In The Scene

Ang Lee

Ellen Cheshire

• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780993220753
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Dirección y producción cinematográfica

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 consecutive years he directed three comedy-dramas focusing on aspects of the East vs. West culture and its impact on the family – Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman. Considering Lee's background it is surprising that he should be approached to direct the most British of novels, Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility. It was a tremendous critical and commercial success. Since then Lee's projects have been both eclectic and striking – he took on the American suburbs of the 1970s and the war-torn American South of the 1860s in The Ice Storm and Ride With The Devil. But it was his triumphant return to the East with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which has transformed him into an internationally successful director.

He followed this with his somewhat flawed foray into the Marvel Universe with Hulk. His heartbreaking adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story Brokeback Mountain brought him international critical and commercial success. But forever the genre and language-hopping director, Lee's next films were much smaller in scale and reach – Lust, Caution (a Chinese erotic espionage thriller) and Taking Woodstock (American comedy-drama). His most recent film was an adaptation of Yann Martel's The Life of Pi pushed the boundaries of CGI animation and showed how a director with great visual flair could enhance a film with 3D. His continual desire for embracing new technology divided critics and audiences for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, an adaptation of Ben Fountain's 2012 Iraq-war set novel, and The Gemini Man with Will Smith.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellen Cheshire has a BA (Hons) in Film and English and a MAin Gothic Studies and has taught Film at Undergraduate andA Level. She has published books on Bio-Pics, Audrey Hepburn andThe Coen Brothers and contributed chapters to books onJames Bond, Charlie Chaplin, Global Film-making, Film Form, Fantasy Films and War Movies. She is also one of a team of four writers for the new A Level WJEC Film Text Book published in 2018. For us, she has written In the Scene: Jane Campion and In the Scene: AngLee, and contributed to Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema eds.Melody Bridges and Cheryl Robson (voted best book on Silent Film 2016) and Counterculture UK: a celebration eds. Rebecca Gillieron and Cheryl Robson.

With a foreword by Professor James Wicks

James Wicks, Ph.D. writes about pop culture. He is the author of two books. Transnational Representations: The State of Taiwan Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s (Hong Kong University Press, 2014), and An Annotated Bibliography of Taiwan Film Studies (Columbia University Press, 2016) with Jim Cheng and Sachie Noguchi.

He grew up in Taiwan, completed his dissertation on Chinese Cinema at the University of California, San Diego in 2010, and is currently a Professor of Literature and Film Studies at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California where he teaches World Cinema and Postcolonialism courses.

The Films

As a teenager, Lee decided to break with his father’s wishes for him to become a teacher and go to the Taiwan Academy of Arts to study acting. This early decision which led him to study Chinese culture and language has shaped the way in which Lee approaches filmmaking.

He continued studying theatre at University of Illinois, but during his BFA, his loyalty to live performance shifted and he became enchanted by the cinema. It was at New York University where he made his first forays into film production. These short films were: The Runner (1980), I Love Chinese Food (1981), Beat the Artist (1981) and I Wish I Was by That Dim Lake (1982). He won an award for Best Narrative Film at the Taiwanese Golden Harvest Film Festival in 1983 for I Wish I Was by That Dim Lake. This was to be the first of many awards to follow.

Fine Line (1984)

US

In English

Crew

Director: Ang Lee. Screenplay: Ang Lee. Cinematography: Bob Bukowski. Original Music: Daniel Joseph Dee. Producer: Ang Lee.

Cast

Pat Cupo (Mario), Ching Ming Liu (Piu Piu), Chazz Palminteri (Angelo)

Story

Mario has been imprisoned in Wards Island Mental Institution, New York. Piu Piu is slaving away in a New York Chinese takeaway in order to earn money to continue her Theatre Studies Degree.

Mario has had enough of hanging around with the patients and after knocking his nurse unconscious he dons her uniform and runs back home to the waiting arms of his wife. But his wife is not waiting, she has disappeared with her lover taking all his savings with her. Naturally, Mario is a tad miffed by this, and starts smashing up his apartment and hurts his hand. Concerned neighbours call Mario’s best buddy Angelo, who comes to the rescue and gives them all the gossip regarding Mario’s estranged wife.

After throwing his TV out of the window, he leaves with Angelo. They stop off at a Roman Catholic Church so that Mario can light all the candles and pray that bad things will happen to his wife.

Meanwhile, Piu Piu is feeling harassed. She has no aptitude for waitressing; she would much rather be reading a book on Italian Commedia Del Arte. As if working at the restaurant is not bad enough, Immigration raid the place and she has to run away before being arrested and deported. Throwing her book at the ‘cops’, she does a runner. Meanwhile, Mario is also being forced to do a runner, as his best mate Angelo has embroiled him in some shady goings-on at an abandoned warehouse.

