1. INTRODUCTION: ANG LEE—A HISTORY
2. Jake Gyllenhaal, quoted in Bruce Shenitz’s “Kissin’ Cowboy,” Out (October 2005): 94.
3. One of the actors from this group has since received this honor; Heath Ledger posthumously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Dark Knight (2008).
4. Ang Lee quoting his father in Gregory Ellwood’s “Top of the ‘Mountain,’” Msn.com, November 29, 2005; see http://movies.msn.com/movies/hitlist/11–29–05_2 (accessed November 30, 2005). Lee adds, “[For my conservative] father to encourage me, and it happened to be a gay movie, it was kind of strange. I didn’t tell him what I was going to make.”
5. Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry’s Speaking in Images, 336.
6. Ang Lee, quoted in Elwood (2005).
7. Further capitalizing on this success, the Weinstein Company is producing a sequel entitled Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny, directed by Yuen Wo Ping, with Michelle Yeoh reprising her role as Yu Shu Lien, based on the fifth and final book of the Crane-Iron Pentalogy entitled Iron Knight, Silver Vase.
8. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon held the record for the most successful foreign-language film until 2004, when it was surpassed by the release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon went down in Academy Awards lore when Steve Martin cracked his classic joke: “I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and I didn’t see any tigers and dragons and then I realized why. They were hiding and crouching.” Steve Martin, host of the 73rd Annual Academy Awards Ceremony in 2001, where Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four awards.
10. A poster of Ang Lee now honors the Chin Men Theater’s most famous “alumnus.”
11. With the small number of universities in Taiwan in the 1970s, only the educated elite had the opportunity to attend college. In that period, only 30 to 40 percent of eligible high school students passed the difficult Joint College Entrance Examination. Nevertheless, the son of a principal failing the exam would be stigmatized, and doubly so since students of theater school were known chiefly for physical beauty rather than for academic prowess.
12. Ang Lee, in Zhang Jingpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema], 34.
13. During his time in the military, Ang Lee also made his second work, A Day in the Life of Maquan Chen (Chen Maquan de yitian, 1978), a 9-minute film about a fisherman and his son out fishing for the day.
14. In his father’s last-ditch attempt to secure academic status for his son, Lee Sheng allowed his son to continue his studies at the Taiwan Academy of Arts only if he promised to pursue graduate study in the United States. No doubt Lee Sheng had hoped his son would choose a more respectable major, but it was not to be. Also, because the Academy was a vocational school rather than a university, as a transfer undergraduate Ang Lee had to begin his studies in the United States as a university underclassman although he was old enough to be a graduate student.
15. John Lahr, “Becoming the Hulk,” The New Yorker, June 30, 2003, 76.
16. Ang Lee, quoted in Lahr (2003:76).
17. Jane Lin, quoted in Lahr (2003:76).
19. Ang Lee, quoted in Stephen Lowenstein, ed., My First Movie, 367.
20. Ang Lee, quoted in Zhang (2002:52).
22. Neil Peng, quoted in Ho Yi’s “Family and Friends Praise Ang Lee’s Quiet Dedication,” Taipei Times, March 7, 2006, 4.
23. Lahr (2003:77–78). Lahr records the memorable sentence pronounced by Lee when he first met Ted Hope and James Schamus: “If I don’t make a movie soon, I think I’ll die.” Quoted in Lahr (ibid., 77).
24. Lee describes it: “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.” Ang Lee, interviewed in “Ang Lee and James Schamus: The Guardian/NFT Interview,” Guardian Unlimited, November 7, 2000; see www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/nov/07/3 (accessed August 29, 2003).
25. Xu Ligong (Hsu Li-kong) was the production manager of Taiwan’s Central Motion Pictures Corporation until 1997; his desire to support young cinematic talent was largely responsible for the launch of Ang Lee’s career. Xu also produced newcomer Tsai Ming-liang’s first two films, Rebels of a Neon God (1992) and Vive L’Amour (1994).
26. Schamus also lent a hand on Lee’s first two screenplays to flesh out the American characters and bring a more authentic flavor to scenes set in New York City. Without Schamus’ expertise, the American characters—particularly the gay character “Simon” played by Mitchell Lichtenstein in The Wedding Banquet—would have seemed underdeveloped and lacked wider appeal.
27. Ti Wei, “Generational/Cultural Contradiction and Global Incorporation: Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman,” in Chris Berry and Feii Lu, eds., Island on the Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After, 102.
28. The Wedding Banquet lost to the Spanish film Belle Epoque (The Age of Beauty, 1992).
29. Ang Lee, speaking on “A Feast for the Eyes: Ang Lee in Taipei,” the making-of featurette for Eat Drink Man Woman (MGM World Films Home Video, 2002).
30. Ang Lee, speaking in ibid.
31. “We overuse sex in the movies—why not food?” Ang Lee, speaking in ibid.
32. Eat Drink Man Woman lost to the Russian film Utomlyonnye solntsem (Burnt by the Sun, 1994).
33. Ang Lee, quoted in Wei (2005:110).
34. Lindsay Doran notes that the Columbia and Mirage studios had been pushing for Thompson to play the lead for some time; Lee’s decision confirmed how apposite this choice was. See the introduction to Emma Thompson’s The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries, 15.
