Ann Lee interview 1

MoviesOnline sat down recently with Ang Lee, the Academy Award-winning director of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to talk about his new film, "Lust Caution,」 a startlingly erotic espionage thriller about the fate of an ordinary woman's heart. The film is based on the short story by revered Chinese author Eileen Chang, and stars Asian cinema icon Tony Leung opposite screen newcomer Tang Wei.

"Lust, Caution」 is set in Shanghai, 1942 against the backdrop of the World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a caf, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England.

As a freshman at the university in Hong Kong, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom) who has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe's new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling with her ability to move and inspire audiences. Kuang convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play. Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee's trust by befriending his wife (Joan Chen) and then draw the man into an affair.

Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted – until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong – having emigrated from Hong Kong to Shanghai – goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit.

Ang Lee explains, "To me, no story of Eileen Chang's is as beautiful or as cruel as 'Lust, Caution.' She revised the story for years and years – for decades – returning to it as a criminal might return to the scene of a crime, or as a victim might re-enact a trauma, reaching for pleasure only by varying and re-imagining the pain. Making 'Lust, Caution,' we didn't really 'adapt' Chan's work, we re-enacted it, just as her characters act and re-enact their parts.Chan describes the feeling Wong Chia Chi had after performing on stage as a young woman; the rush she felt afterwards, that she could barely calm down, even after a late-night meal with her friends from the theater and a ride on the upper deck of a tram. When I read that, my mind raced back to my own first experience on the stage, back in 1973 at the Academy of Art in Taipei. The same rush of energy at the end of the play I had acted in; the same late-night camaraderie; the same wandering. I realized how that experience was central to Chan's work, and how it could be transformed into film.She understood play-acting and mimicry as something by nature brutal: animals, like her characters, using camouflage to evade their enemies and to lure their prey. But mimicry and performance are also ways we open ourselves, as human beings, to greater experience, to indefinable connections to others, to higher meanings, to art, and to the truth.」Here's more of what Ang Lee had to tell us at the Los Angeles press day for his new film, "Lust, Caution」:

Q: When you decided on this project, did you know from the outset that you would be exploring some dangerous territory.
ANG LEE: Of course.

Q: Why did you do this with all the controversy you knew would be coming?
ANG LEE: I think it's the sense of danger. That is the thrill that made me want to do it. After Brokeback Mountain, people had such a high opinion of me, especially in Asia. I wasn't thinking about an NC-17 rating or people raising an eyebrow. I was afraid of what Chinese society would think of me doing something like this. Is it even possible to make this film in China -- including some very gutsy writing from Eileen Chang about female sexuality set against the backdrop of the patriotic war against the Japanese? It's never been done before. That scared me more than the sex which depends on how far you want to go. When I decided to do it, I had no idea who I was going to work with or how far I wanted to go or could go. I had no idea, but that aspect really scared me. But the theme, the humanity against something you are supposed to do, that really attracted me, [it did] not scare me. The other part that doesn't scare me but interests me is the actress. It's very much like me, making movies by pretending. By embodying a character, they actually find their true self. So that theme is haunting to me. Anyway, at that time I didn't have anything else (film project) that was stronger than this so I decided to do it. I was very worried. I was still worrying last week in Taiwan the day before the premiere. I was so nerve-racked and so nervous I couldn't sleep. It was very painful.

Q: Can you comment on the explicit sex scenes which seem to reveal much about who these characters really are?
ANG LEE: To me. that's the movie and precisely why I wanted to do those sex scenes. To me, it's the ultimate performance. It has to be so real. Saying that, I mean actors have to be so real to earn the trust of an interrogator to survive, just as I, as a filmmaker, must earn the trust that I can do this from the audience. So that's a good question. To be or not to be, that's a big question. Why do we make a movie and why do we want to see a movie and what is lust? Lust, in Chinese, also means color. It's everything you see. It's the texture of life. It's nothing but the reflection or a projection of your own self. And you should be cautious [in order] not to be fooled. So, to me, the movie is very important. Even stripped naked, they are still performing. As long as there is a relationship, you are performing. Even the relationship in my mind to yourself, you are performing to yourself. It's very hard to define which part is your true self and which is not a performance. It's a good question. I don't have an answer.

