Taiwanese film fans were waiting anxiously yesterday morning to find out whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would award its directing prize to an Asian filmmaker for the first time in its 78-year history.
And the long wait paid off as Ang Lee (
At a press conference after the award, Lee said his accomplishment was the collective achievement of Chinese-language cinema.
He also said that it was essential for an artist to look to his or her cultural roots. Even though he usually directs English-language films, he said his vision and thinking has been, and always will be, in Chinese.
"Working on big-budget films in Hollywood gives me the freedom and resources to do anything I want, but I need to come back again and again to make Chinese-language movies for artistic rejuvenation," Lee said in a TV interview with Kevin Tsai (
Aside from winning an Oscar, the cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain also brought Lee top honors at the Venice International Film Festival, the Golden Globes, as well as from the Directors Guild of America, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Lee's career, however, has not always been a smooth ride.
Born in Chaojhou Township (
When Lee discovered his true vocation for performing arts and cinema, he blossomed. With his family's support, Lee went on to earn a bachelor's degree in theater at the University of Illinois and an masters in film production at New York University.
Lee has often attributed his success to his wife and family, saying that he would not have become a filmmaker if it had not been for his wife Jane Lin's (
Lin, a microbiologist, supported the family in the US for six years while Lee stayed at home taking care of their children.
A close friend of Lee's, The Wedding Banquet screenwriter Neil Peng (馮光遠), said the artist has a tempo of his own and the six-year break gave Lee a chance to prepare himself for his directing career.
"During those six years, Lee never gave up his film dreams. He kept a huge movie database in his brain and would work on dozens of scripts at the same time," Peng said.
At the age of 37, Lee made his first acclaimed feature film Pushing Hands. The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) won applause from international film circles and brought him to Hollywood's attention.
Since then Lee has roamed freely among different genres, from costume romances like Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Ride With The Devil (1999) to The Ice Storm (1997) and science fiction flicks like the Hulk (2003). But it was his martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) that pushed him to the top of the ladder as a world-class filmmaker.
Lee has said that growing up in an authoritarian environment in Taiwan and living as an outsider in the US made him into a quiet person with low self-esteem. Filmmaking, he said, gave him the opportunity to achieve something that could be shared and appreciated by others.
Filmmaker Khan Lee (
He said the success of Brokeback lies in the fact that it is an honest film which offers a reflective look at social issues and our collective mentality, yet leaves space for the audience to think for itself.
Khan Lee told Taipei Times in a telephone interview that he believed that Brokeback Mountain deserved both the Best Director and Best Pictures awards and he thought that the former was a delayed concession from the Academy Awards.
He said the costume romance Sense and Sensibility and stark drama The Ice Storm should have earned his brother and his film crews their rightful recognition at the exclusive Academy.
Khan Lee also said that the top honors given by the Directors Guild of America for Brokeback Mountain means a lot more to his brother since it was a important recognition from his film peers and colleagues.
Years of hard work have earned Ang Lee international fame. But, perhaps, the ultimate validation came from his father, who, on his death bed, told his son to keep on doing what he loves without fear.
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
‘IMMORAL, INSINCERE’: Huang Kun-huei said that Ma was ‘distorting history’ in claiming that Lee Teng-hui laid the foundation for the so-called ‘1992 consensus’ Former Presidential Office secretary-general Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) on Saturday rejected former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) claim that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had been a proponent of Beijing’s “one China” principle. Lee, who served as president from 1988 to 2000, died in Taipei on Thursday last week. After visiting the Taipei Guest House on Saturday to pay his respects to Lee, Ma posted on Facebook that “28 years ago on this day” Lee hosted a session of the now-defunct National Unification Council, during which he passed a resolution on the “one China” principle. That resolution became the basis of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s
NEW ERA: Taiwan, which has controlled its virus outbreak, now faces the challenge of safely resuming economic exchanges with other nations, Chang Shan-chwen said People should not focus entirely on having zero new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan, but neglect overall control over the disease situation, Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said yesterday. Chang made the remark at a forum in Taipei discussing the steps Taiwan should take in the post-pandemic era, organized by the Chinese-language magazine Global Views Monthly. Chang, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), and Stanford University’s Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention director C. Jason Wang (王智弘) each made a presentation, followed by a panel discussion with Chang, Wang and Buddhist Tzu
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
RSS