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In My Culture, There's A Tradition That When You're In An Overwhelming Situation And You Don't Know What To Do, You Put Yourself In A Woman's Shoes.

-Ang Lee

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In My Culture, There's

Ang Lee

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In My Culture, There's A Tradition That When You're In An Overwhelming Situation And You Don't Know What To Do, You Put Yourself In A Woman's Shoes.

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I Don't Have A Checklist. Whatever Material Excites Me, They'll Call For A Certain Genre Or Combination Of Genres. It'll Come Naturally And I'll Be Eager To Learn How That Thing Works. I Learn The Rules, And I'll Probably Break Some Of Them.

These Days I'm Mostly Familiar With Two Parts Of L.a.: One Is Movie Culture, And The Other Is Asian Culture. The Westside Is Work, And The Eastside Is Chinese - Which Means My Friends.

Usually With This Genre The First Thing That Happens Is A Good Fight Sequence To Show That You're In Good Hands. So We Broke That Rule. I Think A Lot Of That Comes From The Western Audience.

I Grew Up Pretty Much Prevented From Knowing Anything From Communist China Except That They Were The Bad Guys That Stole Our Country.

First We Pre-visualized It [the Flying Fish Scene In 'life Of Pi'] So The Actors Could Act. It Took A Long Time To Get That To Come To Life And To Design Those Coming Out Of The Screen. We Had Great Fun With That. It Takes A Long Time, A Year Maybe.

I Try To Be A Partygoer. But At Some Point I Don't Know Why I'm Doing It And Fall Back. I've Been Using Repression, The Struggle Between Behaving As A Social Animal. You're Seeking To Be Honest With Your Free Will, Less Conflict. I Think That's An Important Subject With Me. That's Who I Am, How I Was Brought Up. I Think I Use That A Lot. I Mistrust Everything I Think. Things You Think You Can Trust, Believe In, Or Hang On To, Changes. That's The Essence Of Life.

I Think, If Allowed, 3d Is A New Film Language. I Can Have More Adventure Exploring A New Media, That's Very Exciting. 2d We Know Most Of It, Things Haven't Changed For Decades; It's The Same Principles, So 3d's More Exciting.

The Way I Go About A Lovemaking Scene Is That We Will Talk About It During The Rehearsing Time.

A Movie Is Really Provocation. It's Not A Message, It's Not A Statement.

I Don't Like To Deal With Studios. I Don't Like To Have Conversations With Executives. I Pitch To The Studio, Then Never Talk To Them Until The Test Screening.

My Mother Loves Me And Everything Goes Well. I Have No Conflict With Her, So That's Not Dramatic.

Even The Favorite Reviews, The Audience Response Is The Movie Is Too Slow, Deliberately Slow. But For The Chinese Audience, The Biggest Complaint Is It Happens Too Quick. I Think The Historical Background That Build Into Our Genes Is Different. American People Has Never Been Occupied. The Deep Sadness And Sentimentality, The Cultural Background That Relates To Melodrama That We Relate To And Grow Up With, The Propaganda, I Didn't Imagine The Difference Is So Big. It's A Very Interesting Cultural Phenomenon.

I Don't Think The Hulk Is A Superhero. He's The First Marvel Character Who Is A Tragic Monster. Really An Anti-hero.

Basically The Movies I Make Are My Life, So I Choose How I Want To Live My Life For The Next Two Years. So That's A Decision I Have To Make. At Some Point If I Feel There Are Enough Elements - It Doesn't Even Have To Have Great Characters Or Great Stories - It's Just Elements That Can Get My Excitement And Curiosity For One Or Two Years, Then I'll Jump In And I'll Find Out What That Is. Then I Have To Do [interviews Like This] And Rationalize Why I Do This.

I Feel That Everyone Has A Hulk Inside, And Each Of Our Hulks Is Both Scary And, Potentially, Pleasurable. That's The Scariest Thing About Them.

I Think It[3d] Should Be Used As A New Artistic Form, Not As A Gimmick, Not To Impress You But The Existence Of An Environment That You View As A Theatrical Dramatic Experience Is - You Don't Just Have The X-y Axis, You Have The Z And That Makes A Difference. You Still Have The Framing, You Still Use Lenses, So Most Of The Cinematic Rules And Languages Still Apply But I Think It's A Different Existence.

I Think People Are Universal.

My Hometown Was One Of The Major U.s. Air Force Bases.