Q: What about the story resonated so emotionally for you?
ANG LEE: I don't know. It's so huge and so sad and so profound. I don't know what hit me. Joan met me in the scene right after I shot all three sex scenes. I was wrecked, and emotionally, my nerves, I was on the brink of breaking down. And we got the lab report that those scenes were fine so we were ready to strike the set. That's when she came in to do that scene. It's the last scene of the movie. I'm just one third into shooting, but I'm already shooting the last scene and I have the whole picture in my head already. Without one shot, and without the girl, and it's an empty room. So all of a sudden I just couldn't take it. For some reason I felt vulnerable. Usually I'm pretty cool on set. She caught something that has never happened to me on set. [laughs] To show emotion, I just lost it, I don't know what hit me. It took me nearly two months to get out of that phase. It's a very strange, very intense movie, I think.

Q: When did you first come across this novella and decide to adapt it?
ANG LEE: Maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and at first glance, I felt quite odd. Is this Eileen Chang's story? I like her writing. It's very peculiar. And it is hers. And I had to put it aside because it's just frightening to me. I wasn't thinking of making a movie. I don't think it's possible that the Chinese would allow this movie to be made. I don't mean government control, just people in general. And then it just kept coming back to haunt me, occasionally coming back to my mind. While I was making Brokeback Mountain sometimes it would just come. I think it was calling me. And then during the promotion of Brokeback Mountain, which was a long, rigorous six months, I began to think I want to make this into a movie and I was really afraid of it. I had to translate it into English and then ask my partner, James [Schamus], who runs the studio, Focus [Features], what do you think? He thought it was a great idea. Of course he didn't have the burden of female sexuality vs. Chinese patriotism. So I decided to do it and during that period of time I worked on the script.

Q: Did you do any special research or interview people that lived through that period in Shanghai?
ANG LEE: I grew up knowing something about it. It's a prohibited period. The regime of the Wang Jingwei government, both the communist government in China and the Taiwanese Nationalist Party, they see it as an embarrassment. So it was not allowed to be filmed and I never really saw it on screen. I only vaguely heard about it from my parent's generation, and the patriotism is something I grew up with. We hear a lot about the Glorious War against the Japanese and the fighting by the resistance, but the occupation is a void of knowledge. So I did a lot of research, from reading material to talking to older people.

Q: Can you talk about casting veteran actor Tony Leung and newcomer Tang Wei and their chemistry together?
ANG LEE: Tang Wei's part is younger. In the story she's about 19 to 21 or 22. In that age range, there are no movie stars other than Zhang Ziyi who I don't think fits the part. So it took almost no time to decide that I have to go with a newcomer, and then we screened over 10,000 young actresses to get to her. So it's through reading and meeting that I decided on her. Of course she's an unknown, and I think Tony is the best actor we have, and he roughly fits how he's described in the short story. The age gap is not so much as, for example, in Sense and Sensibility, where Kate Winslet who is 19 years old and Emma, who is super sophisticated at the age of 36, play sisters. It's not that hard. Because they both have the Chinese work ethic, they come to you as the director and say, What do you want? So even though Tony is very experienced, the working relationship with him is very much about stripping off what he already knows to play the opposite. He's such a great actor. So you fill him with information and inspire him and rehearse. And Tang Wei, I think she's a very talented actress and I don't feel [she's] particularly hard [to direct]. She's unpredictable from take to take. It's not like Tony, who is always good from Take One to Take Eleven and just gets better on the same track. Tang Wei could be here and there and her concentration could be off. It just takes patience. Thank god, Tony is like a director's dream. For example, that singing scene in the tavern, Tony might shed a few tears so I shot his side first and he has to restrain himself. And then came her singing part with the reverse angle. And he cries his eyes out to encourage her to sing. I said, you don't have to do this. That's overacting anyway. He said, Oh no, I've been holding back these tears so I might as well. It's 13 takes and he cries harder and harder and he's that kind of actor, so he's very helpful.

