Ang Lee
I hope people don't compare 2D and 3D because 3D's new, it's unfair to compare to 2D which is really sophisticated, even when we're jaded about it. 3D just began, give it a chance, let the equipment and projection system catch up and be better, let the price go down, let more filmmakers get a hold of it more easily.Collection: Chance
For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.Collection: Chance
You can get rich or famous by doing the same thing.Collection: Famous
Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.Collection: Anger
I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance.Collection: Romantic
Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again.Collection: Age
When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.Collection: War
I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.Collection: Romantic
Summer blockbusters are very expensive to make. They have things that have to be expensive, such as 600 effects shots or CG characters that have to go a certain way, or a film design that is different but expensive.Collection: Design
Sexuality is a big issue, but there are others - how much you commit to a relationship, to social obligation, to honesty and being honest with yourself.Collection: Relationship
I think I can work with any type of actor.
I hate to think life is just facts and laws.
I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd.
These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture, and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work, and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.
There's a level of sophistication of filmmaking that's mind-boggling. Anything you need for your movie, there's an establishment that can make it happen really fast.
The L.A. weather is a lot like Taiwan's, where you don't observe four seasons, so the years can pass and you don't feel a thing.
I guess in Hollywood you chart your life by Oscars. You say to each other, 'Remember when that movie won that year? It was 2006. Remember that?'
My father was the center of the family, and everyone tried to please him.
As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.
There's only one movie in my career I've had regrets with cutting it shorter, and I think some scenes maybe I shouldn't have cut.
3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning.
I think I prefer 3D to 2D now.
I'm such a late bloomer.
Every movie is unknown.
My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.
I'm a shy human being.
I'm just a pretty regular dad.
My cultural roots are something illusive.
I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.
I'm aware of what's missing from my life.
What is really a stretch to me is to make quick decisions.
It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.
Some actors give you what you want. Some you have to make do what you want.
I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.
When I'm not working, I get very down, but when I am working, I get very immersed in it.
Thinking back to those earlier days, I felt I was weak when I wasn't making movies, and then when I was, I thought I was weak as a family member.
Many times when you make a movie, it feels like your biggest mistake. But even if a film isn't a hit, you shouldn't view it as a mistake.
For six years, from 1985 to 1991, I felt pretty weak and useless.
I'm not a master of films, I'm rather a slave.
When something possesses me, I go ahead and do it.
Fighting for identity is something that is very much in my life.
I think that at heart I am an old-fashioned Chinese, really I am.
I find it hard to deliver straightforward things.
Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.
You become the movie you are making.
I don't have a superpower.
Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.
I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.
I don't have incredible knowledge about films or of filmmaking history; I'm not that kind of person.
The thing we call critics are not really reviewers, they are not really critics. They don't have the discipline to write what we would term as critique - it's really just reviewers. They have a common man kind of taste. If you watch them overall, they are not different from the box-office. That's my view.