Born on Confucius's lap, Ang Lee met with a confusion gap on his arrival in the United States back in 1978. Although he was the son of a Chinese Nationalist who had fled the Communists to Taiwan, he found out that no big difference was made between the two countries in America. Ever since, his films have been probing the issues of cultural, national, family and individual identities, whether in the USA, Taiwan or Europe. In Ride with the Devil, his first American period piece, Ang Lee chose to give us the bad guys, the proslavers, and show how individual identities do not necessarily match collective ideologies. Ride with the Devil is to be screened at Locarno 2001 in the Asians in American Cinema section. Since this peculiar film, which was somewhat overlooked, Ang Lee hit the bit time with his kung fu epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He is currently taking up his new duties as consultant for Sony's Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia.

You surprise us every time with the subjects that you pick... With Ride with the Devil, we might have felt that you were becoming more and more American...

That wasn't on purpose! (laughs) I need new material and new excitements if I'm climbing up instead of climbing down! (smiles) So each time, I'm groping for something new. For this film, I was very interested in the structure and the visuals. It was really a new adventure for me, other than that of Sense & Sensibility, for which the producer found me. When I was in the middle of shooting Sense & Sensibility -- which was my second consecutive women's movie! -- I thought, "Hey, I want to shoot a guy's movie!" (laughs) I started thinking about war, dirty things, arms cut off and weapons! (smiles) So we went out and looked for material, and this book really grabbed me. So it was that early, before I started making movies about American themes. It's really the material that grabbed me.

Also, I chose to live as an American resident. Not only do I care about where I'm living but I think the Americans are still setting the tone for the rest of the world. A whole Americanization has been happening for maybe 100 years now. But historically, if something is pivotal, then it has a global meaning to it. A bigger canvas, so to speak, for a filmmaker. Also, nobody makes movies like the Americans do, with the industry and the market they have. I think, for a filmmaker, it's all very challenging and attractive. So here I am making this movie...

I think it's also important to have a fresh eye on the issues and the material that the Americans never really made. I think I've never seen bushwhackers on film. There was no clarification about their acts, their justice, these people just got caught in the messed-up situation. I tried to stay very close to the characters and the relationships.

There are more important things than the Texas subtext. I think there is a lot of confusion with these border wars in American history. The Civil War is the texture here, and I think the film is really about civil rights, and how modern people deal with each other. How to treat everybody equally. That was new then. And I just liked the fact that the movie started with a very lousy, confusing, dramatic conflict -- noises, horses and bloody wars -- but ends on a very quiet farm house where people try to figure out how to deal with each other. That's the main reason I chose this material.

One of the main subjects is also integration, because one of the main characters keeps being called "Dutchie" all the way through. And there's a also the black population, of course...

Yes, I very much identify with this situation. I grew up in Taiwan; my parents flew from China and the Civil War, we were on the losing side. When I came to America, I realized that we, Nationalists, were seen as the bad guys. This was really a big turnaround for me. And in America, I really feel that I live like an outsider, I even made this film like an outsider. It was like Dutchie's situation! (laughs)

The actors had a really long training for that film, with the horses, the period guns and everything. Tell us about that...

For me, they're professionals, so they should know what they're doing. There was no doubt in my mind about that. I think every film should look right. Also, I think the realism of the violence in the movie is crucial, so they have to know how it feels, not only boot camp, the skills of riding and shooting guns, but also the life of a bushwhacker, they all drink, they all shoot and spit the whole time. Tobey (McGuire) didn't take a shower for two months! (laughs)

He participated in lessons from people who had fought, who told him what it felt like to have a bullet enter your body. We all went to a paint fighting session, in which we all shot each other with air guns, just to get the war feeling and tactics! (laughs) Every morning, we would do rehearsals, talking about their lessons and experiences. We developed for each character a way of using the guns, a way that would be an extension of the character.

Having made these American films, how does one really enter a culture that is so foreign to oneself?

It was not totally foreign to me. I grew up with American influences. I was often asked this question. I was very conscious of myself during the making of Sense & Sensibility. For location scouting, we went to all these big houses, with all these English aristocrats, and when I was introduced to them, I just felt like hiding myself! (laughs) I felt this much less with Ride with the Devil.

Doing a Confederate story about border wars is kind of intense... My view is quite different from the people watching the movie. For me, it was day-to-day life. After you've decided that you're gonna make it and take the challenge, it's day-to-day life, how you live with the actors, how you're gonna make the scenes work, and gradually you forget about all those issues, you're making a movie and hoping it will work.

Robin Gatto & Yannis Polinacci