35. Interview in the dossier on Ang Lee edited by the Taipei Golden Horse International Film Festival Executive Committee, Dianying dang’an: Li An [Cinedossier: Ang Lee], 14.
36. From “Ang Lee and James Schamus: The Guardian/NFT Interview,” Guardian Unlimited, November 7, 2000.
37. Ang Lee, quoted in Winnie Chung, “The Reel Winner,” East 3.4 (2001): 60.
39. Tad Friend, “Credit Grab,” The New Yorker, October 20, 2003, 160.
41. Jim Poniewozik, quoted in a 2001 CNN Special Report on Ang Lee, “Ang Lee: Dreaming Up an Everchanging Destiny.”
42. In 1994, early in Lee’s career, Schamus wrote this tribute to the director: “In a business where self-effacement and modesty are not exactly valued character traits, Ang has succeeded precisely because of his gentle yet determined demeanor. While the persona of the average producer or director is akin to something like a car salesman on an acid trip, it’s difficult not to listen seriously to Ang because he speaks so softly and gestures so gently. On the film set during production Ang is, like the emotions his films elicit, everywhere and nowhere—his crews revere him even when they hardly notice that he’s there giving the orders and providing the vision that’s keeping them working night and day. For anyone even vaguely familiar with the norms of behavior in the film industry, Ang is a genuine anomaly.” James Schamus, “Introduction,” Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet: Two Films by Ang Lee, x–xi.
43. While making Sense and Sensibility in 1995, Ang Lee was overheard muttering: “No more sheeps. Never again sheeps.” See Emma Thompson (1996:229). Brokeback Mountain revealed that he did not get his wish.
44. Lynn Lin, quoted in “Taiwanese Cheer Lee’s Win, But Some Question Subject Matter,” Taipei Times, March 7, 2006, 4.
45. However, not all Taiwanese were uniformly happy about the win. While many legislators applauded Ang Lee’s success, the independent legislator and social critic Li Ao was quoted as saying, “I do not understand gay movies and I dislike the idea of homosexuality. … Brokeback Mountain is simply a nuisance to me.” Li Ao, quoted in ibid.
46. Ang Lee, quoted at the postshow interview at the 78th Academy Awards ceremony, March 5, 2006.
56. Diana Ossana, “Climbing Brokeback Mountain,” in Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Ossana’s Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay, 149.
57. Jon Stewart, host of the 78th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, March 5, 2006.
58. Other scholarly works that have appeared on Brokeback Mountain include Eric Patterson’s On Brokeback Mountain: Meditations about Masculinity, Fear, and Love in the Story and the Film (2008), and Gary Needham’s Brokeback Mountain (2010). There are also a host of nonacademic books containing personal responses to the film, as well as a Brokeback Mountain trivia book.
59. Karen Kingsbury, quoted in “Lust, Caution Cast Named,” Twitchfilm, July 19, 2006; see www.twitchfilm.net/archives/006894.html (accessed October 9, 2006). For academic articles on selected works by Eileen Chang, see Peng-hsiang Chen and Whitney Crothers Dilley, eds., Feminism/Femininity in Chinese Literature (2002). For translations of Eileen Chang’s early writings, see Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City, trans. Karen S. Kingsbury (2006).
60. The full quotation is as follows: “I made two big mistakes. I put ‘Woodstock’ in the title, and I put his name on the poster. Because, you know, everybody who goes to an Ang Lee movie, you want to be sublimely depressed by the end of the film. And if you have ‘Woodstock’ in the title, you think you’re going to be seeing Joe Cocker screaming onstage.” James Schamus, quoted in Jada Yuan, “Ang Lee and James Schamus Discuss the Mistakes They Made with Taking Woodstock,” Nymag.com, November 20, 2009; see http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/11/ang_lee_and_james_schamus_talk.html (accessed November 20, 2009).
61. Stephen Holden, “What I Saw at the Countercultural Revolution,” New York Times, August 26, 2009, C1.
65. Ang Lee, quoted in Zhang (2002:6).
66. Ang Lee, quoted in Lahr (2003:80).
68. Ang Lee, quoted in an interview with Anupama Chopra, “Adrift with a Tiger and the Film God,” New York Times, September 9, 2012, AR44.
2. ANG LEE AS DIRECTOR: HIS POSITION IN ASIAN AND WORLD CINEMA
1. The term “Fifth Generation,” referring to China’s new direction in filmmaking beginning in the mid-1980s, is derived from a periodization of Chinese directors trained since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
2. James Clifford, “Diasporas,” in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (1997), 266, 269 (Clifford’s emphases).
3. Stephen Teo, Wong Kar-wai (2005), 99.
4. Emma Thompson notes in her journal account of the film: “I very much like the fact that there are four generations represented in this film—from Margaret’s twelve-year-old perspective through Elinor and Marianne’s twenties and Mrs. Dashwood’s forties to Mrs. Jennings’ sixties. Not a thirty-something in sight.” See Emma Thompson’s The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries (1996), 241.
5. Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Pye’s “Austen Viewed from Mars,” Daily Telegraph, January 27, 1996, A1.
6. Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar, “From National Cinemas to Cinema and the National: Rethinking the National in Transnational Chinese Cinemas,” Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 4, no. 2 (2001):109–122.
7. Chinese Films in Focus II (2008) updates and expands its predecessor, providing, in total, 35 in-depth readings of individual Chinese films from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of the diaspora.
8. Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, “Introduction: Mapping the Field of Chinese-Language Cinema,” in Lu and Yeh, eds., Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics (2005), 1.
9. Chris Berry explores the topic of transnationalism and Chinese cinema further in “What Is Transnational Cinema?: Thinking from the Chinese Situation,” Transnational Cinemas 1.2 (2010): 111–27, in which he argues for understanding transnational cinema as growing out of the conditions of globalization, shaped by neoliberalism, free trade, and the collapse of socialism.
10. See Gina Marchetti, “The Wedding Banquet: Global Chinese Cinema and the Asian American Experience,” in Darrell Y. Hamamoto and Sandra Liu, eds., Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism (2000), 291–92.
11. Ang Lee, quoted in ibid., 291.
12. Even Ang Lee’s name reflects his desire to retain a Chinese identity. His name rendered in pinyin romanization is Li An. Considering his options Li An or Lee An too feminine, Ang Lee did not choose to adopt an English name (such as “David”) to clarify his gender. Instead, he added a “g” to his Chinese name to lessen the possibility of confusing it with a woman’s name (“Lee An,” or the given name “Anne”). The name he selected for himself (Lee Ang) was both neutral in gender and still “Chinese” in appearance. For more on Lee’s preservation of his Chinese identity, see Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell W. Davis, Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island (2005), 188–89.
13. Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry’s Speaking in Images (2005), 352.
14. For a complete study of Chinese cinematic history from its earliest beginnings in Shanghai, see Yingjin Zhang’s Chinese National Cinema (2004). A transnational history of Chinese film, the volume covers the film industries in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
15. Kwai-Cheung Lo, Chinese Face/Off: The Transnational Popular Culture of Hong Kong (2005), 248.
16. Bruce Lee died on July 20, 1973, in the apartment of actress Betty Ting Pei, who had given him her own prescription drug, Equagesic, to cure his headache. He lay down for a nap and never woke up again. The circumstances involving Bruce Lee’s death have never been adequately explained, despite a special investigation team called in from London. It was concluded that Bruce Lee had already been suffering from excessive water pressure in his brain due to a stunt accident two weeks prior to his death, and that the drug had exacerbated the condition, causing a cerebral edema. However, conspiracy theorists still debate this, even more intensely after Lee’s only son, Brandon, was killed in a freak accident by a dummy bullet while filming The Crow in 1993. For biographical studies of Lee, see Linda Lee (1989) and Bruce Thomas (1994). For his influence, see Lou Gaul (1997).
17. The four films Bruce Lee made in Hong Kong in the last three years before his death were The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (also entitled The Chinese Connection, 1972), The Way of the Dragon (1972), and Enter the Dragon (1973).
18. Jackie Chan was also in the remake of The Karate Kid (2010), playing kung fu master Mr. Han in his first dramatic role in American film, costarring Jaden Smith.
19. Steve Fore, “Jackie Chan and the Cultural Dynamics of Global Entertainment,” in Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu. ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender (1997), 240.
20. Peggy Hsiung-ping Chiao, “The Emergence of the New Cinema of Taiwan,” Asian Cinema 5.1 (March 1990): 9.
21. Jeff Yang, Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Cinema (2003), 178.
23. Both from Fredric Jameson, “Remapping Taipei,” in Browne et al., eds., New Chinese Cinemas (1994), 147.
25. Nineteen directors have been honored more than once with a Best Director Academy Award, including John Ford (four wins), Frank Capra (three wins), and William Wyler (three wins), while Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg, and fourteen others have two wins apiece.
26. Ang Lee in Zhang Jingpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema] (2002), 37.
27. See Feii Lu, Taiwan dianying: zhengzhi, jingji, meixue [Taiwan cinema: politics, economics, aesthetics] (1998), 103–108, 271–77.
28. Ang Lee, quoted in Rick Lyman’s “Watching Movies with Ang Lee: Crouching Memory, Hidden Heart,” New York Times, March 9, 2001, E27.
29. Yingjin Zhang documents the 1963 popularity of The Love Eterne: “Fans went to see the film repeatedly, some up to 100 times. After the movie won several major prizes at the second Golden Horse Awards, 200,000 fans crowded the airport and its adjacent streets when the actress Ling Po, who was given an acting prize for her cross-dressing role as Liang Shanbo, arrived for the award ceremony. For safety reasons, Ling Po was secretly escorted out of the airport in a police vehicle, but to satisfy her fans, she was paraded in a car the next day to 180,000 people lining the streets.” Yingjing Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (2004:138).
30. Ang Lee, quoted in Lyman (2001:E1).
31. Ang Lee, quoted in ibid., E27.
32. Ang Lee, quoted in ibid.
33. Shu-ching Shih, “Zhuanfang Li An: Cong Buolin, Weinisi dao Haolaiwu” [Interview with Ang Lee: From Berlin and Venice to Hollywood], Yinke wenxue shenghuo zhi [Ink Literary Monthly] 1.5 (January 2006): 26.
36. Ang Lee adds to his description of James Schamus: “And on a personal level: he helps me decide which ties to wear.” Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry (2005:333–34).
