remarkable ability to not understand English when you’re talking about the budget.”

Lee Found a Jewel in the Rough

An obvious candidate for Lee’s directorial skills was the pop singer--and part-time poet--Jewel, whose appearance in “Ride With the Devil” was regarded with a lot of skepticism. But what appealed to Lee about her was “that sexual power, the intelligence,” and a month of what he calls “observation”--acting lessons and screen tests that convinced Lee she could do the job. (Early reviews of the film have praised her performance.)

More problematic for Lee was the lead, Maguire, whom he’d used in “The Ice Storm.” The difficulty was not his acting--Schamus had Maguire in mind for the part when he wrote it--but the fact that he’s not yet a star. The one bankable element they did have, Matt Damon, who was to play Maguire’s best friend, jumped ship to appear in the upcoming Anthony Minghella film “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” (Damon was replaced by Skeet Ulrich.) The project then got bounced from 20th Century Fox and ended up at USA Films; though the film has an epic feel, the budget is relatively low, between $20 million and $25 million.

Lee’s next project is a romantic samurai film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which he describes as “ ‘Sense and Sensibility’ meets a martial arts movie.” It stars Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh and is currently shooting in China.