MovieChat Forums > Ride with the Devil (1999) Discussion > Brilliant, insightful Dialog

Brilliant, insightful Dialog

posted 21 years ago by Ashlynn
24 replies | jump to latest

The protracted quote below captures both the current "American Yankee spirit" and, I believe, some of the truest dialog ever written for the silver screen!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Evans: You ever been to Lawrence KS young man?

Jack Bull Chiles: [scoffs] No, I reckon not Mr. Evans. I don't believe I'd be too welcome in Lawrence.

Mr. Evans: I didn't think so. Before this war began, my business took me there often. As I saw those northerners build that town, I witnessed the seeds of our destruction being sown.

Jack Bull Chiles: The foundin' of that town was truly the beginnin' of the Yankee invasion.

Mr. Evans: I'm not speakin' of numbers, nor even abolitionist trouble makin'. It was the schoolhouse. Before they built their church, even, they built that schoolhouse. And they let in every tailor's son... and every farmer's daughter in that country.

Jack Bull Chiles: Spellin' won't help you hold a plow any firmer. Or a gun either.

Mr. Evans: No, it won't Mr. Chiles. But my point is merely that they rounded every pup up into that schoolhouse because they fancied that everyone should think and talk the same free-thinkin' way they do with no regard to station, custom, propriety. And that is why they will win. Because they believe everyone should live and think just like them. And we shall lose because we don't care one way or another how they live. We just worry about ourselves.

Jack Bull Chiles: Are you sayin', sir, that we fight for nothin'?

Mr. Evans: Far from it, Mr. Chiles. You fight for everything that we ever had, as did my son. It's just that... we don't have it anymore.

[–] Brainpiercing 21 years ago

The Dialogue is insightful, but it just shows the deludedness of the southern spirit, to me, and the movie generally tends to support this. (I'm German, so I won't take part in any north/south bickering.)

[–] dbc1951 20 years ago

.........we natives of Lawrence have a decidely different take on the matter.

"Every burned book enlightens the world."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

I love Lawrence, and still have close ties there. As a southerner it never made much sense why I felt so drawn to the place. My yankee husband used to tease me about it. I lived in Ottawa for many years, and spent a lot of time in Lawrence itself. I miss seeing the eagles. There are none here. (I'm back in the south.) I can still picture that hunk of melted glass and the mass of nails, in my mind. As a writer, I spent time in LeCompton too. (Actually we spent a lot of time following the border war trail all over KS and MO.)

The quote is pretty relevant for today, I'd say. Look at the mess we are collectively in because we are all expected to think and act the same. Forced to toe the line and be PC, which is something our enemies use against us.

I think what I most like about the film, now, is the location shooting. It looks so much like our ranch in mid-Kansas, and parts of the Ottawa place too.

I'll always love Kansas, and Lawrence most of all. Nice to see your post!

[–] dbc1951 20 years ago

I'm even worse off in Germany (although Germany is cool).

The subject has always been a bit tender since I was in school during the Centennial of the raid. Some of my teachers actually knew a few of the survivor families and, as you can imagine, things were pretty much black and white. I was intrigued to find, posting on the Missouri U. athletic board, that more than a few of the MU people had ties to the Raiders.

If you think about it, both sides were in the same boat. People were expected to think and act the same way in both camps. Due to the nature of the conflict, it was probably worse in Kansas and Missouri than back East. Something along the lines of an American Bosnia.

As for the location shooting, you're right on that. I remember KANSAS RAIDERS, with Brian Donlevy and Audie Murphy, and my father laughing hysterically during the raid. If I remember correctly (this was over 40 years ago) the old man was set off by the sight of a MOUNTAIN in the background.

I've specifically recommended this film to a German poster here. I'll be curious to see what he thinks of it---he tends to feel that most American war films are too patriotic and self-congratulatory. A common European reaction.

As for the Eagles, I'm not sure exactly what their status is now. I too enjoyed watching them.

"Every burned book enlightens the world."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

[–] britwrit 20 years ago

You're right. The dialogue in the script really is brilliant. The trouble I had with the film though is that everyone talks... real... real... slow. As... if they had... to... force... each thought... through... their skulls. I mean, we all know that people from Missouri are simple, simple folk, unused to that new-fangled thing we call talking, but come on, this was a little overdoing it.