37. James Schamus, “Brokeback Mountain: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books, April 6, 2006, 32.
38. Asked why he did not work with Schamus on Life of Pi, Lee replied: “I just thought it was time to try something on my own and see what happens at least once. To grow up a little bit, so to speak (chuckles), just to see what it was like. I just felt like doing it, and he was very nice and encouraging about it and it just happened to be the most difficult movie I’ve made. (Laughs) So I’ll go back to James—we’re good friends. We’ve been working for a long time so a change was good for both of us.” Ang Lee, quoted in Edward Douglas, “Oscar-Worthy: Life of Pi Director Ang Lee,” November 15, 2012; see www.comingsoon.net/news/weekendwarriornews.php?id=96684 (accessed November 20, 2012).
39. Ang Lee, quoted in David M. Halbfinger, “The Delicate Job of Transforming a Geisha,” New York Times, November 6, 2005, 4.
40. Ang Lee, quoted in ibid.
3. CONFUCIAN VALUES AND CULTURAL DISPLACEMENT IN PUSHING HANDS
1. Ang Lee, quoted in Chris Berry, “Taiwanese Melodrama Returns with a Twist in The Wedding Banquet,” Cinemaya 21 (Fall 1993): 54.
2. See Sheng-mei Ma, “Ang Lee’s Domestic Tragicomedy: Immigrant Nostalgia, Exotic/Ethnic Tour, Global Market,” Journal of Popular Culture 30.1 (1996): 191–201.
3. Wei Ming Dariotis and Eileen Fung, “Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee,” in Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender (1997), 217.
4. Shu-mei Shih, “Globalization and Minoritization: Ang Lee and the Politics of Flexibility,” New Formations 40: 89.
5. Possibly an homage to King Hu, one of the most influential Chinese directors in the 1970s, whose A Touch of Zen (1969) was a distinct source of inspiration for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Toward the end of his career, King Hu fell out of favor with Chinese producers because of his slow and meticulous working habits, particularly after spending four years making A Touch of Zen, and his career never recovered. In the last years before his death, he struggled unsuccessfully to find investors for his film on Chinese-American railway workers.
6. Ang Lee, speaking on “A Forbidden Passion,” a special feature on the DVD The Wedding Banquet (MGM Home Video, 1993).
7. Ang Lee, quoted in Zhang Jingpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema] (2002), 17.
10. “During my first two movies, I felt like an old lady babbling on and on about her life! (Laughs) That is because it was my life.” Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry’s Speaking in Images (2005), 337–38 (emphasis mine).
11. “Foreigner” is Ang Lee’s own word choice; he characterizes himself as a foreigner in the United States. “Looking back, I realize that I have always had identity problems. People like me, second-generation mainlanders from Taiwan, are a rare breed. They last only about two generations and account for a very small portion of people among Chinese, but we have a very unique experience. … Many of us came from Taiwan to the States, where we are foreigners. So all our lives we have identity problems.” Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry (2005:331–32).
12. Ang Lee, Pushing Hands (Tuishou) (1991a:45).
13. Ang Lee, interviewed in Berry (2005:331).
4. TRANSGRESSING BOUNDARIES OF GENDER AND CULTURE IN THE WEDDING BANQUET
1. James Schamus, speaking on “A Forbidden Passion,” a special feature on the DVD The Wedding Banquet (MGM Home Video, 1993).
2. Much of the score was composed by the Taiwanese musician Mader; however, the pop song playing on the tape-player that Wai-Tung refers to as “a racket” is actually May Chin’s (who played Wei Wei) bestselling duet “Diamond and Stone,” performed with fellow Taiwanese artist Ang-Go Tong.
3. Ang Lee, speaking on “A Forbidden Passion,” 1993.
4. Ang Lee, speaking on “A Forbidden Passion,” 1993. James Schamus adds: “I think that Ang having a father who was a high school principal and somebody who really stressed traditional Chinese values—and that gentleman having a son who ends up going to theater school in the United States … There’s a lot of autobiography that gets coded into these stories.”
5. Ang Lee, “A Forbidden Passion,” 1993.
6. Ang Lee and Peng Guangyuan (Neil Peng), The Wedding Banquet (screenplay, 1993), 146–47.
7. See Dariotis and Fung, “Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar,” in Lu, ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas (1997), 204–205.
8. Marchetti, “The Wedding Banquet: Global Chinese Cinema and the Asian American Experience,” in Hamamoto and Liu, eds., Countervisions (2000), 279.
10. Ibid. For more on the political allegory in The Wedding Banquet, see Marchetti (2000:276–80).
11. Dariotis and Fung (1997:202).
12. Lee and Peng (1993:69–70).
13. For more on the film’s ambivalent stance toward homosexuality, see Dariotis and Fung (1997:199–202).
14. See Marchetti (2000:286).
15. Information about the origin of The Wedding Banquet is from Neil Peng [Peng Guangyuan], “Preface,” in Lee and Peng (1993:21–26).
16. Ang Lee, in a cameo appearance as “Guest C” in The Wedding Banquet, in Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet: Two Films by Ang Lee (1994), 177.
17. Ang Lee, “A Forbidden Passion,” 1993.
5. GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL IDENTITY IN EAT DRINK MAN WOLMAN
1. From Ang Lee, Wang Huiling, and James Schamus, Yinshi nannü: dianying juben yu paishe guocheng [Eat drink man woman: screenplay and shooting process], ed. Central Motion Pictures Corporation (1994), 166.