When a cop tries to break up the drug deal, everyone scarpers except the rather dim-witted Mario who is left holding the dope. With the cop in pursuit, he goes on the run. Soon the cop loses his footing and Mario has another uniform to change into.

Piu Piu seeks sanctuary in her friends’ apartment, where she worries about what will happen once Immigration find her name and address in her textbook. They lament how hard it is for a Taiwanese performer to become an international celebrity in the US. She has a bath and fantasizes about winning a host of glittering awards, and about working in Chinese restaurants. Unsettled, she goes for a walk and soon finds herself in the same abandoned warehouse where Mario (still dressed as a cop) is waiting for Angelo.

Mario makes the mistake of threatening Piu Piu, who with a quick kick, has Mario on the floor and his gun in her hand. A bit more fighting and arguing and they become the best of friends. Then they must cover each other’s backs as they are forced to make their escape from the Italian mobsters’ hail of bullets in a rowing boat across the water to New Jersey. By the time they reach the other shore, they know each other’s intimate secrets and are exchanging East meets West advice. They walk off into the sunset together.

Cut to ‘some time’ later. Piu Piu has now grown her hair longer, and Mario has come to terms with his wife’s unfaithfulness. They exchange phone numbers and promise to phone each other to make a date. Angelo and Piu Piu meet for the first time and he jokes that she is the first Chink that Mario has ever asked out. Piu Piu congratulates Angelo on still being alive and they part with Mario firmly clutching Piu Piu’s telephone number in his fist.

Background

Whilst at New York University studying for a MFA in Film Production, Lee had to produce a mid-length film as his final year project. Work began in 1984 and over the next two years Lee was in and around New York’s Italian and Chinese districts filming this mini epic. Largely location-based, this 45-minute film so impressed his university colleagues that he was awarded the top prizes at the New York University Film Festival for Best Director and Best Film.

Lee’s film also caught the eye of James Schamus and Ted Hope, to such a degree, that when they were setting up Good Machine five years later, they remembered Lee’s impressive debut film and sought him out. This led to an offer to assist in the production of Lee’s first feature.

This is an intimate story about ‘ordinary’ people caught up in situations over which they have little or no control. It features some of the themes that Lee would go on to develop later in his career.

The Outsider

Both Piu Piu and Mario are outsiders. Piu Piu is Taiwanese, constantly being mistaken for Chinese by those too ignorant to know or care. She is well-educated but is forced into taking a menial job in order to supplement her studies in the USA. She forms a bond with Mario, another loner. He has been excluded from the notoriously close-knit New York Italian community because of his violence and mental instability. He seeks refuge in Angelo’s criminal underworld but when he is taken along to a meeting, he is told to wear headphones so he cannot listen to the goings-on. Because of this, he misses the warning cries that the police are on the way, and is left behind to carry the can.

He tries to act tough with Piu Piu, but she quickly knocks him to the floor and takes control. Together, these two loners forge a relationship out of adversity. She advises him to “take a step back” and let go; he tells her, “don’t get mad, get even.”

When they meet again some months later, they have both heeded the advice. She has become more outgoing and he has mellowed as a result of their time together.

Food

Here food is used as a shortcut to establishing the cultural identities of the two lead characters. Playing to racial stereotypes, Piu Piu works in a crowded steamy Chinese restaurant, rushed off her feet. When she brings people the wrong orders and, as a consequence is reprimanded, this is all in a day’s work for her. Mario is seen eating a Chinese takeaway. When they meet again Angelo jokes that Mario should take Piu Piu out for spaghetti.

Visual Style

One of the most striking visuals in the film is the wide expanse of the Jersey River where Mario and Piu Piu are rowing. The dull grey water and sky, swallows up their small rowboat. Once they land in Jersey, Piu Piu glances longingly over her shoulder at the Statue of Liberty – a symbol of freedom that she cannot enjoy.

Trivia

Three other illustrious students who were at New York University at the same time as Lee were Ernest Dickerson, Jim Jarmusch and Spike Lee. Ang Lee is credited as assistant director, whilst Dickerson was the cinematographer on Spike Lee’s sixty-minute student film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.

Summary

This was an ambitious project for a student film given its extensive use of locations and action and Lee’s dual role of Director and Screenwriter. The film is let down by a weak script; the characters and their motivations are ill-defined. There is a clunkiness too in showing us the East meets West idea, with Mario eating a Chinese takeaway and Piu Piu reading a book on Italian Theatre, which is unnecessary and just highlights Lee’s poor attempts at shorthand characterization.

However, Lee, as a director, shows great confidence in his use of locations all over New York from Little Italy, to New Jersey, abandoned warehouses to bustling Chinese restaurants.

The framing of shots and his use of lighting all add to the film’s pervading aura of gloom and despair. The haunting music by Daniel Joseph Dee, which slides between Italian, Chinese and good old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama enhances the film’s sense of desperation and multiculturalism.

