Ang Lee

Ang Lee
Born	October 23, 1954 (1954-10-23) (age 55) Pingtung, Taiwan
Years active	1992–present
Spouse(s)	Jane Lin (1983–)
Awards won Academy Awards Best Director 2005 Brokeback Mountain Best Foreign Language Film 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Australian Film Institute Awards Best Foreign Film 2001 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon BAFTA Awards Best Film 1995 Sense and Sensibility Best Foreign Film 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Best Direction 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2005 Brokeback Mountain Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture - Drama 1995 Sense and Sensibility 2005 Brokeback Mountain Best Foreign Language Film 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Best Director — Motion Picture 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2005 Brokeback Mountain Other awards BSFC Award for Best Director 1995 Sense and Sensibility 2005 Brokeback Mountain Critics Choice Award for Best Director 2005 Brokeback Mountain CFCA Award for Best Foreign Film 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon DFWFCA Award for Best Director 2005 Brokeback Mountain FFCC Award for Best Director 2005 Brokeback Mountain Independent Spirit Award for Best Director 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2005 Brokeback Mountain Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon LAFCA Award for Best Director 2005 Brokeback Mountain NBR Award for Best Director 1995 Sense and Sensibility 2005 Brokeback Mountain NYFCC Award for Best Director 1995 Sense and Sensibility 2005 Brokeback Mountain Golden Berlin Bear 1993 The Wedding Banquet 1995 Sense and Sensibility Golden Lion 2005 Brokeback Mountain 2007 Lust, Caution

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Li (李).

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān) (born October 23, 1954) is an Academy Award-winning film director from Taiwan.^[1]

Early life

Education

Ang Lee was born in the town of Chaochou in Pingtung,^[2] a southern agricultural county in Taiwan. He grew up in a household that put heavy emphasis on education and the Chinese classics. Both of Ang Lee's parents moved to Taiwan from communist China following the Chinese Nationalists' defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Lee's father, a native of Jiangxi Province in southern China, imbued his children with studying Chinese culture and art, especially calligraphy. Lee's grandparents died during the Cultural Revolution because they were accused of being one of the Five Black Categories (simplified Chinese: 黑五类; traditional Chinese: 黑五類; pinyin: hēiwǔlèi)^[3]

Lee studied in the National Tainan First Senior High School where his father was a former principal. He was expected to pass the annual Joint College/University Entrance Examination, the only route to a university education in Taiwan. But after failing the Exam twice, to the disappointment of his father, he entered a three-year college, National Arts School (now reorganized and expanded as National Taiwan University of Arts) and graduated in 1975. His father had wanted him to become a professor, but he had become interested in drama and the arts at college. This early frustration set his career on the path of performance art. Seeing Ingmar Bergman's film The Virgin Spring (1960) was a formative experience for him.^[4]

After finishing the Republic of China's mandatory military service, Lee went to the U.S. in 1979 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he completed his bachelor's degree in theater in 1980. Thereupon, he enrolled at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, where he received his MFA. He was a classmate of Spike Lee and worked on the crew of his thesis film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. During graduate school, Lee finished a 16mm short film, Shades of the Lake (1982), which won the Best Drama Award in Short Film in Taiwan. His own thesis work, a 43-minute drama, Fine Line (1984), won NYU's Wasserman Award for Outstanding Direction and was later selected for the Public Broadcasting Service.

Life after graduation

Lee's NYU thesis drew attention from the William Morris Agency, the famous talent and literary agency that later represented Lee. At first, though, WMA found Lee few opportunities, and Lee remained unemployed for six years. During this time, he was a full-time house-husband, while his wife Jane Lin (Chinese: 林惠嘉; pinyin: Lín Huìjiā), a molecular biologist, was the sole breadwinner for the family of four. This arrangement, usually an embarrassment in Taiwanese culture, put enormous pressure on the couple, but with Lin's support and understanding, Lee did not abandon his career in films but continued to generate new ideas from movies and performances. He also wrote several screenplays during this time.^[5]

In 1990, Lee submitted two screenplays, Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, to a competition sponsored by the Republic of China's Government Information Office, and they came in first and second respectively. The winning screenplays brought Lee to the attention of Li-Kong Hsu (Chinese: 徐立功; pinyin: Xú Lìgōng), a recently promoted senior manager in a major studio who had strong interests in Lee's unique style and freshness. Hsu, a first-time producer, invited Lee to direct Pushing Hands, a full-length feature that debuted in 1991.