2. See Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors (2005), 210–13.
3. See Steve Fore’s “Jackie Chan and the Cultural Dynamics of Global Entertainment” (1997), 241.
4. Yeh and Davis (2005:209).
5. Andrew Tudor, Theories of Film (1973), 139.
6. Ti Wei, “Generational/Cultural Contradiction and Global Incorporation” (2005), 111.
7. Ang Lee, quoted in Zhang Jingpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema] (2002), 133–34.
8. Sheng-mei Ma, “Ang Lee’s Domestic Tragicomedy,” Journal of Popular Culture 30.1 (1996): 195.
9. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996), 38.
11. Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), 97.
12. “Japanese-style” indicates the style of architecture of official residences built during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan; the style includes common features such as slanted, black-tiled roofs, nailed shingles, and elegant wooden interiors.
13. For extensive coverage of the culinary and filming techniques used in Eat Drink Man Woman, see Yeh and Davis (2005:205–209).
14. Quote from John Anderson, film critic at New York Newsday, as it appears on the 2002 DVD cover of Eat Drink Man Woman, issued in the World Films series by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
15. From an anonymous internet discussion of Brokeback Mountain.
16. Yeh and Davis (2005:209).
18. James Schamus, in the introduction to Eat Drink Man Woman and The Wedding Banquet, Two Films by Ang Lee (1994), xi.
19. Ang Lee, in Zhang Jingpei (2002:128).
20. Yeh and Davis (2005:210).
6. OPPOSITION AND RESOLUTION IN SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
1. Ang Lee, quoted in Emma Thompson’s The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries (1996), 15.
2. Meenakshi Mukherjee, Jane Austen (1991), 26–27.
3. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811) (1996:33).
6. Edward Neill, The Politics of Jane Austen (1999), 33.
7. Lindsay Doran, in Emma Thompson (1996:15).
9. Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (1990), 21.
11. Malcolm Waters, Globalization (1995), 10.
14. Austen (1996 [1811]: 67).
16. Emma Thompson (1996:34).
21. A complete list of film adaptations of Austen’s work can be found in the appendix of Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield, eds., Jane Austen in Hollywood (1998), 188–90.
22. M. Casey Diana, “Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility as Gateway to Austen’s Novel” in Troost and Greenfield, eds., Jane Austen in Hollywood (1988), 140.
23. Lindsay Doran, producer of Sense and Sensibility, relates the story this way: “It became a matter of which of us had the nerve to suggest the idea first: a Taiwanese director for Sense and Sensibility? Were we crazy?” At the time of the studio’s offer, Lee had never before read Jane Austen’s work. See Lindsay Doran in Emma Thompson (1996:15).
24. Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry’s Speaking in Images (2005), 338.
25. Emma Thompson (1996:220).
29. The notes are recorded on the following pages in Emma Thompson (1996): for Kate Winslet, 238; for Emma Thompson, 219; for Alan Rickman, 232; for Greg Wise, 240.
30. Emma Thompson (1996:232).
7. FRAGMENTARY NARRATIVES/FRAGMENTED IDENTITIES IN THE ICE STORM
1. James Schamus, in the introduction to The Ice Storm: The Shooting Script (1997), 3.
3. Ang Lee, in his preface to Schamus (1997:vii).
6. Ang Lee, quoted in Michael Berry’s Speaking in Images (2005), 337.
8. The quoted sections of dialogue in this chapter are taken from James Schamus’ original screenplay to demonstrate this quality of fragmentation and foreshortening.
15. Les Daniels, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (1991), 126.
16. Ang Lee, in Schamus (1997:vii).
18. Ang Lee, in Schamus, (1997:viii).
20. Interview with Winnie Chung, “The Reel Winner,” East 3.4 (2001): 60.
8. RACE, GENDER, CLASS, AND SOCIAL IDENTITY IN RIDE WITH THE DEVIL
1. Ride with the Devil was recut and shown as a director’s cut for the first time at a retrospective hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center from August 1–11, 2009. As reported by Larry Rohter in the New York Times, Lee was unusually young to be honored as the subject of an 11-day film retrospective. See Larry Rohter, “Chasing Society’s Hidden Dragons,” New York Times, August 1, 2009, C1.
3. James Gleick, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (2000), 21.
5. From Stephen Schaefer, “Mr. Showbiz Interview: Ang Lee,” March 5, 2001.
7. Michael Berry, Speaking in Images (2005), 339.
8. Schamus, quoted in Zhang Jinpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema] (2002), 264.
9. Ang Lee, quoted in Berry (2005:339).
9. Wuxia NARRATIVE AND TRANSNATIONAL CHINESE IDENTITY IN CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
1. Ang Lee, “Foreword,” in Linda Sunshine, ed., Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Portrait of an Ang Lee Film, Including the Complete Screenplay (2000), 7.
2. Wang Dulu (1909–1977), born into a Manchu family in Beijing, was a Chinese author working in the early part of the twentieth century. His principal occupation was teaching at an elementary school, but in order to supplement his income, he took up the job of authoring serialized novels on the side. His writing, mainly in the form of social realist drama and martial arts novels, is known for its strong tragic sentiment. In 1956, Wang was appointed as the People’s Representative of Shenyang. Following the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), he underwent persecution due to the “bourgeois elements” in his writing. He died in 1977 of Parkinson’s disease. From Pei Xiaoxiong, “Wang Dulu,” in Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, eds., Zhongguo wenxue da cidian [Dictionary of Chinese Literature], and David Bordwell, “Wang Dulu,” in Sunshine (2000a:75).
