Ang Lee Quotes
-
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 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.
-
It's the first movie I feel really proud of. But I know it's not a movie for everyone. Some people will embrace it, but some people will hate it, and I'm not really sure how to deal with that. 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.
-
I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
If the movie is quiet I generally feel the audience is busy. That's when they're working.
-
When I see something I like, that's all that counts. What they use, how they get there, I never bother them.
-
In Taiwan, I'd be like Michael Jordan walking down the street.
-
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.
-
The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I don't care about writing really.
-
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.
-
You become the movie you are making.
-
Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.
-
My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.
-
My cultural roots are something illusive.
-
Everyone in the gay community doesn't think alike.
-
When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write...
-
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.