[–] jehnt 20 years ago

Eh, well, I don't know where you're from, but I live in Texas (moreover, in Dallas, which is like the least backcountry place in Texas other than maybe Austin) and most everyone speaks at about the same pace as the people in that movie (generally with a more plain accent though). I speak a little more quickly - quickly enough to get told to slow down while I'm talking, but still slowly enough that when I go to visit family up north they tell me that I speak too slowly. The movie really didn't exaggerate the slowness with which Southerners speak. Even the Spanish in Texas (at least the Spanish farther away from the border) is waaaaaaaaaaay slower than the Spanish in Mexico, although still a great deal faster than the English. My mom, who is from up north (aka, is a damn yankee), says that the problem is we add on to two extra syllables per vowel sound, which effectively doubles or triples the length of time it takes to say a word. Eh, I dunno if that explains it at all. But I tried.
:-/

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

I'm from Texas too, but spent a lot of years in the area of the Border Wars this film depicts, before coming home to stay.

I tend to speak too rapidly, in comparison with my Texas kin; and leave my other Southern States kin in the dust. They get even though, I caint (that's can't to y'all), understand a blessed word they say with their thick Southern accents!

[–] britwrit 20 years ago

I'm from New Jersey but I actually went to the University of Missouri-Columbia and then stayed around town for a couple years after graduation. A hundred and thirty years on from the movie, yeah, most people I knew spoke with an accent (especially out in the county) but they also spoke at a "normal" speed. That was the one thing that irritated me about this otherwise great film - that everyone spoke like the noble but dense country bumpkin. Oh well - what can you do? Anyway, where exactly in Missouri did this film take place?

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

Filming ranged from places in Kansas, like Miami Co., Hays, and Wathena to locations in Missouri like Pattonsburg, Blue Springs & the Watkins Woolen Mill.
(a state historic site northeast of KC.)

In the film, it is supposed to be taking place around Jackson & Lafayette counties, Lexington, on the Missouri river, is the most likely place as that is where Alf Bowden is sent to, and he lived down from Jack Bull. Later a fictional town named "Newport" is "full of federals." Jesse James was from Clay County which is above Jackson County, but he rode throughout MO.

What is left of the once great "Northern Hardwood Forest" sweeps down as a broken band and into Kansas. If you look at a map you can find the Marais des Cygnes (pronounced "mare-duh-zine") river which sweeps beside our place in the tail end of the forest. Chippawa Hills. It looks (& sounds) exactly like the camping & the area around the "Evan's place" in the film.

The film also had a few pronunciation problems. "Creek" should have been called "crick" and I'm still trying to figure out if ol' Black John was trying to say "Slough bar"... he says something like "snigh-uh bar" which I've never heard used anywhere.

I wouldn't normally mention it on an open forum, but what the heck. There are some places in mid-Mo that scare me to bits (and I DON'T mean the Ozarks!) I visited a friend on her country farm, and before nightfall, rednecks in pickup trucks, toting shotguns, showed up to investigate if *I* (lil ol' me!!) had anything to do with the recent cattle mutilations. Being a ranch girl myself, I was able to calm them down, but dang I was quaking in my Olathe bull-hide boots!
Of course, I had Kansas plates at the time...

[–] britwrit 20 years ago

Wow. Really? From what little I saw of Missouri (Boone County, Jeff City, with Springfield and St. Joseph once apiece), I always thought it was a real friendly place. Oh well - I probably should have gotten out of tiny, little insular world a lot more while I was there. Especially to go hiking and camping. Missouri, especially once you get off the interstate, is so beautiful.

[–] splat99 20 years ago

Missouri is a great state, apart from the way it's voted in recent elections (I'm not trying to start a political discussion; just stating my preference.) My mother is from Kansas City, though she's lived here in Chicago since 1954, and I still have relatives in KC and across the border in Johnson County, Kansas. My sister went to MU, my uncle and my cousin's wife to KU. (Most people in KC are KU leaners, since Lawrence is much closer than Columbia.) What's really cool about Missouri, besides the fact that it's an oasis of interesting scenery surrounded on three sides by the comparatively (though not uniformly) bland terrain of Illinois, Iowa and Kansas, is that it's hollow. There may be more caves in Missouri than in any other non-mountainous state.
As for the MU-KU rivalry - go Yellow Jackets! (Georgia Tech, that is. Great game on New Year's day. Even better one last March...)

