In the interview, Ang Lee said in his unique unhurried and soft tone: "I feel like I have always been an outsider." The moment he uttered a sentence, his indistinct eyes It also makes people feel that he himself is indeed as he said in the previous sentence, "I am at a distance from this world."
Like Pi, Li An has been disciplined at home since he was a child. Pi is taught to renounce religion and fantasies in favor of cold, modern science. Ang Lee's father was the principal of a middle school. He was very strict in managing the family and teaching his children. Ang Lee chose to study film and television art, and he was like an "outsider" in the family. I left home as an outsider, but when I arrived in the United States, I was still an outsider.
The calm and reserved Ang Lee met a lively New Yorker. The cultural differences between the East and the West kept him in the habit of thinking. For six full years after graduation, he stayed at home, living on his wife's meager salary, cooking and taking care of the children. He tried to shoot some films and did some editing chores, and then gradually he only did some unskillful jobs, and even in his favorite film field, he became an outsider.
Life is always full of contradictions. In the most difficult moments of life, it is often the things that once made you miserable that silently help you support you. Pi became wary of tigers after his father ruthlessly experimented with lambs. It was the science his father had been asking him to master to help him survive on the lifeboat.
Ang Lee's famous work "Pushing Hand" in his early years reflects the generation gap and cultural differences in the life of a Taiwanese family in New York. His father's rigorous oriental education in his early years allowed him to release powerful energy in the form of western drama after repression. Ang Lee said that he learned "coordination" in his early years in Taiwan. But contacting Western art is something completely different, it emphasizes "conflict" and "drama".
Pi tells two stories in the film, one with a tiger and one without. Hollywood producers tend to make this film a simple adventure story in order to gain market success, and Ang Lee himself has hesitated for a long time here - how to express it, and whether there is a second story, Which story is the reality. He and the crew reshot here many times, tried different editing methods, and finally ended up like this. He almost made it clear that Pi crossed the Pacific alone and that tigers were his fantasy.
What is this "fantasy"? Is it the imagination of matter? Yearning for success? Maybe these are not accurate. The American novelist Truman Capote, like Ang Lee, is an outsider in metropolitan New York. More sensitive and vulnerable than Li An is his deep sense of inferiority from the countryside. In "Breakfast at Tiffany's", he projected his personal emotions onto the heroine Holly. While the novel was a huge success, he wasn't content with it. The tiger in his heart has not left. In his new creation, he traveled to the middle of the United States, conducted extensive interviews with two serial killers, and completed a "non-fiction" "cold blood", which came with the fame is the controversy. In this novel, he tried to enter the depths of his heart. Under the pressure of the outside world, he was bitten to death by the tiger in his heart - Capote died suddenly at the house of a female friend due to overdose, at the age of 59, in "Cold Blood" No more work after that.
"I think, like Pi, I still have faith in my heart, and I still have that tiger in my heart." He didn't want to say what the tiger was. But looking at his works, you can also learn a thing or two. We can say that in his "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "people's hearts are rivers and lakes". But time and time again, he re-did into territory he had never ventured into, still boldly dreaming up his next work after the Hulk's Waterloo. This fantasy made him go from "Brokeback Mountain" in the United States to "Lust and Caution" in China, and this time to "Youth Pi" in India. Every time, he tries to focus on a specific race and group. Almost every time, he is an "outsider" of a culture, but every time, he can reach every person in the world across genders, races, and nationalities. one's heart.
To set foot in new fields, in his words, has a sense of freshness, and he wants to make works that have never been done before. He also knew that trying new things was risky. Taking a risk was an unusual choice for a director like him with a successful reputation and a reputation to uphold. And the tiger in his heart kept him vigilant. Even a famous director of his level said he was "afraid of being eliminated".
Artists, creators, are also outsiders of the same era, watching from the sidelines and estranged. Everyone has their own practice, everyone has their own adventures. In this vast collection of adventurous events, it is a kind of "lucky" to be able to realize oneself. And what accompanied Ang Lee "fortunately" was faith and fantasy. And this time, the tiger in his heart helped him cross the Pacific Ocean.
View more about Life of Pi reviews