Ang Lee Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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].
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A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.
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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.
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The woman's perspective is like the dark side of the moon: it always exists, but it is never exposed, at least not in my culture.
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I feel like all of my characters now take this congested situation, they clash, and from there you purge yourself.
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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.
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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.
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My hometown was one of the major U.S. Air Force bases.
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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.
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Beautifully-acted and precisely observed, ILO ILO is an amazing debut, full of heart and intelligence.
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Directing, I get all kinds of inspiration. It's working with people. It's a lot more fun.
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I find it hard to deliver straightforward things.
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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.
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I don't think the Hulk is a superhero. He's the first Marvel character who is a tragic monster. Really an anti-hero.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.