Anyway, the rolling hills, trees, brush and bluffs of Missouri have been with me all of my life. The nine-hour drives to Kansas City from Chicago in the summers of my youth (back before universal seat belts, Mom & Dad would fold down the seats in the back of the Buick wagon and we young-uns had free reign back there - can you imagine that happening now?) instilled in me a life-long love of road trips via automobile. And a fascination with rivers; we always had to be sure to be awake when crossing the Des Plaines, Mississippi, and Missouri (twice for the latter, including the impressive river bluff panorama at the I-70 crossing west of Columbia.)

One of my maternal great-great grandfathers, Thomas Hogan, fought on the Union side in Missouri. He was a lieutenant in a home-guard unit that was captured by Sterling Price when Lexington surrendered in September 1861. He was paroled, violated his parole by joining the Missouri State Militia Cavalry, was found out and dropped from the rolls (by his own side), then later in the war re-joined after the parole and exchange system had broken down. He fought at Westport in October 1864, but beyond that probably spent most of his time chasing down guerillas like those portrayed in the movie.

"Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit." -- Kevin Conway in "Gettysburg"

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

Folks were always nice in the cities, I especially like Fort Scott; and travelling in the Ozarks are a delight. (If one doesn't get sea-sick driving those hilly roads, which I always do!)

I used to take off by myself on collecting sprees (I collect war artifacts) and never felt in danger, so long as I stuck to the border areas, in either state. Of course, being a rancher, I always travelled armed. Kansas has a mapped out "Civil War Trail" that one can follow... much like the "Billy the Kid" one in New Mexico, which takes you to all sorts of obscure places.

It was only when I was off the beaten path in a MO county which seemed removed from time, where one had to journey all the way to Springfield to eat in a restaurant, or shop in a store, that the trouble occured. On the plus side, they have the largest mule deer I've ever seen, in that locale. On the minus side, a big ol' doe ran smack into the side of my truck, denting it badly.

I like St Louis too. Huge wharf rats on the river-walk, gets the imagination flowing; and a lot of Literary history was made in that town. Strange juxtaposition of the modern and victorian. Ditto for the haves and have-nots.

[–] splat99 20 years ago

I made a rushed visit to Fort Scott itself two years ago (in March 2003) on my way from Arkansas to KC. It was very cool. I was visiting cousins in KC for the weekend, and left a few days early to check out Wilson's Creek MO, Pea Ridge AR and Prairie Grove AR. I also made a brief stop at the Mine Creek battlefield in NE Kansas, and tried to check out the museum at Baxter Springs, but it was closed. Then, on the way back home from KC, I stopped at Lexington.

Since you collect artifacts, and were near Springfield, you must have visited Wilson's Creek, at least. Both it and Pea Ridge are very well-preserved battlefields - not a great quantity of markers, some cannon, and most of all a lot of land that has changed but little since the war. A contemporary house (the Ray House) is in the Wilson's Creek park, and a reconstruction of Elkhorn Tavern is at Pea Ridge. Not far from Pea Ridge is Prairie Grove, a state rather than national park. Small, but very interesting.

I've had many, many good times in St. Louis. A couple of my friends from high school went to college down there (actually, to Parks College in Cahokia, across the river in Illinois.) And I've been to around 40 Cubs-Cardinals games in Busch Stadium over the years, plus a couple of Blackhawks-Blues games (remember the NHL?) Your comment about the juxtapositons of the haves and have-nots is dead on - like Chicago, St. Louis is very "checkerboarded" with good and bad neighborhoods.

"Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit." -- Kevin Conway in "Gettysburg"

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

I have indeed. I used to drag my ex to every place connected with the war that I could. Every one of my great-granddads that could fight, did, all for the south, and several dying because of it. (My ex is second-generation American on both sides, and never understood the attraction.) I go to every site I can. It rained every time I managed to get to Lexington. It is a beautiful site.

The only bullet I lack for my collection is a .50 cal rubber-cased smith. I've seen reproductions, but never an original.

I used to attend every KC Royals game I could, (clubhouse) back in the Quisenberry - Saberhagen era. Lost interest in baseball when they cancelled the World Series.
Saberhagen had a lot to say at the time, and I still have a bad taste in my mouth from it. I left out Bo! geeze. I used to think he had to be on steroids, but my dad assures me he wasn't. Frankly, I think these steroid offences are far worse than Pete Rose's lil ol gamblin' and I think he should be forgiven!