3. See Jennifer Jay, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: (Re)packaging Chinas and Selling the Hybridized Culture and Identity in an Age of Globalization,” The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 30.3–4 (2003): 702–703; and Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 197–98.
4. Yeh and Davis (2005:198).
5. Ang Lee, quoted in Winnie Chung’s “The Reel Winner,” East 3.4 (2001): 60.
6. James Schamus in an interview with Eric Wittmershaus, describing the process of writing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in “James Schamus: Interview,” Flakmag, June 14, 2001; see http://flakmag.com/features/schamus.html (accessed November 5, 2005).
8. Ang Lee, quoted in Chung (2001:60).
9. Ang Lee, in Zhang Jingpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema] (2002), 305–306.
11. Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, and Ethnography in Contemporary Chinese Cinema (1995), 195.
12. See Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar, China on Screen: Cinema and Nation (2006), 69.
14. Ang Lee, “The Wuxia According to Ang Lee XE “Ang Lee” ,” in Sunshine (2000b:137).
15. See Lo, Chinese Face/Off (2005), 246.
16. Yeh and Davis (2005:190).
17. For more on this argument, see Berry and Farquhar, (2006:69–70).
18. From the complete screenplay, in Sunshine (2000:113).
20. Jen’s name in the original novel and in the Mandarin version of the film, Yü Jiaolong, means “delicate dragon.” Lo’s full Chinese name is Luo Xiaohu, which means “little tiger.”
21. From the complete screenplay, in Sunshine (2000:82).
28. See Fran Martin’s “The China Simulacrum: Genre, Feminism, and Pan-Chinese Cultural Politics in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” in Chris Berry and Feii Lu, eds., Island on the Edge (2005), 159.
29. Ang Lee, quoted in Stephen Schaefer, “Mr. Showbiz Interview: Ang Lee,” March 5, 2001.
32. Ang Lee, quoted in Kar Law, ed., Transcending the Times: King Hu and Eileen Chang (1998), 107.
33. David Bordwell, “Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinema,” in Sunshine (2000a:20).
36. Anthony Lane, “Come Fly with Me,” The New Yorker, December 11, 2000, 131.
10. THE ULTIMATE OUTSIDER: HULK
1. Ang Lee, quoted in John Lahr, “Becoming the Hulk,” The New Yorker, June 30, 2003, 76, before the release of the film.
2. Interestingly, both origin stories have since been remade, The Incredible Hulk in 2008 and The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012, demonstrating the continuing lucrative trend of this genre.
3. Joe Kubert, Superheroes: Joe Kubert’s Wonderful World of Comics (1999), 7.
4. The Incredible Hulk was originally gray, but the color was changed to green after it was discovered that a consistent shade of gray could not be supplied by the printer. For more on the history of the comic, see Tom DeFalco’s Hulk: The Incredible Guide (2003), 28.
5. Stan Lee, quoted in Les Daniels, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (1991), 9.
7. Stan Lee also used the alias “Neel Nats” (a pseudo-inversion of his name) in issues where he had written two stories. Stan Lee, quoted in Daniels (1991:41).
10. Stan Lee, quoted in ibid.
11. Stan Lee, quoted in Daniels (1991:10).
12. Daniels (1991:89–94).
13. Stan Lee would have been on hand to concur with these references because he had a cameo in Ang Lee’s Hulk. He reportedly improvised his lines in the cameo he shares with Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk in the original television series The Incredible Hulk, 1978), who plays the Head of Security in this film. More Hulk history can be found at the Internet Movie Database website for Hulk, IMDb, n.d.; see www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/trivia (accessed November 7, 2005).
17. Ang Lee turned down Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) to make Hulk. The main role played by Eric Bana was originally offered to Tom Cruise, who turned it down. Billy Crudup, who also turned it down, was Ang Lee’s first choice for the role. Other actors tested were Steve Buscemi, David Duchovny, and Jeff Goldblum. The composer Mychael Danna (The Ice Storm) was hired for Hulk, but was replaced by Danny Elfman during filming. This is evidence that the production process was not entirely a smooth one. Information from the Hulk website on the Internet Movie Database, IMDb, n.d.; see www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/trivia (accessed August 20, 2004).
20. James Schamus, John Turman, and Michael France, Hulk: The Illustrated Screenplay (2003), 91–92.
25. James Schamus, quoted in Tad Friend’s “Credit Grab,” The New Yorker, October 20, 2003, 169.
26. Schamus, Turman, and France (2003:96).
28. Ang Lee, quoted in Rick Lyman’s “Watching Movies with Ang Lee: Crouching Memory, Hidden Heart,” New York Times, March 9, 2001, E27.
11. TRANSCENDING GENDER IN BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
1. Anne Thompson, “Ang Lee’s ‘Brokeback’ explores ‘last frontier,’” Reuters/Hollywood Reporter/Yahoo News, November 11, 2005.
2. Eve Sedgwick, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tompkins Reader (1995), 35.
3. Judith Halberstam, “Queer Studies,” in Philomena Essed, David Theo Goldberg, and Audrey Kobayashi, eds., A Companion to Gender Studies (2005b), 63.
