Ang Lee Quotes

For filmmakers who've made multiple movies, they have experience, but they only have experience of themselves as a filmmaker. Whereas I'm bouncing around from different skill sets: the organizational ability of Ridley Scott to the precision of a Ron Howard to the artistic sensibilities of a Peter Weir... to the scope of a Tom Hooper.

It's amazing what you can do without in terms of filmmaking when a story is really important.

I mean, '8½' to me is such a great dissertation on the whole, you know, act of filmmaking and creativity.

I hope this doesn't sound pretentious, but I very often like the way Europeans make movies. I think sometimes that don't they care about having to clean certain things.

I have been very influenced by the director Maurice Pialat, who I continue to be in conversation and conflict with and get inspiration from.

Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker - I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it's not real.

The best conversation with Stanley Kubrick is a silent one: you sit in a theatre and watch his films and you learn so much.

With 'Mask,' 'Smooth Talk' and 'Blue Velvet,' I loved the specific experiences so much. Each one was a specific filmmaker with a specific vision.

I think about a lot of my favorite directors, and I think about their first films, and I have great admiration for the earthiness of those films.

Lynne Ramsay's 'Ratcatcher' blew me away when it came out. When I started making short films, I would watch that film over and over again, marvelling at how that story visually unfolded.

I don't think I treat my film work as an extension of my photography. There are two different sets of rules there.

I don't think I've succeeded in making any really good films. There are moments, scenes, whole movements that sing. It has all added up to a cinema of sorts, even though I'm still learning my art.

As a filmmaker, I always took my inspiration from a filmmaker named Marcel Ophüls, who said, "I always have a point of view, but the trick is showing how hard it is to come to that point of view."

When I meet certain filmmakers, sometimes you sit down and you do have some kind of shorthand. It can be fun to see them as someone who has been through similar experiences, but also as someone who just loves film. You can talk with them about films in a way that feels really free.

When I think about directing a film, the thing that stops me short is wondering if I'm a natural at it the way I think you, and PTA, and Fincher are born directors. Maybe some people's talent is in understanding the ways that film communicates, without dialogue, without plot.

There is a difference between film and digital. Because digital, you know, it's perfect and whatever. But with film, you get depth. You get subject.

I think some people feel that if you are going to have 3D, then you have to shoot in 3D, but they shoot 3D, so of course they're going to say 'my way of doing a film is better.' I'm not telling anyone how they should do their film, so why should anyone tell me how I should do mine?

Directing is such a crucial part of the writing process; you start directing and you see what does not work. "Oh, God, what was I thinking?" and then you can rearrange it.

I think I'll try to keep working in film for a little bit. There's something still kind of magical about it, that I don't want to let go of.

I think it's basically quite different from dreams. If only cinema was that easy. Because dreams, all you have to do is fall asleep, and you can have fantastic vision. I know Baudelaire and people like that enhance their dreams with opium or something. But films are very constructed - they're like architecture. They're pieced together, glued together. To me, it's a craft. It's like making a tapestry.

I think movies say a lot [about real life], even more than theater. It says a lot about the invisible, that movies are so fascinating. The camera lens is like a microscope that goes beyond the surface. It's like you're exploring a secret, so you explore the director's secret, you explore the actor's secret, and therefore you explore the universe's secrets.

. . . you [film critics] always overstress the value of images. You judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose. I was guilty of the same sin when I first started writing for the cinema. . . . Now I feel that only the literary mind can help the movies out of that cul de sac into which they have been driven by mere technicians and artificers.

I've always looked at directing as the next step for me in my creative career, and after spending the better part of the last decade on a television set absorbing as much as I could from in front of the camera, I'm now eager to learn as much as I can from behind it.

I feel like I'm doing something that's worthwhile. I feel like I'm showing something other people haven't shown. I don't get to talk to the people who I photograph, I just go, along, banging away. So I don't really have a relationship with them. A lot of people think it's very important. I don't. It's like love at first sight. I have an impression when I see somebody, and I have an idea of who they are, or what they are.

I think of filmmaking as a form of communication. Maybe it's also an art, but that's for somebody else to decide.