Name	Ang Lee
Tradchinesename	李安
Simpchinesename	李安
Pinyinchinesename	Lǐ Ān
Caption	Ang Lee, 2009
Birthdate	October 23, 1954
Birthplace	Chaochou, Pingtung, Taiwan)
Spouse	Jane Lin (1983-)
Children	Haan Lee (b.1984)Mason Lee (b.1990)
Yearsactive	1992 – present
Goldenbauhiniaawards	Best Director2001 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Goldenhorseawards	Best Film1993 The Wedding Banquet2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Best Director1993 The Wedding Banquet2007 Lust, Caution Best Original Screenplay1993 The Wedding Banquet
Hongkongfilmwards	Best Director2001 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Academyawards	Best Director2005 Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; Pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese American film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hulk (2003), and Brokeback Mountain (2005), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.

Early life

Education

Ang Lee was born in the town of Chaochou in Pingtung, a southern agricultural county in Taiwan. He grew up in a household that put heavy emphasis on education and the Chinese classics. Both of Lee's parents moved to Taiwan from mainland China following the Chinese Nationalists' defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Lee's father, a native of Kiangsi Province in southern China, imbued his children with studying Chinese culture and art, especially calligraphy.

Lee studied in the National Tainan First Senior High School where his father was the principal. He was expected to pass the annual Joint College/University Entrance Examination, the only route to a university education in Taiwan. But after failing the Exam twice, to the disappointment of his father, he entered a three-year college, National Arts School (now reorganized and expanded as National Taiwan University of Arts) and graduated in 1975. His father had wanted him to become a professor, but he had become interested in drama and the arts at college. This early frustration set his career on the path of performance art. Seeing Ingmar Bergman's film The Virgin Spring (1960) was a formative experience for him.

After finishing the Republic of China's mandatory military service, Lee went to the U.S. in 1979 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he completed his bachelor's degree in theater in 1980. Thereupon, he enrolled at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, where he received his MFA. He was a classmate of Spike Lee and worked on the crew of his thesis film, . During graduate school, Lee finished a 16mm short film, Shades of the Lake (1982), which won the Best Drama Award in Short Film in Taiwan. His own thesis work, a 43-minute drama, Fine Line (1984), won NYU's Wasserman Award for Outstanding Direction and was later selected for the Public Broadcasting Service.

Life after graduation

Lee's NYU thesis drew attention from the William Morris Agency, the famous talent and literary agency that later represented Lee. At first, though, WMA found Lee few opportunities, and Lee remained unemployed for six years. During this time, he was a full-time house-husband, while his wife Jane Lin (), a molecular biologist, was the sole breadwinner for the family of four. This arrangement, usually an embarrassment in Taiwanese culture, put enormous pressure on the couple, but with Lin's support and understanding, Lee did not abandon his career in films but continued to generate new ideas from movies and performances. He also wrote several screenplays during this time.

In 1990, Lee submitted two screenplays, Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, to a competition sponsored by the Republic of China's Government Information Office, and they came in first and second respectively. The winning screenplays brought Lee to the attention of Li-Kong Hsu (), a recently promoted senior manager in a major studio who had strong interests in Lee's unique style and freshness. Hsu, a first-time producer, invited Lee to direct Pushing Hands, a full-length feature that debuted in 1991.

Career

In the 2007 book The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen, Whitney Crothers Dilley has analyzed in detail the striking diversity of Lee's films, as well as Lee's recurring themes of alienation, marginalization, and repression. Many of Lee's films, particularly his early Chinese trilogy, have also focused on the interactions between modernity and tradition. Some of his films have also had a light-hearted comic tone which marks a break from the tragic historical realism which characterized Taiwanese filmmaking after the end of the martial law period in 1987. While The Wedding Banquet (1993) became a break-out hit for Lee as the most proportionately profitable film of 1993, it was Sense and Sensibility (1995) that brought Lee his first true international acclaim. Following that, both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Director) and Brokeback Mountain (2005) (which won the Academy Award for Best Director) became cultural touchstones, sweeping awards ceremonies and, in the case of Brokeback Mountain, sparking intense critical debates. When asked by a TV interviewer how he found his films, Lee is said to have replied: "I don't find my films, my films find me."