When Something Possesses Me, I Go Ahead And Do It.

I Think A Movie Is A Media That Is Evoking Feelings.

If The Movie Is Quiet I Generally Feel The Audience Is Busy. That's When They're Working.

Over The Years Woodstock Got Glorified And Romanticised And Became The Event That Symbolised Utopia. It's The Last Page Of Our Collective Memory Of The Age Of Innocence. Then Things Turned Ugly And Would Never Be The Same Again.

Economically, It’s More Expensive To Make Movies. I Hope Digital Movies Change That.

After Making Several Tragic Movies In A Row, I Was Looking To Do A Comedy, And One Without Cynicism.

For A Filmmaker, It's A Rare Chance To Do A Personal Film On A Big Canvas.

Beautifully-acted And Precisely Observed, Ilo Ilo Is An Amazing Debut, Full Of Heart And Intelligence.

In Taiwan, I'd Be Like Michael Jordan Walking Down The Street.

I'm Not A Master Of Films. I'm Rather A Slave.

Things That Don't Have A Big Impact Seem To Be Crucial. Always When You Go Out To Make A Movie You Have Questions, "what If This Doesn't Work? What If That Doesn't Work?" You Want To Cover Yourself, You Want To Bring Back Enough [footage] So You Can Do Something.

I Took The Name Green Destiny From - Well There Is Such A Sword Called Green Destiny. It Is Green Because You Keep Twisting It, It's An Ancient Skill, You Keep Twisting It And Knocking It And Twisting It Until It Is Very Elastic And Light.

To Me, Ennis Stands For The Conservative Side Of America. He's The Biggest Homophobe In The Whole Movie - Culturally And Psychologically - But By The Time He Admits His Feelings, It's Too Late.

Kids Don't Even Read Comic Books Anymore. They've Got More Important Things To Do - Like Video Games.

I Like To Think I'm Un-categorisable.

Every Movie I Make. That’s My Hideout, The Place I Don’t Quite Understand, But Feel Most At Home.

I Think Doing Period Piece Is Easier, Because After A Certain Distance, Everybody Is Equal, I Think. The Relative Contemporary Is Harder. I Think That's The Way It Is.

With 3d You're Right There Immersed In The World.

I Think Great Romance Needs Great Obstacles And Textures.

I Think For Most People, The Audience Probably Couldn't Tell The Difference, But I Know They [shots Of Visual Effects] Can Be Better. And The People Working Know They Can Be More Precise. I'm Still Doing Another Round Of Sound Mixing And Color Timing, Pretty Technical Stuff. I Think The Movie [life Of Pi] Is Really Presentable, Nothing Was Left Out That Would Take You Out Of The Movie. I Just Need To Perfect The Job And I Still Have Two Weeks To Go [to Deliver Final Cut To Fox].

American Films Are Less American Every Day, Because You Have To Please A World Audience. There's Less Authenticity, So It's More Accessible.

I Think A Lot Of People Do Big Movies Not Because They Are Talented Artists But Because They Can Function In The Circumstances.

My Father's Family Were Liquidated During The Cultural Revolution In China Because They Were Landowners. He Was The Only One To Escape. I Was Born And Brought Up In Taiwan. But You Absorb The Trauma. My Parents Had No Sense Of Security.

When I Started Out, Nobody Gave Me Scripts, So I Had To Write...

You Have To Know The Rules, Otherwise You Have No Tools To Communicate To The Audience, But To Keep It Fresh You Have To Break Some. I Don't Choose Genres As The Element, But The Material Itself Is The Element, Then I'll Decide What Genre I Need. That's Just How I Work.

I'm Just A Pretty Regular Dad.

When You Talk About God, The First Thing That Comes Along Is Not Love, It's Fear. You Have To Fear, And Be In Awe. You Have To Be Scared. Any Religion, It's Like First Thing.

Even Dramatically How You Position Some Person, The Depth, The Existence [in 3d] Is Different Than A Flat Image Even Though By Itself It Has Depth, We Create The Illusion Of Depth. For Example, Some Of The Shots I Have To Stay Closer To The Actor Because It's A Young Actor, I Like It Closer For Some Of The Shots. I Watch 2d Scenes Next To The Camera, Then When I Go Back To My Station And Watch It In 3d I Have To Go Back And Reduce His Acting, He Has To Shrink A Little Bit Because He Peeks Out More.