The two leads, Pat Cupo and Ching Ming Liu make the best with what little they are given to work with. Chazz Palminteri, the most confident of the three performers, has a charisma that Pat Cupo so sadly lacks, and it is unfortunate that Palminteri’s character is absent for much of the film.

Fine Line does occasionally turn up at Film Festivals and screenings so keep an eye out for it at the next Ang Lee retrospective. Worth watching just to see the raw talent of which future Academy Award winners are made. Not currently available online or as home entertainment.

Awards

Best Director, NYU Film Festival, 1986

Best Film, NYU Film Festival, 1986

Pushing Hands/Tui Shou (1992)

Taiwan/US

In Mandarin Chinese and English. English sub-titles

Crew

Director: Ang Lee. Screenplay: Ang Lee and James Schamus. Editing: Tim Squyres. Cinematography: Jong Lin. Costume Design: Elizabeth Jenyon. Production Design: Scott Bradley. Original Music: Xiao-Song Qu. Producers: Emily Yi-Ming Liu, Ted Hope, James Schamus and Ang Lee.

Cast

Sihung Lung (Mr Chu), Lai Wang (Mrs Chen), Bo Z. Wang (Alex Chu), Deb Snyder (Martha Chu), Haan Lee (Jeremy Chu), Emily Liu (Yi Chu).

Story

Mr Chu, a widowed Tai Chi master, has moved from China to New York to enjoy a leisurely retirement with his son, Alex, his grandson Jeremy and his American daughter-in-law, Martha. However, things soon turn sour as Mr Chu and Martha spend many unhappy hours co-existing in the same house. Martha, a budding author, whose first, much-anticipated novel is about to hit the shops, feels under pressure to write her second. However, she finds Chu’s presence a distraction, and their daily routines soon spiral out of control, as Martha becomes more and more antagonistic towards her father-in-law. They argue with each other, but as she speaks no Chinese and he no English, they understand very little of one another.

When Martha and Alex are alone together, they argue about his father. Their son Jeremy is caught in the middle of this unhappy family situation. Mr Chu’s only outlet is his weekly visit to a local Chinese school where he teaches the art of ‘Pushing Hands’ − a form of Tai Chi. It is there that he meets a widow, Mrs Chen, who is similarly unwelcome at her own daughter’s home. A friendship blooms but withers when she switches to teaching cookery at another school.

Martha is somewhat overwrought by the situation; it does not help matters that she is suffering from writer’s block and the papers have not reviewed her first novel. She becomes ill and Mr Chu is blamed. She is taken to hospital, bringing further unhappiness and confusion onto Alex’s shoulders. When Martha returns home, Mr Chu makes an effort to assist; he brings her tea and rice cakes, which she ignores. He decides to go for a walk and Martha is only too delighted to be relieved of her ‘babysitting’ duties for the afternoon and soon becomes absorbed in her work.

Alex returns from work and finds Martha busy at the computer and his father missing. He goes berserk, smashes up the house and goes in search of his father. The police bring Chu home to the waiting but hostile arms of his daughter- in-law; their shared role of clearing up brings them closer together.

On Alex’s return, drunk, he realizes the harm he is doing to his family and decides that he should put his father into a retirement home. He goes to break the news to his father, only to discover that he is ill. After a fairly quick recovery, his son agrees that they should swap to the other school so he can see Mrs Chen again. Alex encourages his fathers and Mrs Chen’s relationship, but when it is pushed too far, the couple feel insulted. Chu feels it is better for all concerned if he quietly slips away from the family scene and begins life again in New York’s Chinatown.

He takes a menial role as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant – he is too old, too slow and when they try to fire him, the manager sees the full force of his Tai Chi skills. A brief comedy interlude ensues as Mr Chu sees off a gang of thugs and an army of police officers who try and evict him from the restaurant. A TV crew captures the scene and Alex runs to his rescue. But his father has no need of his assistance. He likes his life but is grateful that there is a place for him should he need it.

The films ends on an upbeat note with Alex teaching Martha Tai Chi in their new home. Mr Chu’s TV news appearance, having made him something of a local hero, he has begun teaching Tai Chi again. It is at the Chinese school that Mrs Chen seeks him out and they arrange to meet up.

Background

After finishing his BFA at New York University, Lee spent six years in ‘development hell’. His agent fixed him up with a series of short contracts at various studios and production companies. As fellow NYU-graduate, Spike Lee, became an internationally renowned independent filmmaker, Ang Lee spent his time shuffling from studio to studio in search of that elusive first directing gig.

Pushing Hands was one of two screenplays written by Ang Lee that won a government-sponsored competition in Taiwan. A newly promoted producer at a Taiwanese film studio called Hsu Li-kong, who was looking for fresh talent, invited ...

Table of contents

• In The Scene: Ang Lee
• Copyright
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Timeline
• Introduction Ang Lee: The Master Chef
• The Films
• Endnote
• Reference & Bibliography
• Index
• Images