Lee's film Brokeback Mountain (2005) won the Golden Lion (best film) award at the Venice International Film Festival and was named 2005's best film by the Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and London film critics. It also won best picture at the 2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association, Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America (Adapted Screenplay), Producers Guild of America and the Independent Spirit Awards as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Drama, with Lee winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Brokeback also won Best Film and Best Director at the 2006 British Academy Awards (BAFTA). In January 2006, Brokeback scored a leading eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, which Lee won. He is the first Asian and non-Caucasian director to do so.

In 2007, Lee's film Lust, Caution earned him a second Golden Lion.

Debut from Taiwan

Pushing Hands (1992) was a success in Taiwan both among critics and at the box office. It received eight nominations in the Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan's premier film festival. Inspired by the success, Hsu collaborated with Lee in their second film, The Wedding Banquet (1993), which won the Golden Bear in the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated as the Best Foreign Language Film in both the Golden Globe and the Academy Awards. In all, this film collected eleven Taiwanese and international awards and made Lee a rising star.

Lee's first two movies were based on stories of Chinese Americans, and both were filmed in the US. In 1995, Hsu invited Lee to return to Taiwan to make Eat Drink Man Woman, a film that depicts traditional values, modern relationships, and family conflicts in Taipei. The film was once again a box office hit and was critically acclaimed. For a second consecutive year, Lee's film received the Best Foreign Language Film nomination in both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards, as well as in the British Academy Award. Eat Drink Man Woman won five awards in Taiwan and internationally, including the Best Director from Independent Spirit. Hollywood optioned the film rights and remade it into Tortilla Soup (2001, dir. María Ripoll). This is one of the rare occasions in which a Taiwanese film was remade outside the country.

Arrival in Hollywood

Sense and Sensibility

Lee's three acclaimed first dramas opened the door to Hollywood for him. In 1995, Lee directed Columbia TriStar's British classic Sense and Sensibility. The switch from Taiwanese to British films did not prevent Lee's work from garnering awards: Sense and Sensibility made Lee a second-time winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. It was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and won Best Adapted Screenplay for screenwriter Emma Thompson, who also starred in the movie alongside Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet. Sense and Sensibility also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama.

After this, Lee directed two more Hollywood movies: The Ice Storm (1997), a drama set in 1970s suburban America, and Ride with the Devil, an American Civil War drama (1999). Although the critics still highly praised these latter two films, their box office was not impressive, and for a time this interrupted Lee's unbroken popularity — from both general audiences and arthouse aficionados — since his first full-length movie. However, in the late 1990s and 2000s, The Ice Storm has had high VHS and DVD sales and rentals and repeated screenings on cable television, which has increased the film's popularity among audiences.

1999 onward

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

In 1999, Li-Kong Hsu, Lee's old partner and supporter, invited him to make a movie based on the traditional Chinese “wuxia” (martial arts and chivalry) genre. Excited about the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream, Lee assembled a team from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The film was a surprising success worldwide. With Chinese dialogue and English subtitles, the film became the highest grossing foreign film in many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Director at the Academy Awards. It ended up winning Best Foreign Language Film and three technical awards. The success of Crouching Tiger demonstrated that Lee's artistry had a general appeal; it also inspired such established directors as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige to explore wuxia films for Western audience.

Hulk

In 2003, Lee returned to Hollywood to direct Hulk, his first big-budget movie. The film received mixed reviews and became a moderate success, grossing over $245 million at the box office. After the setback, Lee considered retiring early, but his father encouraged him to continue making movies.

Brokeback Mountain

Lee decided to take on a small-budget, low-profile independent film based on Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-finalist short story, Brokeback Mountain. In a 2005 article by Robert K. Elder, Lee was quoted as saying, "What do I know about gay ranch hands in Wyoming?" In spite of the director's removal from the subject at hand, Brokeback Mountain showcased Lee's skills in probing depths of the human heart. The 2005 movie about the forbidden love between two Wyoming sheepherders immediately caught public attention and became a cultural phenomenon, initiating intense debates and becoming a box office hit.

The film was critically acclaimed at major international film festivals and won Lee numerous Best Director and Best Picture awards worldwide. Brokeback Mountain was the most acclaimed film of 2005, winning 71 awards and an additional 52 nominations. It was declared Best Picture by such organizations as the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Independent Spirit Awards, the 2005 Biennale Venice Film Festival, and the Producers Guild of America. Ang Lee also received his second Best Director award from the Directors Guild of America. Brokeback Mountain was nominated for a leading eight Oscars and was the front runner for Best Picture heading into the March 5 ceremony, but lost out to Crash, a story about race relations in Los Angeles, in a controversial upset. There was wide speculation that Brokeback Mountain's homosexual theme was the reason for that upset. Lee said he was disappointed that his film did not win Best Picture, but was honored to win an Academy Award for Best Director, becoming the first person of Asian heritage and the first non-white to ever win the award.