4. The story “Brokeback Mountain” was published in the New Yorker (1997) without the italicized prologue, which was included in the later version published in 1999 in Close Range: Wyoming Stories, a collection of Annie Proulx’s short stories.
5. Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain,” in Close Range (1999 [1997]: 262).
6. Proulx (1999 [1997]: 278).
7. James Schamus, quoted in Thompson (2005).
10. Choire Sicha, “Chokeback Mountain,” New York Observer, November 21, 2005, 15.
11. Brokeback Mountain ironically produced a heterosexual romance between two actors paired as husband and wife in the film; after wrapping the film, Heath Ledger had a baby with and became engaged to his costar, Michelle Williams. Although the two never married, they shared a home in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, from 2005 to 2007, and continued to share parenting responsibilities of their daughter Matilda until Ledger’s death in 2008.
12. Jake Gyllenhaal, quoted in Karen Durbin’s “Cowboys in Love … With Each Other,” New York Times, September 4, 2005, 9.
13. Frank Rich, “Two Gay Cowboys Hit a Home Run,” New York Times, December 18, 2005, 13.
15. Proulx (1999 [1997]: 283).
25. Ang Lee, quoted in Durbin (2005:9).
26. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto in an uncredited performance—this again demonstrates the low-budget atmosphere within which the film was made. Rodrigo Prieto had worked on another Focus Features production, 21 Grams (2003), with director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu; Focus Features brought Prieto together with Ang Lee, who was searching for an up-and-coming cinematographer who could shoot quickly.
27. Proulx, 1999 [1997], 278.
28. Ang Lee, quoted in Thompson (2005).
29. Ang Lee, quoted in Durbin (2005:15).
12. EROTICISM AND PERFORMANCE IN LUST/CAUTION
1. James Schamus, “Introduction,” in Eileen Chang et al., Lust, Caution: The Story, The Screenplay, and The Making of the Film (2007), xi.
3. Although the film was not popularly received in the West, in Asia it generated an overwhelming response, both positive and negative. While the film was received with unprecedented enthusiasm in Taiwan and Hong Kong, it was castigated in China for its anti-patriotic portrayal of Wang Chia-chih’s disloyalty and sexual obsession with a traitor, leading to the actress Tang Wei being banned from the film industry until late 2010. In addition, the most crucial line in the film, when Wang Chia-chih tips off Mr. Yee in the jewelry store, “Go, now!” [kuai zou] was changed to “Let’s go!” [zou ba] to make Wang Chia-chih seem less of a traitor herself. This highly charged and controversial reception of the film is explored in detail in Chinese scholarship on Lust/Caution. For further reference, see also Leo Ou-fan Lee’s 2008 article “Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution and Its Reception,” Boundary 2 35.3: 223–38, and Peng Hsiao-yen and Whitney Crothers Dilley’s From Eileen Chang to Ang Lee: Lust/Caution (2014).
4. For example, the technique of employing explanatory text in the film’s opening frames was used to introduce the central conflict between the Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers at the beginning of Lee’s American Civil War drama Ride with the Devil. Presumably, for the native English speaker the conflicts of war in China would have an even greater need for explanation.
5. Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share, trans. Robert Hurley (1993), 2.48.
6. Georges Bataille, Eroticism: Death and Sensuality, trans. Mary Dalwood (1986), 48.
7. Bataille (1993:2.119).
10. Bataille (1993:2.104).
11. Wang Huiling and James Schamus, “Lust, Caution: A Screenplay,” in Eileen Chang et al., Lust, Caution: The Story, The Screenplay, and The Making of the Film (2007), 196.
12. Eileen Chang, “Lust, Caution: The Story,” trans. Julia Lovell, reprinted in Eileen Chang et al., Lust, Caution: The Story, The Screenplay, and The Making of the Film (2007), 21.
15. The title of the film Lust/Caution contains a pun on the word “caution,” because the same Chinese character can also mean “ring”—signifying the ring that Mr. Yee gives to Wang Chia-chih. In addition, “lust” and “caution” are presented in a symbiosis common to Lee’s work: “lust” is “sense” and “caution” is “sensibility.”
16. Eileen Chang (2007:3).
21. Nick James, “Cruel Intentions: Ang Lee,” Sight & Sound 18.1 (January 2008): 50.
22. Moira Macdonald, “Ang Lee and the Power of Performance,” Seattle Times, October 2, 2007, 11 (italics mine).
23. James Schamus (2007:xv).
13. MEMORY, NARRATIVE, AND TRANSFORMATION IN TAKING WOODSTOCK
1. Opening lines of the chorus from the song “Woodstock,” written one month after the event by Joni Mitchell, and first performed at the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1969. The song was released on Mitchell’s third album, Ladies of the Canyon, in 1970. Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock,” copyright (c) 1969 Siquomb Publishing Corp., New York (BMI).
2. While the memoir was published under the Americanized name “Tiber,” Elliot’s original family name “Teichberg” is used in the film.
3. David Halperin and Valerie Traub, eds., Gay Shame (2010), 3–4.
4. The generation of the film came about when Ang Lee was scheduled on a West Coast television interview program as a guest on the same day as Elliot Tiber. In the green room before the interview, Tiber discussed his autobiography of the Woodstock period and handed Lee a copy of the book with the suggestion that Lee might want to make a movie out of it. When Lee eventually did read it, he was captivated by the story and decided he wanted to make the film. Rachel Abramowitz, “Ang Lee—Hippie?” in the Los Angeles Times, August 27, 2009; see http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/27/entertainment/et-lee27 (accessed June 16, 2012).