Career

In the 2007 book The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen, Whitney Crothers Dilley has analyzed in detail the striking diversity of Ang Lee's films, as well as Lee's recurring themes of alienation, marginalization, and repression.^[6] Many of Lee's films, particularly his early Chinese trilogy, have also focused on the interactions between modernity and tradition. Some of his films have also had a light-hearted comic tone which marks a break from the tragic historical realism which characterized Taiwanese filmmaking after the end of the martial law period in 1987. While The Wedding Banquet (1993) became a break-out hit for Lee as the most proportionately profitable film of 1993, it was Sense and Sensibility (1995) that brought Lee his first true international acclaim. Following that, both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Director) and Brokeback Mountain (2005) (which won the Academy Award for Best Director) became cultural touchstones, sweeping awards ceremonies and, in the case of Brokeback Mountain, sparking intense critical debates. When asked by a TV interviewer how he found his films, Lee is said to have replied: "I don't find my films, my films find me."

The director's cut of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon premiered on the Ivy League campus of Dartmouth College in 2000.^[7] He received the Dartmouth Film Award in 2001, along with Sean Penn.^[8] At Dartmouth, he also taught Kai Wong filmmaking.

Lee's film Brokeback Mountain (2005) won the Golden Lion (best film) award at the Venice International Film Festival and was named 2005's best film by the Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and London film critics. It also won best picture at the 2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association, Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America (Adapted Screenplay), Producers Guild of America and the Independent Spirit Awards as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Drama, with Lee winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Brokeback also won Best Film and Best Director at the 2006 British Academy Awards (BAFTA). In January 2006, Brokeback scored a leading eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, which Lee won. He is the first Asian and non-Caucasian director to do so.

In 2007, Lee's film Lust, Caution earned him a second Golden Lion, making him one of only two directors to have ever won Venice's Golden Lion twice^[9]

Debut from Taiwan

Pushing Hands (1992) was a success in Taiwan both among critics and at the box office. It received eight nominations in the Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan's premier film festival. Inspired by the success, Hsu collaborated with Lee in their second film, The Wedding Banquet (1993), which won the Golden Bear in the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated as the Best Foreign Language Film in both the Golden Globe and the Academy Awards. In all, this film collected eleven Taiwanese and international awards and made Lee a rising star.

Lee's first two movies were based on stories of Taiwanese Americans, and both were filmed in the US. In 1995, Hsu invited Lee to return to Taiwan to make Eat Drink Man Woman, a film that depicts traditional values, modern relationships, and family conflicts in Taipei. The film was once again a box office hit and was critically acclaimed. For a second consecutive year, Lee's film received the Best Foreign Language Film nomination in both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards, as well as in the British Academy Award. Eat Drink Man Woman won five awards in Taiwan and internationally, including the Best Director from Independent Spirit. Hollywood optioned the film rights and remade it into Tortilla Soup (2001, dir. María Ripoll). This is one of the rare occasions in which a Taiwanese film was remade outside the country.

Arrival in Hollywood

Sense and Sensibility

Main article: Sense and Sensibility (film)

Lee's three acclaimed first dramas opened the door to Hollywood for him. In 1995, Lee directed Columbia TriStar's British classic Sense and Sensibility. The switch from Taiwanese to British films did not prevent Lee's work from garnering awards: Sense and Sensibility made Lee a second-time director of the Golden Bear film in the Berlin Film Festival. It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and won Best Adapted Screenplay for screenwriter Emma Thompson, who also starred in the movie alongside Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet. Sense and Sensibility also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama.