Lust, Caution

After Brokeback Mountain, Lee returned to a Chinese topic. His next film was Lust, Caution, which was adapted from a short novel by the Chinese author Eileen Chang. The story was written in 1950, and was loosely based on an actual event that took place in 1939–1940 in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, during World War II. Similar to Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee adapted and expanded a short, simple story into a feature film in a way that allows individual figures to develop sophisticated layers of reserved emotions, without being sidetracked by complicated plots or overstuffed materials.

Lust, Caution is distributed by Focus Features and premiered at international film festivals in the summer and early fall of 2007. In the US, the movie received a NC-17 rating (no one 17 and under admitted) from the MPAA mainly due to several strongly explicit sex scenes. This was a challenge to the film's distribution because many theater chains in the United States refuse to show NC-17 films. The director and film studio have decided not to appeal the decision. In order to be permitted to show Lust, Caution in mainland China, however, Lee removed 9 minutes from the film to make the content suitable for minor audiences.

Lust, Caution captured the Golden Lion from the 2007 Biennale Venice Film Festival, making Lee the winner of the highest prize for the second time in three years. The critics in the United States, however, were not all positive. When Lust, Caution was played in Lee's native Taiwan in its original full-length edition, it was very well received. Staying in Taiwan to promote the film and to participate in a traditional Chinese holiday, Lee got emotional when he found that his work was widely applauded by fellow Taiwanese. Lee admitted that he had low expectations for this film from the U.S. audience since "its pace, its film language — it's all very Chinese."

Lee has been chosen as president of the jury for the 2009 edition of the Venice Film Festival, set to take place from September 2 to September 12, 2009.

Collaborations with James Schamus

Ang Lee has had a career-long collaboration with producer and screenwriter James Schamus.

Schamus produced or co-produced the following Ang Lee movies: {| border="0" cellpadding="5" |- valign="top"| |

Pushing Hands

The Wedding Banquet

Eat Drink Man Woman

Sense and Sensibility

The Ice Storm

|

Ride with the Devil

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Hulk

Brokeback Mountain

Lust, Caution

|}

Schamus co-wrote the following Ang Lee movies: {| border="0" cellpadding="5" |- valign="top" |

Pushing Hands

The Wedding Banquet

Eat Drink Man Woman

The Ice Storm

|

Ride with the Devil

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Hulk

Lust, Caution

|}

Personal life

A naturalized U.S. citizen, Lee lives in Larchmont, New York with his wife Jane Lin, a microbiologist, whom he married in 1983. They have two sons, Haan Lee (born 1984), and Mason Lee (born 1990).

Filmography

Lee has been involved in the process of filmmaking in various capacities, though the highlight of his career and legacy is his directorial work. The following are Lee's various credits.

As Director: See also: Films directed by Ang Lee

As Writer: Pushing Hands () (1992) The Wedding Banquet () (1993) Eat Drink Man Woman () (1994) Siao Yu () (1995)

As Actor: The Wedding Banquet () (1993)

Hulk (2003)

Hollywood Chinese (2007) – himself

As Editor: Pushing Hands () (1992) Eat Drink Man Woman () (1994)

As Producer: Siao Yu () (1995) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon () (2000)

Awards

'''Academy Awards:

1994: Best Foreign Language Film (The Wedding Banquet - Taiwan, nominated)

1995: Best Foreign Language Film (Eat Drink Man Woman - Taiwan, nominated)

2001: Best Foreign Language Film (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Taiwan, won) *This award is only accepted by the director. It is actually awarded to the country the winning film represents.

