An Interview with Ang Lee

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANG LEE

By Emily Christianson


Director Ang Lee admits there is an underlying theme to much of his work ... repression. He explored the social pressures of early 19th century Britain in Sense and Sensibility, then the free will of a young woman in 19th century China in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Now the Taiwan-born director explores life in the heartland of America during the 1960s with his latest film Brokeback Mountain.


Despite the fast moving social changes sweeping the nation in 1963, Wyoming was inching forward at a slower pace. Jack Twisp, an aspiring rodeo cowboy, and Ennis Del Mar, a ranch hand, develop feelings for eachother while watching over sheep on Brokeback Mountain When the summer is over they return to town and go their separate ways. They both marry and start families, but they can’t leave their intense friendship behind.


Lee (who won an Academy Award for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) recently talked with reporters at a Los Angeles press day about making Brokeback Mountain.


This was based on a short story by Annie Proulx, have you talked to her since you finished the movie?


Yes. It was a great relief, she loved the movie. She said people should make more movies from short stories. Whew.


The summer of 1963 took up a significant portion of the movie. Was that intentional?


You sound like my producers. I think it is important. I think we can really benefit from the mountain scenes because it is a nonverbal culture. They don’t say much and this story has to carry on for the next 20 years. I think you have to develop mountain scenes and the mountain has a visual element to be one of the main characters … I think the movie would benefit from it and patience is a small token to pay. To me it is pleasurable to watch them live in the mountains.


The nature is very overwhelming compared to when they get into the city …


It’s the West. They’ve got space and time. They leave space between the lines, between the words, it’s just the pace it naturally takes.


Do you like to shoot landscapes and use landscapes?


I like to use it in an indirect way visually to reflect the landscape of the characters without using words.


What sort of direction did you give the actors in portraying their emotions in such a heavy film?


It was scene by scene. We had the initial rehearsals before the real rehearsals. We do exercise like … well go back to space. How they treat space. Why do cowboys pose? Why do they put there hands here and there? Because they are shy … what that tells the body language, to develop body language before the verbal, the real language. Which is a lot of work too, not only the accent which requires an acting coach, but what is behind the accent and the way they speak and the count in their speech … that’s the second stage. Create a territory. To me it was important that Heath’s character would keep people at a distance and not to lose them, but not to let them get too close. He would do things and create all kinds of stuff to send out a signal, it’s almost like in wild life.
Jake’s the curious one, the more romantic and brave one. He will come in to check. Heath’s kind of body language imposes and where is the safe distance, where he (Jake) wants to get in closer and closer. That is in some ways what the movie is about. That was the first step and then language and learning their lines and being cowboys. They do ranch work. After that we do the real scenes after they have a taste of the characters. And little by little you can really get into it quite deep. Shooting is pretty precise. They have to forget about it and function for that moment.


If Jake’s the curious one, why doesn’t he peak at Heath while he bathing?


You know he is aware of that. When I was mixing the sound, each time there is a sexual tension and the character pretends it doesn’t exist I’d put a water sound in.


What did you see in this script that made you want to pursue it for years?


It’s mostly the short story. It wrenched my guts. I choked up at the end when he took out the shirt. The idea of Brokeback Mountain is very evoking to me, it’s existential. To me it is a story about the illusion of love. You don’t really know what love is, but you have the illusion, you have the need to apply your affection and being set up in the realistic west and being gay. The whole thing was very evoking and very fresh. And also talking about America. What is it about American great writers, and nobody make movie about it, is very fresh to me. I think we always have the need to make love stories the same old story again and again but you need newer material and this is the newest material I encountered. I think there are obstacles, great repression, great set up, wait for it to rip off, peel off, and take the idea to a pure form. It is very inspiring and very moving. I like the idea of how he feels when he realizes he missed something. Maybe I am middle aged, I don’t know. When he realized that was a taste of love and he missed it.


In certain pockets of the United States there will be people who disagree with the subject matter. Do you accept that fact? How do you reconcile that your film might not go over in middle America as it will in New York and LA?


I don’t require that everyone see it, I’m not the president of the United States. I can’t wait until the whole world is ready before I can make a movie. I loved it, if I didn’t do it someone else will and I would be very jealous. I’m greedy about making this, so I tend to forget. I hope I don’t have to deal with that. Somehow if I did a movie right it is more nerve racking for me then if I do a Blazing Saddles something. Or something artsy that only art house gets to see. If it does set loose to America, yes this is more scary, but I just deal with it, I don’t know what else to say. I think that the reconciliation is that it is a love story. Does anyone have a problem with love? That’s all I can say. I’m like a broken record, it’s a love story, it’s a love story. I think it is an unfair judgment to people in the center of America or small town people that they wouldn’t be affected. I think that is unfair too.


How did you avoid stereotypes in the portrayal of the characters?


I am loyal to the original material, it was good enough. The stereotype of western heroes, by doing a gay love story we already broke that. In terms of being gay the stereotypes of being very feminine, but they are cowboys. A lot of scenes about inner fear relate to that because there isn’t good communication and not much verbal skills so they turn violent – that psychology worked naturally against to go there is to be loyal to what is set out to be.


Is it about not taking the thing you want?


It is also about missing. Everyone missed it. When you realized you missed it, somehow that grabs me. It’s very profound. I don’t want to say the sadness. The thing that moves you and stays with you a long time. When it sinks in it grabs you. That is the place I like to go into.


The regret and sadness is very un-western, don’t you think?


Umm, actually it is very western, but not western as movies. It is not the heroic tale, it’s not gunslinger. There are sad stories in western movies, but it is actions, there are decisions, they are heroic, there is a lot of violence … just because we don’t see that in the movie theater doesn’t mean that it isn’t a central theme or feelings of American thoughts and life and emotions. It is always there, they are very important.

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