Q: Was there a lot of pressure on her? Didn't she faint at one point?
ANG LEE: Yeah, after the car scene when they struggle in the back seat. It was the emotions. There was constant pressure. For somebody like her to carry the movie in a role like this, I needed to make her advance to a new stage almost every week or so. I had to give her pressure and criticism in such a way that she had to make another breakthrough. It was that kind of shooting schedule for her. So yeah, it's a lot. I don't know how she stood the whole thing.

Q: There are very few directors who have crossed international boundaries with such elegance as you have. Can you talk about the state of Chinese cinema and your pivotal role in giving it international visibility?
ANG LEE: That's a good model, but I'm afraid it's not like a bottle that can be popularized. So that's the complexity we have. These days either you go big, like me, John Woo, Zhang Yimou, going directly international. And that way sometimes you have to compromise to the local taste to make it more unique. It's the same with Hollywood. Hollywood is not made just for America. It's foreign. Like the whole Hong Kong film industry is meant to be seen by Taiwan and Southeast Asia, not just locally by Hong Kong. So you lose a little bit of that. But you make progress with a movie like this which is definitely more Asian. I'm trying to pull the audience Eastbound. Step by step I can do that. That's the more ideal situation, [although] there is no ideal situation. But only the big directors can do that. Some are more successful, some are not. I cannot say this is an entirely good model, but it's a move forward because the film industry needs to be big and China has the potential of a big market. There are four times more people speaking Chinese than English. So it's a potentially huge market. Of course the censorship and the creative situation and the market itself is not quite formed yet because we have denied our own culture in the past. There is no healthy development like Western culture. The genre and the viewing habit are not quite there yet. I can go on for two days about this, but it seems to me at this stage it's not healthy yet because they are two extremes. One is the biggest, like us, like maybe five directors. And there are independents shooting low budget, shoestring, digital movies that might make a few splashes and some might make a [big] splash in an international film festival, or like Jia Zhangke winning the Golden Lion last year, but hardly anybody will see it in China because it's an art house [film]. So it becomes polarized. I think the thing to develop is the Chinese language market on its own in a healthy way -- more freedom, creativity, more experience between filmmakers and the viewer -- to get a common film language in a Chinese way. We know we cannot just adapt Hollywood. It won't work. But you have to because that's common film language already established. So that needs a little time to struggle. It has a long way to go, I think. I think I'll definitely play a role. The pivotal role is kind of strange too. I'm an insider and outsider at the same time. So let's say [I am] a bridge, so to speak.

Ann Lee interview 2

「I knew about this short story for years. I was shocked when I read it because I'd never seen a portrayal of female sexuality like that in Chinese literature,」 he explains. 「You have our most beloved woman writer put that against the backdrop of the most glorious war we have had, the most patriotic in a very patriotic society, and it was shocking to me. I was in total denial, it was like 'this story has nothing to do with me,' but it kept coming back to haunt me and I had to make it.」

Lee cast one of Asia's most charismatic leading men, Tony Leung, in the role of the sinister, brutal Mr Yee, a collaborator who is the sworn enemy of the resistance. Newcomer Tang Wei plays the patriotic student Wong Chai Chi who is drawn into a plot to assassinate Yee – but to get close to him she has to seduce him.

Lust, Caution, which won the prestigious Golden Lion when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is a story of betrayal and courage and the conflicting power of loyalty and lust. The film features some explicit sex scenes that the director admits were harrowing to film.

Ang Lee discusses the making of 'Lust, Caution'.

Q: Why did you choose this book to adapt?
ANG LEE: I knew about this short story for years. I was shocked when I read it because I'd never seen a portrayal of female sexuality like that in Chinese literature. You have our most beloved woman writer put that against the backdrop of the most glorious war we have had, the most patriotic in a very patriotic society, and it was shocking to me. I was in total denial, it was like 'this story has nothing to do with me,' but it kept coming back to haunt me and I had to make it.

Q: Did you have an option on the book for a long time?
AL: No. A few directors tried to do that but under previous regimes it was not allowed to be filmed. So I was lucky, maybe it was because of the Academy Award or something that it opened up for me. The other thing that really interested me was the journey that Wong Chia (Tang Wei), the central character, is going through. I could very much identify with that – that only through pretending, playing a part, that you actually connect with your other self which is more truthful. So that was another haunting element for me. There were many other things, but both those elements, fear and identity, made it irresistible for me.