I Wanted To Shoot Straight, Mainstream, Somehow Off-beat. Not Only Realistic West, Which Is Quite Unfamiliar To The World's Population - Even To A Lot Of Americans.

If It Was A Choice Between Making Movies And Doing Nothing, He'd Probably Still Wish Me To Make Movies, So He Made Me Keep Going.

What Is Really A Stretch To Me Is To Make Quick Decisions.

Quick Decisions

Thinking Back To Those Earlier Days, I Felt I Was Weak When I Wasn't Making Movies, And Then When I Was, I Thought I Was Weak As A Family Member.

When I Sent Those Scripts, That Was The Lowest Point Of My Life. We'd Just Had Our Second Son, And When I Went To Collect Them From Hospital, I Went To The Bank To Try And Get Some Money To Buy Some Diapers, The Screen Showed I've Got $26 Left.

Fighting For Identity Is Something That Is Very Much In My Life.

Sexuality Is A Big Issue, But There Are Others - How Much You Commit To A Relationship, To Social Obligation, To Honesty And Being Honest With Yourself.

When There Is A Strong Woman Character In A Story - That Always Grabs Me

I Find It Hard To Deliver Straightforward Things.

Straightforward

If There's Something That Can Be Formulated, Regulated, Give You Security, Then Nobody Would Lose Money. Every Movie Would Be Successful. And That's Certainly Not The Case.

You Become The Movie You Are Making.

Mostly It's Like, I Get Inspired By Something And I Want To Learn That Part Of Filmmaking, I Want To Delve Into That Kind Of Depth. And Leading, Also, A Lot Of People. A Lot Of People, For Two Years Of Their Life They Follow Me, And They Believe What I Believe In. So That's Some Responsibility And I'd Like To Make It Worth The Effort.

I Have A Lot Of Repression. So Repression Is What I Make Movies About.

The L.a. Weather Is A Lot Like Taiwan's, Where You Don't Observe Four Seasons, So The Years Can Pass And You Don't Feel A Thing.

As Artists, We Like Night More Than Day Sometimes.

In My Culture, There's A Tradition That When You're In An Overwhelming Situation And You Don't Know What To Do, You Put Yourself In A Woman's Shoes.

It's Just What I Am. When I Am In The Zone Making One Movie, I Just Didn't Want To Read Anything Else Or Do Anything Else, So I Don't Really Develop Projects.

Making A Martial Arts Film In English To Me Is The Same As John Wayne Speaking Chinese In A Western.

I See A Movie As A Way Of Learning About The World, About Myself, And Learning About My Relationship With People And Art.

If You Try To Act, You're Going To Look Like You're Acting. So Don't Act.

Sometimes, You Have To Get Angry To Get Things Done.

In The Past I've Made Movies That Were Pretty Universally Liked. You Can't Really Hate Them. You Can Discard Them, But You Can't Really Hate Them.

On A Chinese Film You Just Give Orders, No One Questions You. Here, You Have To Convince People, You Have To Tell Them Why You Want To Do It A Certain Way, And They Argue With You. Democracy.

I'm Not A Romantic. In Life I Didn't Have Much Experience With Romance.

I Like To Go Back To Chinese Film-making From Time To Time. I Don't Think I Can Make Chinese Films Back To Back; It's Such A Big Effort. I'd Have To Take A Very Long Break.

3d Is Quite A Lot More Advanced In Animated Movies; For Live-action Movies We're Just Taking Baby Steps, We're Just In The Beginning.

Now I'm Kind Of Established As A Director, I Much Prefer Directing To Writing.

There's A Certain Time In The Core Of Making A Movie From Pre-production To Halfway Through Post-production I Don't Read Any Project, My Agent Will Tell People That "he's Not Reading." And Then When I Know How The Movie's Probably Gonna Work Halfway Into Post-production, I'll Come Along.

Not Taboo - It's Just That Straight Actors Still Risk Their Careers Commercially And Economically. They Have To Please The Crowd - They're Movie Stars; Their Image Is Their Industry. It Goes Beyond Acting.

I Think Each Movie-making Process Is A Very Exhausting And Satisfying And Fulfilling Experience For Me.

I Had To Find My Way Of Translating The Excitement You Get When You're Reading Comic Books To The Big Screen.

Sensitivity And Money Are Like Parallel Lines. They Don't Meet.

