Word: jeweler
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Center of the World Versailles: Louis XIV's palace is the place to be Rivals: London--colonies and commerce make it Europe's largest city; Mexico City, the jewel of Spanish America...
...Panama Canal neatly brackets the American Century. It begins with Theodore Roosevelt conceiving the canal and, with it, America ascending to the rank of Great Power. It ends with America so great a power, so serenely dominant in the world, that it can give away T.R.'s strategic jewel with hardly a notice...
...film's most distracting element, Jewel, playing the sweet widow Sue Lee Shelley, appears later in the film when Roedel, Chiles, and Holt move to a dugout to wait away the winter. Jewel is surprisingly good at engaging in dialogue, yet she visibly shies away from the camera when she finishes her lines. Lee quickly establishes a romantic relationship between Shelley and Chiles, who sires a child before dying in a federal raid on the dugout. Chiles death scene is sickeningly melodramatic as Roedel and Holt first attempt to amputate Chiles' diseased arm, only to realize that Chiles' death...
...Bushwacker assault on Lawrence, Kansas. The viewer expects Holt and Roedel to perish in a tragic death in battle so Lee can make some sort of universal claim that war is pointless. However, Roedel and Holt merely receive injuries and miraculously, find themselves at the Shelley farm. Images of Jewel breast-feeding her child again distract the viewer and destroy whatever dramatic tension remains. In a contrived plot twist, Shelley maneuvers herself into matrimonial bliss with Roedel, and she, her new child and Roedel set off to California as Holt journeys to freedom...
...While Woodrell wishes to "get through the humanity of all involved" in his novel, Lee's Ride With the Devil is merely a mockery of human relationships. Maguire's Jimmy Stewart-like treatment of his character, the unexplored dramatic richness of Holt's story and Jewel's shaky on-screen image detract from Lee's normally rich character development. Lee fails in Ride With the Devil. The film is not poorly conceived, but his past films and demonstrated talent grant occasion to expect more from him. This time, Lee tries too hard bridge the gap between the subtlety and serious...