Q: The theme of duality runs throughout your work. What brings you back to that?
AL: It's always there. I guess maybe it was the way I was brought up, I think from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that was a change of direction from horizontal to vertical, there was the obvious self and the hidden self, the altar ego and your true self – and that fascinates me. I've shown a lot in my movies already and if want bring something new and still feel like a virgin each time - and I have to, to take that adventure and be honest with people – then I have to dig deeper to something unknown.

Q: So you are digging into different parts of yourself with each film?
AL: Into the unknown, the unconsciousness, to explore guilt, hidden pleasures, childishness, a sense of danger, fear, anger and romance – and romance is something I never exercise in real life. (laughs). I did two movies back to back about different ways to feel what love is. I guess since I started making movies professionally this is my life and it's the only way to live my life and learn about the world and myself and to communicate. So what you see in the movie is what, present day, matters to me the most, what my struggles are.

Q: How do you think it will be received in China?
AL: I think it will be a great shock. It's not only the sex scenes but the subject matter too. So I anticipate a big impact in the Chinese language society and maybe in Asia in general.

Q: Do you hope that it breaks down taboos there?
AL: Yes, the taboo is examining our patriotism, which is as serious, if not more, than making a film about gay cowboys is for the Americans. It's about women's sexual pleasure, patriotism; it's like even scarier. It will be quite painful to watch because it will recall many, many things – what we are about as a group, as individuals. This is a very brave piece of writing and I've tried to follow the book. I think the rating will be different in different parts of China. In Taiwan they are not going to touch it, they'll show the whole thing. There's no rating system (in mainland China) it has to be for a general audience so I would rather do it myself, re-edit the film, so the story makes sense. Maybe to some people's taste it will be a better (laughs).

Q: With the sex scenes is there a political metaphor going on, too?
AL: Yes, it's about the occupation, you can say that. And within the framework of the man woman relationship it's about being occupied and occupying – who is the occupier depends on which side you are looking at, so yes, there is a political message.

Q: Night Porter was a film that also used sex to deal with some of those issues…
AL: Well sex is an important part of our lives and we live in a framework of politics. I never felt that I was making a political movie but the political aspect is an important element in the material and not surprisingly, things haven't changed that much.

Q: How can you coax your actors into going that deep into a role?
AL: Unfortunately, it's no pain no gain. If you feel comfortable it's not enough, you have to keep asking questions and see where you are protecting yourself and chip it off until you have almost driven yourself mad. And I think it's important for artists to be brave because you expose yourself and that's your job. The second most important thing is to keep your sanity, without it you don't make anything, so that's our job.

Q: You said earlier that winning the Oscar helped getting this film made.
AL: Yes. I think when you have a success you should abuse it (laughs)

Q: Has winning the Oscar changed the way you are perceived within the industry?
AL: Yes, absolutely. But going back to China to make this movie and they are always very supportive and very interested in what I do anyway but the Oscar makes it even easier. The devotion, the dreams they share with me comes so much quicker. Like Shanghai Studio was a tough studio to make a deal with in the past and with Lust, Caution I said that I couldn't find a street that I needed and so they built two blocks. It was the biggest set I've ever seen – anything I wanted they did their best and they will go through fire for you. I think Oscar has something to do with it but there was something that led me to the Oscar and that also counts, too. I think if people see your intentions they respect what you are trying to do. They can see that I'm not trying to cash in on it but that I have earnest intentions. 

Q: How surprised were you when Crash won Best Picture when everybody else was expecting Brokeback Mountain to win?
AL: It's not a total surprise because it came out and did very well and ours was a gay cowboy movie and there were so many gay jokes but still that year we won everything up to that point, so there was still expectation. The worst part was after I got off the stage with the Oscar they said 'don't go to the press room yet..' and they gave me a mark next to the curtain and said 'we want to show your reaction' and Jack Nicholson (who was presenting the Best Picture award) came up and he opened the envelope and that was the worst part and I was very suddenly aware of the cameras on me and he opened it and went 'ohhh!' and then he went 'Crash!' And then they showed my face and I had to recover. It was kind of funny thinking back and I wish them well, the whole team. But that moment was kind of awkward. I felt bad for our team but I'm happy for them.