When I Grew Up, In Taiwan, The Korean War Was Seen As A Good War, Where America Protected Asia. It Was Sort Of An Extension Of World War Ii. And It Was, Of Course, The Peak Of The Cold War. People In Taiwan Were Generally Proamerican. The Korean War Made Japan. And Then The Vietnam War Made Taiwan. There Is Some Truth To That.

At Times I Can't Help Going For Visual Comfort. Sometimes A Picture Fills Up Your Head, And You Try To Move The Actors Around To Make That Visual Statement.

Depending On The Budget [whether To Use 3d On Future Movies]. I Think I Prefer 3d To 2d Now. Also, Because Of 3d I Have To Use A Digital Camera, Which Is The Way It's Going Anyway. That Still Confuses Me, A Digital Camera Versus Film.

When You Go For Something Because You're Curious About It, You Get Psyched Up About The Chance Of Getting Into It. It's Like An Actor Meets A Role, And You Slip Into That Body And See What Happens, To Experience Certain Conditions, To Adopt A Certain Character. Even Shooting Is A Study Of The Character. I Think Both The Character And The Actor, And Eventually The Filmmaker - Myself - Are Finding A Way To Accept Their Environment And Being Accepted And Feel Comfortable Of Themselves.

I Look At American Movies, The Big Muscles, And Try To Apply That To Chinese Film-making.

Directing, I Get All Kinds Of Inspiration. It's Working With People. It's A Lot More Fun.

Americans Are Hidden Dragons To Me.

I Am Not Particularly Religious. But I Think We Do Face The Question Of Where God Is, Why We Are Created And Where Does Life Go, Why We Exist. That Sort Of Thing. And It Is Very Hard To Talk About It These Days, Because It Cannot Be Proven. It Is Hard To Discuss It Rationally.

So There Was One Point I Thought I Was Gonna Lose It, But Once I Get On Something I Have To Finish It; I Just Kept Persuading Them And They Turned Around. One Good Thing Was The International Guys Really Stood Behind This Movie, They Thought They Could Support This Film. So These Guys Step Up And That's Really Good, And Then They Turned Around.

I Feel Like All Of My Characters Now Take This Congested Situation, They Clash, And From There You Purge Yourself.

There's A Level Of Sophistication Of Filmmaking That's Mind-boggling. Anything You Need For Your Movie, There's An Establishment That Can Make It Happen Really Fast.

I Basically Made The Movie From The Crew's Suggestions. For One Scene, I Wanted Some Kids' Toys Against The Wall In Mikey's Room, To Give The Scene Texture, And We Tried A Field Hockey Stick. It Looked Really Good To Me, Until Someone Had To Say That In America, Field Hockey Is More Of A Girl's Game. Gradually I Got Tuned Into The World - That Happens On Every Movie.

There's Only One Movie In My Career I've Had Regrets With Cutting It Shorter, And I Think Some Scenes Maybe I Shouldn't Have Cut.

I Did A Women's Movie, And I'm Not A Woman. I Did A Gay Movie, And I'm Not Gay. I Learned As I Went Along.

The Fear Factor Actually Brings The Genuineness.

A Lot Of People Will Think I Changed The Book: ‘so You’re The Tiger Instead, You’re The Tiger Who Ate The Cook.’ That’d Be Totally Expository, Like In The Book, ‘you’re The Tiger’ And Then It Stops There. That Seems To Have The Magic Touch. I Bring Everything Together. That’s Why He Made Up The Story, The Whole Thing Becomes Internalized. That Might Be The Magic, But All I Did Is Not So Much Interpreted, But Try My Best To Keep Everybody Still Staying In The Movie. And I Was Like, ‘god, It’s So Hard To Do.’ I Make Movies For A Long Time. It Doesn't Get Easier.

My Father Was The Center Of The Family, And Everyone Tried To Please Him.

I Have Two Sons In America, And All They Care About In Chinese Culture Is Jackie Chan And Jet Li.

Only One Time In My Career I Had That Feeling [that This Is Not Gonna Get Made], It Was For This Movie [life Of Pi]. It Was Right Before We Started The Physical Pre-production. I Pre-visualized The Whole Ocean Part Before We Made The Movie, I Was That Prepared. At One Point They Seemed To Want To Drop It Because It Was Really Risky. The Budget We Proposed Was A Lot Higher Than They Expected, They Wanted To [drop It]. After All, It's A Philosophical Book And A Literature Property, It's Not Batman.

