Ang Lee Compares Working on “Brokeback Mountain” to “The Hulk” and “Crouching Tiger:” “Production-wise [this] was safe. I was exhausted. Not only ‘Hulk,’ even more so exhausting was ‘Crouching Tiger.’ So I had five years of exhaustion. This was very relaxed for me in terms of production.
The challenge was there. I read the short story and the script before I did ‘The Hulk’ and I decided to do ‘The Hulk’ because I didn’t think anyone would make the movie or see the movie. It’s not really, really cheap as is required because of the subject matter. But it kept haunting me. After I had done ‘The Hulk’ I wasn’t going to do a movie for a very long time. I even thought about retirement some nights - some sleepless nights (laughing). Then I met my father. He’s retired and he says, ‘What’s going on? You look kind of weird. Depressed.’ He never encouraged me to make a movie, even after I got an Oscar. ‘It’s about time you do something for real.’ (Laughing) But he says, ‘You’ll be very depressed. You’re not even 50. What are you going to do with your life? Are you going to teach?’ I said ‘No.’ He always wanted me to teach, like a safe net.
I felt very weird, because I sort of blew him up in ‘The Hulk’ as a jellyfish and those images kept haunting me. I was in a really weird mood. And that movie provoked a lot of anger, so I was feeling very unhealthy. And so he says, ‘You need to go and make a movie,’ for the first time in my life. And two weeks later he passed away. He was healthy and everything. So regardless of my condition physical or mental condition, I took on. I was in a strange mood. In some ways, it was a movie I didn’t dare to make for both economic and subject matter reasons. And at that time, it was very natural to do it and from my father to devise it [and it] happened to be a gay movie. It was kind of strange. I didn’t tell him what I was going to make.”
Ang Lee on Revisiting the Western Genre with “Brokeback Mountain:” “Actually, other than ‘The Ice Storm,’ three other American movies were Westerns. To me, ‘The Hulk’ was kind of a Western. He is like a Western wonder hero out in the desert. To me, he is more of a Western hero than anything.
I think the American West really attracts me because it’s romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama. Also, because of the familiarity. I did Westerns, but I didn’t do a movie Western. I did a pre-Western and somewhat of a deserty-grim-out-there Western (laughing). ‘Hulk’ to me definitely belongs in the West. I don’t see him jumping around in Boston or something. He’s not connected in that way.
There is something very romantic about the West. Same thing about China. …I think the unfamiliarity was very attractive to me. I didn’t really do the West. I did a pre-Western and a post-Western. I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world’s population - even to a lot of Americans. I know Americans from the cities, from Hollywood movies, televisions, so that unfamiliarity is centered almost anchoring America. That conservative side; that mystery. It’s becoming more and more aware to us every day. And that’s really haunting with this particular material. It’s both haunting, evoking, and distilled the idea a romantic story to me. [It’s] a very pure form. That makes it very attractive to me.”
Ang Lee on Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams Falling in Love on the Set of “Brokeback Mountain:” “Well, it started happening shortly after rehearsal. I know Heath had just broken up with Naomi [Watts]. And of course, I kept pushing him towards Jake (laughs). I don’t know what I did.
I have to tell a story about how serious an actress Michelle is. The first kissing scene by the staircase, that’s the first kissing scene that we did. It was like the first week of shooting with Jake. So, the guys worked out and I was happy. The guys were exhausted from the different angles we shot it. Then we turn around to shoot Michelle’s reaction. So, we talk about how she was crushed, she was blank, she doesn’t know what hits her. It takes the rest of the movie to see how pissed she is, everything. And so the guys were down there sort of leaning on each other for her to look at and she wanted them to start kissing and mess around. She could hardly see them (laughing)! They were just there to help her. So they started necking and she was not happy about it. Then they started kissing and she was like, ‘Come on guys, I need it!’ I was very impressed. And when I see on the monitor her face, that one moment… Again, no dialogue. And it’s very hard to show what she thinks. But I just think, for one second it’s really worth it.”
