A Quote by Ang Lee

I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making. — © Ang Lee
I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.
Chinese movies are not just about making Chinese local movies. It's about the Chinese money, the Chinese creativeness participating in a global movie. The problem is not the government not supporting this, they of course support this big time. The problem is whether other people are capable of doing the same thing I'm doing.
One thing we haven't mentioned is something everyone should understand very clearly. Look at the budget that was invested in 'Avatar': who in China has that kind of money to spend on making a movie? So we as Chinese filmmakers should work together to make Chinese movies that can compete as best we can for Chinese audiences, not make lousy movies, but make the best we can for that audience. Concentrate the money, the talent we have on making good movies [for China].
I just wish one of the big American studios had bought 'Devdas.' They would have pitched the film for the Oscars in a big way, like Miramax did with the Chinese film 'Hero.'
Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?
There will always be big companies making big movies. But making film and distribution is changing in front of our eyes. I'm not sure what the future holds for this industry.
I like to go back to Chinese film-making from time to time. I don't think I can make Chinese films back to back; it's such a big effort. I'd have to take a very long break.
We love making movies. We got into the business to make movies. At the end of the day, whether you're doing a low budget film or a big budget film, you want it to do well and you want people to see it. That's the whole point. You want to put some kind of message in it.
I've been making movies for a long time. The Japanese way of making movies has become second nature to me. To get away from that, I really try to surround myself with younger staff and approach making movies not like a veteran of the industry but always as a beginner and a rookie.
Pretty early on in making the first movie I realized that this is what I wanted to do. I felt like by that time I just found my niche, like this is what I was supposed to be doing. So I completely submerged myself into the world of watching movies, making my own movies, buying video cameras and lights. When I wasn't making a movie, I was making my own movies. When I wasn't making movies, I was watching movies. I was going back and studying film and looking back at guys that were perceived as great guys that I can identify with. It just became my life.
Well, as far as film, either you're making a film or you're making videos. Digital capture is always trying to emulate the range and look of film. I believe personally that film has more.
In movies and television shows, there has never been a really good Chinese lead. So often the Chinese look like they are very scared and shy.
There are photographers who push for war because they make stories. They search for a Chinese who has a more Chinese are than the others and they end up finding one. They have him take a typically Chinese pose and surround him with chinoiseries. What have they captured on their film? A Chinese? Definitely not: the idea of the Chinese.
I think I'm a very American director, but I probably should have been making movies somewhere around 1976. I never left the mainstream of American movies; the American mainstream left me.
I think, to go to the bottom of it all, that the films I have made and my kind of film-making is a hybrid type of film-making - in that it isn't American, it isn't Italian.
I don't believe Chinese movies should only have Chinese cast and talents shooting it with a Chinese story.
I find that male directors are more interested in what the film looks like as opposed to what the film is about emotionally. My job is not to make the film look pretty, and I don't feel drawn to making myself look pretty within the film.
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