Ang Lee Quotes

The reason I feel bad for Steve Kloves is because he doesn't enjoy cutting things out. He's not sitting there with scissors, just laughing maniacally, going, "Ahahaha." He doesn't like doing it. The stories mean so much to him. But it had to go. And David kept saying, "We're gonna try, we're gonna try, we're gonna try" all the way into the shoot until the very last days, when he said, "Sorry, it's just not gonna work."

I think there's only one or two films where I've had all the financial support I needed. All the rest, I wish I'd had the money to shoot another ten days.

I did this film for less money than it costs to stay in this hotel. We shot it in 20 days. We couldn't screw up takes for fun because we didn't have enough film.

Even on a $100 million film, people will complain that they haven't got enough money and enough time, so that's always going to be an element in filmmaking.

Still, the film nearly didn't happen a number of times. There were great arguments with United Artists about how to reduce the cost because they were nothing if not conscious of the price of the film.

Shooting 'Adam & Paul' was very tough. There was barely enough time, and the budget was tiny. On top of that, we shot in dangerous locations where we had little or no control or security.

There's really powerful and potentially dominating forces when you make a film that can harm it if you're incapable of orchestrating things.

It doesn't matter how big or small your film is: you still don't have enough money. You don't have enough time to shoot it.

I wrote a big animation scene for 'Iron Fists,' but we couldn't afford all that.

In the end, you really want to make the best film that you can, and in the reality of the filmmaking world, you have things like budgets.

In terms of cinema and filmmaking, there are certainly the unexpected gifts that the actors bestow on you. Film is always a question of compromises with respect to what you originally intended.

Only one time in my career I had that feeling [that this is not gonna get made], it was for this movie [Life of Pi]. It was right before we started the physical pre-production. I pre-visualized the whole ocean part before we made the movie, I was that prepared. At one point they seemed to want to drop it because it was really risky. The budget we proposed was a lot higher than they expected, they wanted to [drop it]. After all, it's a philosophical book and a literature property, it's not Batman.

My first cut that I showed the studio was probably 2hrs 20min.

All the best movies are the ones that are cut from a more middle ground.

My first cut was three hours and 17 minutes. And then I just became very shrewd about the editing.

I can't do the movies like I do painting because I am really more of a sort of dilettante or something. I mean I know guys that make movies that I can see it is absolutely their medium and they can just go from one movie right into the next because it is just - they have got it so much on the tips of their fingers. But for me it is a special effort.

The first thing I did in the studio was to want to tear that camera to pieces. I had to know how that film got into the cutting room, what you did to it in there, how you projected it, how you finally got the picture together, how you made things match. The technical part of pictures is what interested me. Material was the last thing in the world I thought about. You only had to turn me loose on the set and I'd have material in two minutes, because I'd been doing it all my life.

Movies are not scripts - movies are films; they're not books, they're not the theatre. It's a completely different discipline, it exists on its own. I would say that the beauty of it is it's not the theatre, it's not done over again. It's done in bits and pieces. Things are happening which you can't get again. I forbid anyone to say "Cut", the soundman, the operator, or whatever.

A million pounds sounds like a lot of money now that I'm saying it. But in terms of moviemaking, it's not a lot of money. And yet you can see what can be done with that, with the talent of a great cinematographer and great director and actors.

The heartbreak that it might not happen wasn't something that I wanted to face with any more weight. Then, when I got the call to go ahead I never thought for a second as I was approaching it who I would get - that would come later. Again, I think the idea was that I now had the rights to make the movie and I can start writing it but if I have to wait another 10 years before I find an actor that's right for it, I'd be very happy to do that.

I have a lot of films that I haven't gotten made, and that continues to trouble me. But someday, some way or another, I think I will. It's all about timing. There's a moment when you're hot and studios will make your next film, and then there's a moment when you're really cold, and they couldn't care less what you want to do next. That's when you have to recede and make lower-budgeted films.

My dad told me, 'Your movie's never as good as the dailies and never as bad as the rough cut.

It's easier making a smaller film like El Mariachi. There are no budget worries because there is no budget. There is no crew problem because there is no crew. And if you screw up, no one is around to see you screw up -- so it's no longer a screw up.

We were lucky if we got two takes out of a scene in the Rock 'N' Roll High School. But the Ramones did get a lot of material cut out. I think Marky Ramone calls Mr. McGree "Mr. McGlube." But that was sort of endearing and charming, and made you just love the Ramones even more. Sometimes those flubs work in favor of the filmmakers. They just couldn't get out more than one sentence in a row. It was just kind of weird. I think they were just nervous.

You don't have your film finished when you have your director's cut finished. It's just a bunch of green screen.