Q: I was reading that after Hulk you were thinking of retiring. Is that true?
AL: I was just exhausted. I was fighting the studio to do it my way, I was fighting the convention of the comic book, cinema conventions, so there was a lot of aggravation and to me that is kind of the Hulk. But it was exhausting and physically it was quite punishing especially after Crouching Tiger. I did take time out and during that period I was very depressed and I didn't know what to do with my life and I figured I couldn't stop making movies there. I had to come back in the same way that when you fall off the horse you want to get back on again otherwise you never will. Also I had to face my children, I was 40 something and what kind of example do you set for your children? So I couldn't do it. And I thought about this short story (Brokeback Mountain) I read three years before that and it was like 'no way can anybody make that movie..' (laughs) so I picked that and I thought there was no way anybody would pay attention. I really enjoyed making The Hulk. I was very sincere and really enjoyed the process but it was the selling part of it, the big blockbuster they had to sell like Spiderman - that killed me. So I wanted to do a small movie, take it easy, and so actually Brokeback helped me recover from that slump. When I'm not working I don't know what to do with my life, I get very agitated.

We would like to thank Claire at Thinkjam and Universal Pictures for supplying the interview

Ann Lee interview 3

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lust_caution/news/1701991/

Ang Lee on Lust, Caution: The RT Interview
The visionary director talks sex and dirty words with RT.
by Joe Utichi | January 09, 2008

It's an incredibly complex leading role and I'm sure a daunting task for the most accomplished of actors, but this is Tang Wei's first feature film. How did you find her?
Ang Lee: Nobody I knew of fit the description of what I thought this person would be. So we went through over 10,000 actresses to get through to her. I saw less than 100, I hasten to add! But my team went through a process of seeing more than 10,000 actresses and putting together a short list. When she walked in I had a feeling it was her movie. I talked to her, read her and she did the best reading. She has this position, this demeanour, that's very-much like the classic Chinese, and it's very rare these days. It's like my parent's generation. Her figure is very close to how it's described in the short story. It just seemed like she fit; she was Wong Chia Chi. Another thing that really attracted me to her for the role was that I felt she was almost the female equivalent of me. I felt I could create this movie and let it ride on her performance and I felt that confidently. It was just a feeling I had that she was very close to me.

Is it often the case that when you're auditioning for new talent there is always one person, no matter how many that you see, that stands out?
Ang Lee: It happens in a variety of ways. A lot of the time someone will walk in and you'll know instantly that it's him or it's her. You may keep seeing people but you always end up coming back to that person. That happened in this case. And then there are things when you have to go for known actors. It had to be Tony Leung in that role and I hoped that he'd agree to do it. And then there are times where in the course of talking to them you gradually start to see the character grow in them. That happens too, when it's not at first sight. During a half-hour meeting or reading you gradually figure out that this is your person. And it's happened, in the past, that I've let an actor go and only realised after doing so that he was the right person!

It sounds like whether it's a new actor or an established actor and whether you know they're right instantly or it takes you some time that it's ultimately an instinctive thing.
Ang Lee: A lot of the time. But your instincts can be wrong, too, so you can never been too sure. And I've learned from that! [laughs] There've been times when I've been sure I was right and it's not worked out great. Really anything can happen.

The film is being released by Focus uncut as an NC-17 in the US which seems to be very brave considering the climate towards that rating in the US...
Ang Lee: I think it's very brave, but it's very exciting at the same time. It gives James [Shamus'] life some vibrancy! [laughs] It's like a shot for him! But, yeah, it's very difficult to release an NC-17 and while I was making the movie I didn't even know that it existed. It seems to have come up in the early nineties and I didn't really see it do so.