[–] splat99 20 years ago

Well, this is interesting - we've started with guerilla warfare in Missouri, and now we're on steroids and Pete Rose.

Thanks to my KC connection, the Royals are my second-favorite team (behind the Cubs, of course - I am a season ticket holder at Wrigley.) The only time in my life I have ever rooted against the Royals is when they played the Cubs.

Oh, well - back to the movie!

"Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit." -- Kevin Conway in "Gettysburg"

[–] splat99 20 years ago

Well, there is a Sni-a-Bar Creek just east of Kansas City - you cross it on I-70. As far as I know it is pronounced "Snigh-uh-bar." I've never heard my relatives say it, though. I've just assumed. My mother says "Snigh-uh-bar" and she grew up there...but then she also has no trace of a Missouri accent, except a tiny bit when she talks about KC or talks to her sister who still lives there.

"Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit." -- Kevin Conway in "Gettysburg"

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

You just might have something there! Most likely a bit added for the enjoyment of those in the know.

We have a creek running through our land called "6 mile Creek", and are nearly bordered by one called "Nugent". Some local wit stencilled "Ted" above "Nugent" on the sign, in bold black letters, many years ago. Both creeks are dry more often than not, making for a lot of local jokes. To use the localized vernacular; I reckon the onliest folks knowin' hit are them folks livin' thar.

Now I'm wondering if "6 point creek" is real, and if we'd run into a passel of "Crawfords" living on it's banks.

Thank you Splat99, now I can stop fast forwarding past that bit. Now if only someone could smooth over the awkwardly delivered exposition Tobey spouts to Skeet as they walk away from the Wedding festivities... Worst bit in the entire film if you ask me.

I identify most with KU, and still wear my sweatshirt proudly, but love the colors of Kansas State, so I bought a sweatshirt to wear when back at the ranch which is on the far side of Kansas' "Little Apple", aka Manhattan.

[–] splat99 20 years ago

(This post is kinda trivial, but I wanted to get the "Wow what a bad movie" thread off of the top of the list...)

Funny that you should mention Ted Nugent - he graduated from my high school (St. Viator High School, Arlington Heights, IL - Class of 1967, 12 years before me.) Shows you what Catholic school can do to you!

My favorite "sign alteration" was in the early 1980's, when Northwestern University's football team was in the midst of its Division I record losing streak of 31 games. One year in particular (I think it was 1981 or 1982) they lost to Iowa 64-0 and Ohio State 70-6. It got to the point where people were defacing the "Interstate 94" signs by adding "Northwestern 0" under them...

It's been some time since I saw this movie. I'll have to check out the "exposition" you refer to.

"Faith is the most important thing!" "Then why did God plague us with the capacity to think?"

[–] Ashlynn 20 years ago

There is always one person or another, unhappy with a film, and that poster, ignorant of the film's premise. The video game mentat has had a deleterious effect on newer films. Glad you ignored the newbie's bait. (At least we've been spared those that turn every War between the States film into an opportunity to negate any view not falling into step with the argument the war was purely over slavery.)

In the spirit of throwing in a useless but interesting fact:
We recently found out that U.S. Grant is a cousin. How dreadfully ironic is that? Turns out the old-timers always knew but kept mum out of pure shame. Research confirms it.

The awkward expostion I mentioned:
Dutchy: "I've been thinking, Jack Bull, a wedding is a peculiar thing."
Jack Bull: "No more so than slavery."
Dutchy: "Well, that's certain. That's why I've often wondered for what cause those northerners are so anxious to change our southern institutions."
Jack Bull: "Hmm"
Dutchy: "From both north and south, men are everyday enslaved at the altar, regardless of their state or color."
Jack Bull: "Well, it is a type of subjugation, we shall avoid it, Jake."
Dutchy: "Happily my poverty ensures my freedom from that fate."
Jack Bull: "Uh, I don't know. Not if my mother can help it. I heard her singing your praises earlier to the sister of the groom."

The rest of the scene's exposition with Jack Bull's parents isn't delivered in a stilted fashion.

I've always wondered why Dutchy comes riding pell-mell into the wedding scene, but ends up trudging to his father's shop (barn?)... where did the horse get off to? He still wears his wedding best, so I assume he is arriving directly from the wedding. Perhaps Tobey couldn't manage handling a horse and balancing a plate of cake.