After this, Lee directed two more Hollywood movies: The Ice Storm (1997), a drama set in 1970s suburban America, and Ride with the Devil, an American Civil War drama (1999). Although the critics still highly praised these latter two films, their box office was not impressive, and for a time this interrupted Lee's unbroken popularity — from both general audiences and arthouse aficionados — since his first full-length movie. However, in the late 1990s and 2000s, The Ice Storm has had high VHS and DVD sales and rentals and repeated screenings on cable television, which has increased the film's popularity among audiences.

1999-present

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Main article: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

In 1999, Li-Kong Hsu, Lee's old partner and supporter, invited him to make a movie based on the traditional Chinese “wuxia” (martial arts and chivalry) genre. Excited about the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream, Lee assembled a team from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The film was a surprising success worldwide. With Chinese dialogue and English subtitles, the film became the highest grossing foreign film in many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Director at the Academy Awards. It ended up winning Best Foreign Language Film and three technical awards. The success of Crouching Tiger demonstrated that Lee's artistry had a general appeal; it also inspired such established directors as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige to explore wuxia films for Western audience.

In 2003, Lee returned to Hollywood to direct Hulk, his first big-budget movie. Reception from critics and audiences was lukewarm, and the film ultimately failed to meet Universal's financial expectations. After the setback, Lee considered retiring early, but his father encouraged him to continue making movies.

Brokeback Mountain

Main article: Brokeback Mountain

Lee decided to take on a small-budget, low-profile independent film based on Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-finalist short story, Brokeback Mountain. In a 2005 article by Robert K. Elder, Lee was quoted as saying, "What do I know about gay ranch hands in Wyoming?" In spite of the director's removal from the subject at hand, Brokeback Mountain showcased Lee's skills in probing depths of the human heart.

The 2005 movie about the forbidden love between two Wyoming sheepherders immediately caught public attention and initiated intense debates. The film was critically acclaimed at major international film festivals and won Lee numerous Best Director and Best Film awards worldwide. In addition, "Brokeback" became a cultural phenomenon and a box office hit. "Brokeback" was nominated for a leading eight Oscars and was the front runner for Best Picture heading into the March 5 ceremony, but lost out to Crash, a story about race relations in Los Angeles, in a controversial upset. There was speculation that the film's depiction of homosexuality might have been the reason for that upset. Lee said he was disappointed that his film did not win Best Picture,^[10] but was honored to win Best Director, becoming the first person of Asian heritage to ever win the award.

Lust, Caution

Main article: Lust, Caution (film)

After Brokeback Mountain, Lee returned to a Chinese topic. His next film was Lust, Caution, which was adapted from a short novel by the Chinese author Eileen Chang. The story was written in 1950, and was loosely based on an actual event that took place in 1939-1940 in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, during World War II. Similar to Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee adapted and expanded a short, simple story into a featured film in a way that allows individual figures to develop sophisticated layers of reserved emotions, without being sidetracked by complicated plots or overstuffed materials.

Lust, Caution is being distributed by Focus Features and premiered at international film festivals in the summer and early fall of 2007. In the US, the movie received a NC-17 rating (no one 17 and under admitted) from the MPAA mainly due to several strongly explicit sex scenes. This was a challenge to the film's distribution because many theater chains in the United States refuse to show NC-17 films. The director and film studio have decided not to appeal the decision. In order to be permitted to show Lust, Caution in mainland China, however, Lee removed 9 minutes from the film to make the content suitable for minor audiences, according to government restrictions.^[11]

Lust, Caution won the Golden Lion from 2007 Biennale Venice Film Festival, making Lee awarded the highest prize for the second time in three years. The critics in the US, however, were not all positive. When Lust, Caution was played in Lee's native Taiwan in its original full-length edition, it was very well received. Staying in Taiwan to promote the film and to participate in a traditional Chinese holiday, Lee got emotional when he found that his work was widely applauded by fellow Chinese. Lee admitted that he had low expectations for this film from the US audience since "its pace, its film language — it's all very Chinese."^[12]

Collaborations with James Schamus

Ang Lee has had a career-long collaboration with producer and screenwriter James Schamus.

