Ang Lee Quotes

I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures.

When I see something I like, that's all that counts. What they use, how they get there, I never bother them.

I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.

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.

Every movie is unknown.

Beautifully-acted and precisely observed, ILO ILO is an amazing debut, full of heart and intelligence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm a big boy now, and I have to deliver.

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.

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 had to find my way of translating the excitement you get when you're reading comic books to the big screen.

I see a movie as a way of learning about the world, about myself, and learning about my relationship with people and art.

I like to do drama, something about life that could be disappointing.

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.

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 don't care about writing really.

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.

In Taiwan, I'd be like Michael Jordan walking down the street.

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.

My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.

With 3D you're right there immersed in the world.

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.

If the movie is quiet I generally feel the audience is busy. That's when they're working.

A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.

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 hope people don't compare 2D and 3D because 3D's new, it's unfair to compare to 2D which is really sophisticated, even when we're jaded about it. 3D just began, give it a chance, let the equipment and projection system catch up and be better, let the price go down, let more filmmakers get a hold of it more easily.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.

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.

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.