Many Times When You Make A Movie, It Feels Like Your Biggest Mistake. But Even If A Film Isn't A Hit, You Shouldn't View It As A Mistake.

So Anything That's Not Absolutely Needed, We Would Cut It [footage] Out, Which Would Make Me Very Insecure; Everything Has To Work, And It's A Water Movie In 3d With A Kid, Animals. So The More I Do That, The More I'm Scared Of "what If It Doesn't Go The Way We Want It?" But We Had To Do That To Meet The Budget, Otherwise We Wouldn't Even Have A Start-date.

I Think The American West Really Attracts Me Because It's Romantic. The Desert, The Empty Space, The Drama.

I Don't Have Incredible Knowledge About Films Or Of Filmmaking History; I'm Not That Kind Of Person.

Making Movies Is A Way Of Understanding Myself And The World.

Sometimes Films Ignore Other Points Of View Because It's Simpler To Tell The Story That Way, But The More Genuine And Sympathetic You Are To Different Points Of View And Situations, The More Real The Story Is.

So I'm A One Movie At A Time Person, I Don't Develop. Normally We Do A Movie Then One Thing Leads To Another. If Something Pops Up That Catches My Attention, Then I'll Decide.

3d Is Quite A Lot More Advanced In Animated Movies; For Live-action Movies We're Just Taking Baby Steps, We're Just In The Beginning. So When I Think Of Doing That I Was Very Excited. It Didn't Go As Far As I Think It Should, I'm Still A Novice, But I Think It's Fair To Say It's A New Cinematic Medium, Experience.

The Most Mysterious Feminine Factor, The Existence That We Men, We Don't Know. It's Woman. It's Feminine. That's What The Sword Is About. That's The Symbolic Meaning Of The Sword.

Symbolic Meaning

My First Instinct Was To Cast As Close To The Short Story As Possible, But Then I Realized That I Needed Actors Who Could Go For It And That They Had To Function Well As A Couple In A Love Story.

I Guess In Hollywood You Chart Your Life By Oscars. You Say To Each Other, "remember When That Movie Won That Year? It Was 2006. Remember That?"

I Just Did A Dramatic Love Story. Whether It's A Cultural Phenomenon Is Not For Me To Say.

The Thing We Call Critics Are Not Really Reviewers, They Are Not Really Critics. They Don't Have The Discipline To Write What We Would Term As Critique - It's Really Just Reviewers. They Have A Common Man Kind Of Taste. If You Watch Them Overall, They Are Not Different From The Box-office. That's My View.

We Need Storytelling. Otherwise Life Just Goes On And On, Like The Number Pi.

I'm A Drifter And An Outsider. There's Not One Single Environment I Can Totally Belong To.

San Francisco Is One Of My Favourite Cities In The World...i Would Probably Rank It At The Top Or Near The Top. It's Small But Photogenic And Has Layers...you Never Have Problems Finding Great Angles That People Have Never Done.

When I See Something I Like, That's All That Counts. What They Use, How They Get There, I Never Bother Them.

Making This Movie As A Period Piece About A Period That Was Very Recent In People's Minds. I Was In Taiwan [during The 1970s], So I Hope I Did All Right. Otherwise, It Could Be The Biggest Embarrassment Of My Life. Also, The Story Is Not Linear, It's Patchy, Like A Cubist Painting, And There Is Always The Possibility It Will Not Hold Together, It Will Fall Apart. The Tone Is Part Satire, Part Serious Drama, Part Tragedy, All Mixed Together, And It Has To Hit An Emotional Core. That's Also Very Scary.

So Many Times You See Beautiful Lovemaking Scenes With A Lot Of Exposure Or An Awkward Lovemaking Scene, But I Think It's Very Rare That You See It Private.

You Can Get Rich Or Famous By Doing The Same Thing.

Meanwhile, The Ice Storm Was Still In Development, And That Was Something I Really Wanted To Do, And Frankly I Don't Think I Was Ready To Do A Big Production Like This.

So It [3d] Is Something I'm Still Learning, It's Fresh, So If The Budget Allows I'll Do It Again And Just See How Far It Goes Because It's The Frontier, It's More Interesting. It's Still Expensive, The Projection System Can Be Annoying Sometimes, It's Not Really Regulated Or Perfected Yet, So It's Still Expensive. If I Do A Lower Budget I'll Just Do 2d, But If The Budget Allows I Think I'll Try 3d.

I Like To Do Drama, Something About Life That Could Be Disappointing.

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