2001: Best Director (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, nominated)

2001: Best Picture (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, nominated)

2006: Best Director (Brokeback Mountain, won)

'''BAFTA Awards:

1995: Best Film not in the English Language (Eat Drink Man Woman, nominated)

1996: Best Film (''Sense and Sensibility, won)

1996: David Lean Award for Direction (Sense and Sensibility, nominated)

2001: Best Film (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, nominated)

2001: David Lean Award for Direction (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won)

2001: Best Film not in the English Language (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won)

2006: David Lean Award for Direction (Brokeback Mountain, won)

2008: Best Film Not in the English Language (Lust, Caution, nominated)

'''Berlin Film Festival:

1993: Golden Bear (The Wedding Banquet, won)

1996: Golden Bear (Sense and Sensibility, won) *Ang Lee is the first and only director to win this award twice (excluding honorary Golden Bear winners)

'''Cannes Film Festival:

1997: Golden Palm (The Ice Storm, nominated)

2009: Golden Palm (Taking Woodstock, nominated)

'''Critics Choice Awards:

2006: Best Director (Brokeback Mountain, won)

'''Directors Guild of America:

1996: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Sense and Sensibility, nominated)

2001: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won) *One of six instances where the winner of this award did not go on to win the Oscar for Best Director.

2006: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Brokeback Mountain, won)

'''Golden Globes:

1996: Best Director (Sense and Sensibility, nominated)

2001: Best Director (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won)

2006: Best Director (Brokeback Mountain, won)

'''Independent Spirit Awards:

1994: Best Feature (The Wedding Banquet, nominated)

1994: Best Director (The Wedding Banquet, nominated)

1994: Best Screenplay (The Wedding Banquet, nominated)

1995: Best Director (Eat Drink Man Woman, nominated)

1995: Best Screenplay (Eat Drink Man Woman, nominated)

2001: Best Feature (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won)

2001: Best Director (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won)

2006: Best Director (Brokeback Mountain, won)

'''National Board of Review:

1995: Best Director (Sense and Sensibility, won)

2005: Best Director (Brokeback Mountain, won)

'''Saturn Awards:

2001: Best Director (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, nominated)

2001: Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, won)

'''Venice Film Festival:

2005: Golden Lion (Brokeback Mountain, won)

2007: Golden Lion (Lust, Caution, won) *As of 2007, he is one of only three directors to have ever won two Golden Lions (the others being André Cayatte and Louis Malle), and he is the only director to have won two Golden Lions within two years of each other.

Notes

References

Dilley, Whitney Crothers. The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.

"Taking Stock of 'Taking Woodstock'" Rushprnews October 5, 2008

"Ang Lee's movie has a backstory of pure serendipity" by Dan Bloom, Taipei Times October 11, 2008

Cheshire, Ellen. Ang Lee. London: Pocket Essentials, 2001.

External links

Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database

Ang Lee (Chinese)

Ang Lee 64th Venice Film Festival press conference

DGA Quarterly interview

Category:1954 births Category:American film directors Category:American people of Taiwanese descent Category:American film directors of Asian descent Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners Category:Best Director HKFA Category:Chinese film directors Category:English-language film directors Category:Independent Spirit Award for Best Director winners Category:Living people Category:People from Westchester County, New York Category:Taiwanese expatriates in the United States Category:Taiwanese film directors Category:Tisch School of the Arts alumni Category:University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign alumni

Name	James Schamus
Birth date	September 07, 1959
Birth place	Detroit, Michigan
Occuption	producer, screenwriter

James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American film producer and screenwriter, noted for his work on critically acclaimed independent films such as Safe, The Brothers McMullen and the Academy Award winning film Brokeback Mountain. He is perhaps best known, however, for his longtime collaboration with writer/director Ang Lee, with whom he co-wrote and produced such films as Eat Drink Man Woman, The Ice Storm, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This partnership is notable for having produced eight feature films, no two of which are alike in terms of story.

Schamus is also a published film historian, and currently holds a faculty position at Columbia University. He is currently the head of the film company Focus Features.

He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor's degree (1982), master's degree (1987), and PhD (2003), all in English.

Friends, acquaintances, and even rivals sometimes refer to him as James James, Schamus Schamus, or Seamus Seamus because his first and last names are etymological cognates.

Schamus is married to author Nancy Kricorian and they have two daughters, Nona and Djuna.

Schamus also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Nominated: Best Adapted Screenplay, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Nominated: Best Original Song, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Nominated: Best Picture, Brokeback Mountain (2005)

BAFTA Awards

Nominated: Best Adapted Screenplay, The Ice Storm (1997)

Nominated: Best Adapted Screenplay, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Won: Best Film, Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Cannes Film Festival

1997 Cannes Film Festival: Best Screenplay, The Ice Storm.

References

External links

The Career Cookbook James Schamus Profile

Columbia University Faculty

Interview at The Minnesota Review

Category:1959 births Category:American film producers Category:American screenwriters Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Living people Category:People from Detroit, Michigan