[–] jameslandandauction 20 years ago

I 'spect he's coming from the stable after putting up the horse.

[–] jameslandandauction 20 years ago

Microsoft "Streets & Trips" shows Newport, Missouri about 9 miles north of Golden City, MO., in Barton County. The village is ENE of the US route 71 and US route 160 intersection. Zooming in with Terraserver shows ony a few homesteads at the location.

[–] dante144 18 years ago

Great dialog in this movie.

http://DanteDreams.com/ <-My webcomic
"Jesus saves, everyone else takes damage" -Tshirt

[–] nonon99_99 18 years ago

Yes, you got it!This is the core message of this film. In an article Ang Lee writes for the screen play of Ride with the Devil he clearly states this is how he understands the American Civil War.

I highly recommend fans to buy this screen play. It has so many things we can easily lost when watching the DVD with no subtitle.

[–] pas_si_simple 17 years ago

Some more analysis of that scene in the film--

So far the film has been a collection of cinematic cliches in a civil war setting: buddy-movie (Jake and Jack), revenge motive (their fathers’ deaths), love triangle, etc. The actors are all competent and the cinematography, shot on-location in Missouri, is gorgeous. What begins to make Ride with the Devil extraordinary as it progresses, however, is the understanding that Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus (adapting Daniel Woodrell’s novel Woe to Live On) show of the war’s underlying nature and causes.

The most explicit demonstration of this comes when Missouri gentleman Orton Brown (Tom Wilkinson) hosts Jake and Jack to a dinner at his house. Brown seems somewhere between bemused and saddened by Jack’s description of the Bushwhacker’s mission. Finally he tells Jack that the Bushwhackers, and the Southern cause, cannot win. Why? Is the Yankee military unstoppable? No, says Brown, rather the cause was lost the day the Unionists and abolitionists built the town of Lawrence, Kansas and the first thing they erected there was a schoolhouse. The Unionists brought children from all around to attend school there, to learn the same thing. The Unionists wanted everyone to think and live the same way and would not rest until they did. The South didn’t give a damn about such conformity and was content to let people live their own lives. That was why the South would lose, and the Yankees would win. It all began with that public schoolhouse.

As Ang Lee himself writes on the movie’s official website: "I grew up in Taiwan, where older people always complained that kids are becoming Americanized: they don’t follow tradition, and so we are losing our culture. As I got the chance to go around a large part of the world with my films, I would hear the same complaints. It seems so much of the world is becoming Americanized. When I read Daniel Woodrell’s book Woe to Live On, which we based Ride with the Devil on, I realized that the American Civil War was, in a way, where it all started. It was where the Yankees won not only territory but, in a sense, a victory for a whole way of life and of thinking."

From the War of Northern Aggression (let’s call a spade a spade) to the bombing of Serbia and starving of Iraq, for a certain kind of person anything has been justified to spread "American" (i.e. Yankee) values, at gun-point or by more insidious means of control. Ang Lee is no crypto-Confederate, in fact he says he generally approves of what values and institutions America has spread. Who could object to "democracy" and "capitalism," after all? Nevertheless, Ride with the Devil makes clear exactly how that diffusion of values was accomplished and what price others paid for it. And anyone who is not utterly complacent and public-schooled will ask himself on seeing this film whether there wasn’t a better way it could have happened. Certainly the institution of slavery was abolished throughout the rest of the West without a war like ours.

SOURCE: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/dmccarthy8.html

Very interesting.

Another critique of the "Institution"/education/the machine--and a call for freedom from the machine--although it is not necessarily in response to public grade school it did take place and was in response to public university and the content of the education provided there and calling out how the institution is trying to mold and shape the very being/opinions/essence of folks who don't need it. ...rather than having an equal exchange of ideas the institution did and does want to just pound their viewpoint into us.

Mario Savio: Sproul Hall Steps (UC-Berkley), December 2, 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw

We have an autocracy which runs this university (UCBerkley). It's managed. We asked the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was the following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?' That's the answer! Well I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something — the faculty are a bunch of employees! And we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to have any process upon us, don't mean to be made into any product, don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the university, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anbody!

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

Well, the rebels did this by taking up arms and going an eye-for-an-eye guerrilla war style...

Interesting--fighting freedom of thought/body/soul to explanations for imperialism/hegemony.

Goodstuff. cheers!