Ang Lee



Ang Lee [李安 : Lǐ Ān] (born 23 October 1954) is a Taiwanese-American film director

Quotes

 * 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.
 * On The Ice Storm (1997) Salon (17 October 1997).


 * Gradually I got tuned into the world — that happens on every movie. 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.
 * On developing a sensitivity for authentic details in the making of movies, Salon (17 October 1997).


 * The stern dad stuff doesn't work anymore. You have to be level with the kids, you have to be a nice guy... The authority thing just doesn't work anymore. It's like directing a Chinese film vs. directing an American film. 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.
 * On parenting, Salon (17 October 1997).


 * Mainstream films have occupied Hollywood but you can get bored very easily. It can be very repetitive and I think now we want something fresh and something inspiring and different, daring. The mainstream film is very expensive to make and it scares people. It's made for the worldwide audience, you have to please so many people, and the business men start running the movies rather than artists. This is back to the oldest way of Hollywood filmmaking, creating a fantasy, but it has been lost. It seems to take a foreign language film to recoup that ultimate movie viewing experience.
 * On Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, quoted at IMDb Movie/TV News (12 March 2001).