5. Elliot Tiber, with Tom Monte, Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life (2007), 164.
7. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (1995), 201–205.
10. Ang Lee, interviewed in “Taking Woodstock Production Notes,” festival-cannes.com, May 15, 2009; see www.festival-cannes.fr/assets/Image/Direct/029702.pdf, 2 (accessed October 12, 2010). Lee saw Taking Woodstock as following naturally from his previous work. If his 1973-set movie The Ice Storm was, as he says, “the hangover of 1969, then Taking Woodstock is the beautiful night before and the last moments of innocence” (2).
11. James Schamus, interviewed in ibid., 3.
14. STORYTELLING AND TRUTH IN LIFE OF PI: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
1. The book has been described as “arguably readable” by A. O. Scott, film critic of the New York Times, who gave the film one of its early lukewarm reviews. Scott claimed himself too cynical to be moved by the “wonder” in the film. A. O. Scott, “Plenty of Gods, But Just One Fellow Passenger: Life of Pi, Directed by Ang Lee,” New York Times, November 21, 2012, C1.
2. Yann Martel, “Author’s Note,” in Life of Pi (2001), v.
6. Lee’s entire quote is as follows: “I loved the book, but it’s very hard to crack. I thought you can’t make a movie about religion but it can be a movie about the value of storytelling and how that brings structure and wisdom to life. This is a coming-of-age story. It’s about taking a leap of faith.” Ang Lee, quoted in an interview with Anupama Chopra, “Adrift with a Tiger and the Film God,” New York Times, September 9, 2012, AR44.
7. “There is a certain perception about 3-D, but just because nobody has made an intimate movie with it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” Lee, quoted in ibid.
8. The special effects technology used in Life of Pi was a topic not without controversy, however, as the company Rhythm and Hues filed for bankruptcy after making this film.
9. These multilingual and multicultural aspects reflect Yann Martel’s own spiritual and cultural journey toward defining his own identity as an author who was born in Spain, raised in Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Canada, and who as an adult spent time in Iran, Turkey, and India.
12. This relationship between ethnocentrism and the semiotics of culture is also highlighted by Pi’s mother in the novel where she asks her husband if they can buy a pack of cigarettes right before their departure. When her husband replies that neither of them smokes, and that they have tobacco in Canada, Pi thinks: “‘Yes, they have tobacco in Canada. But do they have Gold Flake cigarettes? Do they have Arun ice cream? Are the bicycles Heroes? Are the televisions Onidas? Are the cars Ambassadors? Are the bookshops Higginbothams?’ Such, I suspect, were the questions that swirled in Mother’s mind as she contemplated buying cigarettes.” Martel (2001:115).
13. Another passage which highlights this ethnocentric yearning is when Pi is looking for help on the disabled Tsimtsum during the storm: “I ran for the bridge. Up there was where the officers were, the only people who spoke English, the masters of our destiny here, the ones who would right this wrong. They would explain everything. They would take care of my family and me.” Here a godlike status is conferred upon these English speakers. Quoted from Martel (2001:130).
14. The Holy Bible: New International Version (1984), 354.
15. Some colors were also altered in the film; for example, the crunchy, tubular seaweed Pi bites into on the floating island is white on the inside (in the book); this is changed to a vibrant purple in the film. Purple is the color of taro, a popular tuber vegetable in Taiwan. Taro refers to a family of root vegetables native to Southeast Asia, and is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants.
18. Chinese-language studies of this film make much use of Lee’s symbolism of both pi as an infinite number (metaphorically linked to the endless repetition of the cycle of life-and-death, i.e., Pi’s birth occurs at the same time that the zoo’s monitor lizard escapes and is trampled to death; the roundness of the pool and bodies of water; the spherical shape of the earth and the secret laws of the universe), as well as the “tiger” as a representative of the filmmaker himself. For further insight see Ye Jigu, Li An dianying de jingyu biaoda [Frame imagery expression in Ang Lee’s films] (2012).
19. Pi himself makes reference to this at the end of the novel, in reference to his unceremonious farewell with Richard Parker: “I’ll tell you, that’s one thing I hate about my nickname, the way that number runs on forever. It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.” Martel (2001:360).
20. Martel’s book captures the reader’s imagination in its presentation of human alienation, isolation, and the hope and meaning that can be gained through philosophical inquiry—the work shares these and other intertextual elements (such as the name “Richard Parker” given to the tiger) with other historical shipwreck narratives.
21. Specifically, this moment recalls the loss of “Wilson” in Cast Away (2000).
22. Ang Lee, quoted in an interview with Anupama Chopra (2012:AR44).
15. CONCLUSION: THE DREAM OF CINEMA
1. Annie Proulx, “Getting Movied,” in Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay (2006), 135.
2. Ang Lee, in Michael Berry’s Speaking in Images (2005), 329.
4. Roland Barthes, S/Z: An Essay, trans. Richard Miller (1974), 4.
5. James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1960, 2d ed.), 415.
6. Ang Lee, in Zhang Jingpei, ed., Shinian yijiao dianying meng [A ten-year dream of cinema] (2002), 467.