Ang Lee Quotes

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Ang Lee

Profession : Director

Birth : October 23, 1954

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

Ang Lee

I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance.

Ang Lee

When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.

Ang Lee

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

Ang Lee

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.

Ang Lee

I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.

Ang Lee

I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.

Ang Lee

I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures.

Ang Lee

Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.

Ang Lee

I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.

Ang Lee

I think doing period piece is easier, because after a certain distance, everybody is equal, I think. The relative contemporary is harder. I think that's the way it is.

Ang Lee

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.

Ang Lee

I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.

Ang Lee

When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me.

Ang Lee

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write.

Ang Lee

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.

Ang Lee

Directing, I get all kinds of inspiration. It's working with people. It's a lot more fun.

Ang Lee

The most mysterious feminine factor, the existence that we men, we don't know. It's woman. It's feminine. That's what the sword is about. That's the symbolic meaning of the sword.

Ang Lee

For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee