Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (李安) on Saturday spoke of his attachment to Taiwan, saying that he is Taiwanese and that no matter where he shoots a film, it is a Taiwanese film.
New York-based Lee, who is visiting Taiwan to promote his latest film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, made the remarks at a forum in Taipei.
Lee, 61, was introduced as the recipient of two Venice Film Festival awards, two Berlin Film Festival awards, five Golden Globe awards and three Oscars.
Asked how he would have preferred to be introduced, Lee said: “I would like to be introduced as having received five Golden Horse awards.”
Lee, who received a master’s in fine arts from New York University’s Tisch School of Arts after earning bachelor’s degrees at National Arts School (now National Taiwan University of Arts) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said he sees himself “as a student of the motion picture department forever, and the world is my school.”
Saying that he is “Taiwanese,” and that he is often asked why he has not shot a film about Taiwan, he added that “wherever I shoot my film, it is a Taiwanese film.”
However, one of Lee’s early successes was 1994’s Eat Drink Man Woman (飲食男女), which was set in Taipei.
He said the formation of an individual decides their world perception, especially the things that happen before one is 20, so since he did not go to the US until he was 23, “whatever I do, whatever I absorb outside [Taiwan], my nature remains very Taiwanese... The basic me was growing up here, mixed with a lot of other things. Taiwan is like this.”
The 62-year-old director’s latest work was shot in 3D, with 4K resolution, at 120 frames per second for each eye — the highest ever frame rate for a movie and five times the normal rate of 24 frames per second.
“I believe that new technologies provide new tools for filmmakers. They allow us to capture beautiful and realistic images and to create a more immersive experience,” Lee told Variety.
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