Schamus produced or co-produced the following Ang Lee movies:

Schamus co-wrote the following Ang Lee movies:

Personal life

A naturalized U.S. citizen ^{[13][14][15] [16]}, Lee lives in Larchmont, New York with his wife Jane Lin, a microbiologist, whom he married in 1983. They have two sons, Haan Lee (born 1984), and Mason Lee (born 1990).^[17]

Filmography

Ang Lee has been involved in the process of filmmaking in various capacities, though the highlight of his career and legacy is his directorial work. The following are Lee's various credits.

As Director:

See also: Films directed by Ang Lee

As Writer:

• Pushing Hands (Chinese: 推手; pinyin: Tuīshǒu) (1992)
• The Wedding Banquet (Chinese: 喜宴; pinyin: Xǐyàn) (1993)
• Eat Drink Man Woman (traditional Chinese: 飲食男女; simplified Chinese: 饮食男女; pinyin: Yǐnshínánnǚ) (1994)
• Siao Yu (traditional Chinese: 少女小漁; simplified Chinese: 少女小渔; pinyin: Shàonǚ xiǎo yú; literally "Young girl, small fish") (1995)

As Actor:

• The Wedding Banquet (Chinese: 喜宴; pinyin: Xǐyàn) (1993)
• Hulk (2003)
• Hollywood Chinese (2007) - himself

As Editor:

• Pushing Hands (Chinese: 推手; pinyin: Tuīshǒu) (1992)
• Eat Drink Man Woman (traditional Chinese: 飲食男女; simplified Chinese: 饮食男女; pinyin: Yǐnshínánnǚ) (1994)

As Producer:

• Siao Yu (traditional Chinese: 少女小漁; simplified Chinese: 少女小渔; pinyin: Shàonǚ xiǎo yú; literally "Young girl, small fish") (1995)
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (traditional Chinese: 臥虎藏龍; simplified Chinese: 卧虎藏龙; pinyin: Wòhǔcánglóng) (2000)

Awards

• Best Director, National Board of Review of Motion Pictures for Sense and Sensibility (1995)
• Best Director, New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Sense and Sensibility (1995)
• Best Director, Independent Spirit Awards for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001)
• Best Director/Motion Picture, Golden Globes for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001)
• Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, Directors Guild of America for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2001)
• The David Lean Award for Achievement in Directing, BAFTA Awards for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001)
• Best Director, Boston Society of Film Critics for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, Broadcast Film Critics Association for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, Independent Spirit Awards for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, Los Angeles Film Critics Association for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director, Vancouver Film Critics Circle for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Director/Motion Picture, Golden Globes for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, Directors Guild of America for Brokeback Mountain(2005)
• The David Lean Award for Achievement in Directing, BAFTA Awards for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• Best Achievement in Directing, 78th Academy Awards for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• A Golden Lion, the most prestigious award offered at the Venice Film Festival for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
• One of 100 individuals included in Time Magazine's TIME 100: The People Who Shape Our World (2006)
• Another Golden Lion, the most prestigious award offered at the Venice Film Festival for Lust, Caution (2007); as of 2007, he is one of only two directors to have ever won two Golden Lions (the other being André Cayatte), and he is the only director to have won two Golden Lions within three years of each other^[9]

Notes

References

• Dilley, Whitney Crothers. The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.
• "Taking Stock of 'Taking Woodstock'" Rushprnews October 5, 2008
• "Ang Lee's movie has a backstory of pure serendipity" by Dan Bloom, Taipei TimesOctober 11, 2008

• Cheshire, Ellen. Ang Lee. London: Pocket Essentials, 2001.

External links

• Ang Lee at the Internet Movie Database
• Ang Lee (Chinese)
• Ang Lee 64th Venice Film Festival press conference (English)