Film historian Ellen Cheshire offers essential guide to Ang Lee
Bognor Regis-based film writer, researcher and lecturer Ellen Cheshire has written the “essential guide” to Ang Lee, the man, the filmmaker and his work.
The volume In The Scene: Ang Lee, published by Aurora Metro books at £12.99, revises and brings up to date Ellen’s Ang Lee Pocket Essentials book of November 2001.
In the new volume, Ellen explores the commercial, critical and award-winning (Oscars, Golden Globes) success of Ang Lee’s films. An introductory chapter highlights thematic and visual devices, followed by an exploration of all Lee’s films, from Pushing Hands (1992) to The Gemini Man (2019).
Ang Lee came to the fore in the 1990s as one of the second wave of Taiwanese directors. After studying at New York University, Lee returned to Taiwan where over the next three years he directed three comedydramas focusing on aspects of the East versus West culture and its impact on the family – Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman.
He then directed Jane Austen’s Sense And
Sensibility to tremendous critical and commercial success. Since then Lee’s projects have been both eclectic and striking, but it was his triumphant return to the East with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which has transformed him into an internationally-successful director, Ellen says.
Other films have included a foray into the Marvel Universe with Hulk, an adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain, Lust, Caution (a Chinese erotic espionage thriller) and
Taking Woodstock (American comedy-drama). His most recent films include an adaptation of Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi.
“And yet when I said to people I was writing a book about Ang Lee, you get blank looks. It is not necessarily a name that the general public knows… and then you mention the films and people do know.
“There is not a certain tone in his work like you would get with, say, Christopher Nolan, where you find shared sensibilities and themes.
Ang Lee might make a very small chamber piece with one film and then a really quirky comedy with the next. That’s what I find so appealing, that he is always pushing the boundaries.
“He himself and his family came from mainland China and then moved to Taiwan and then he came to America, and maybe that is why he is often seeing things as an outsider.
“He can look at American society from a detached perspective, and I find that really interesting.
“You would not necessarily say that his films have much in common, but there are sometimes coming-of-age themes, and a lot of his films have young actors in their breakthrough roles.
“There are a lot of young stars that started out in his films.”
The book goes through to last year’s Gemini Man, which Ellen admits is not a great film: “It’s a sad note to end on! I think it is just that the story is not that good. With the film Ang Lee had the challenge of the technology, but it wasn’t a particularly good story.”
As for her own favourites, Ellen would pick out Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
“With Brokeback Mountain, you get the small-scale sense of relationships. He is very good at filming from a distance. He is saying so much without dialogue, what is happening between the characters – and it is obviously a very emotional journey.
“The other side to that is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which is the big spectacular. It is a very GIFable film.
“You look it up and there are lots of really beautiful shots, and from a western perspective, this was the first big film that showed this more ancient Chinese film genre.”