Do you feel that there should be organisations rating films? If books aren't rated, why are films?
Ang Lee: That's a very good and difficult question. There are always laws and film is a lot bigger and more massive. It's more direct media and I think for some people, for children, it needs protection. Books aren't as big and, I think, not as visceral. They're words and it's indirect. It's up to the imagination and it's less imposing, I guess. But it's very hard to divide the ratings by age. I felt very silly telling my sixteen year-old son that he might want to wait a few days until he turned seventeen to see the movie. He got offended and he took it as an insult, and not from the law but from me. [laughs] He didn't take it very well and I think rightfully. When he was fourteen I think he knew a lot more than me and could deal with more! So, no, I don't think that's fair, but there've got to be laws somewhere.

Have you ever experienced an issue with ratings in the past? I would imagine the studio had a very specific idea of the rating they expected you to deliver on Hulk.
Ang Lee: Not so much. I've made two gay-themed movies that got R-ratings while in Taiwan they were PG. I thought that was rather ironic! [laughs] But other than that, not really. We didn't have any problem with Hulk. In Germany they wanted us to cut out a couple of little shots; they've very sensitive to needles and we had that scene with the experiment with the monkey and the kid. Oh - [laughs] - Sense and Sensibility got a G rating and everybody freaked out! I had to add two dirty words to get a PG! But I guess that's kind-of contrary to what you're asking! But other than those little things, it was not until this film that I've really had to confront the ratings system, and I count myself lucky for that.

Ann Lee interview 4

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution—the opening night feature for the 30th Mill Valley Film Festival—is an unsettling piece of film. At first, I felt tripped up by the ample length of its Asian brocade; but, in the days after seeing the film, it kept coming back to me. I kept thinking about it, feeling about it, questioning. In contrast to films that I forget nearly as soon as I leave the theater, Lust, Caution drew me back to Eileen Chang's provocative short story and I found intimations of myself and sifted relevancies from the moral dilemmas of its protagonist Wong Chia-chih, intricately enfleshed by Tang Wei. This marks a great film for me, when its internal conflicts are presented in such austere lines that it's almost like catching one's silhouette in a mirror; when the questions a film raises are, in essence, the questions you ask yourself.

I felt tremendously privileged to deliver my questions directly to director Ang Lee and his lead actress Tang Wei. They are explicit in their responses and, therefore, this conversation is not for the spoiler-wary.

Question: May I start with the obvious question? I think James Schamus has already responded to this, but, why did she do it? Why did she make this decision?
Ang Lee: That is the question. [Chuckles.]

Question: Is it one that can be answered?
Ang Lee: No. I think it is something deep inside in the murkiest, most sensitive place at heart, that is very hard to detect. You see how she struggled. How can she let China down? I don't know. When I read [Eileen Chang's] short story, I asked myself: Is it the diamond? Is she bourgeoise? Is it because she had a good time in the sex? Does she think she loves him? Does she think he loves her? All those things. Obviously, she made a big mistake; but, a very sympathetic mistake, I think. It is so challenging, so frightful, to recognize that—being Chinese—to put female feelings and sexuality and that point of view to the glorious war, the holy war against the Japanese, in a patriarchal societal structure, that's unbelievable. It's courageous from the writer. I can't believe she wrote that. I just couldn't believe it. For a long time I thought there was no way anybody could make this into a movie. [Chuckles.] They should be shot! But then, it just kept calling. Yes, that's a profound question to me; but, it really doesn't have an answer. She just did it. I think that's the movie and we're very moved. Personally, I think she did the wrong thing. That's why she's shot, along with her friends. It feels very painful.

Question: What is your impression of the ending, Tang Wei, and why she did it?
Tang Wei: I think to her, it's very good. She understands everything. She controls herself. She controls her life. It's good.
Ang Lee: Women say no.
Tang Wei: Really?
Ang Lee: When they're not collaborating.

Question: [To Ang Lee] In the introduction to the published script, Schamus characterized that you have become "ensnared in a game of cinematic and literary mirrors." Whether or not that's true, it made me think that you've chosen two short stories in a row out of which you've conjured epic narratives. What is it that you see in the short story that you can unpack and transform into these epics?
Ang Lee: Elements. We spent months and months and months writing the script. But what is the element? Is it rich enough to take off? To go on the journey? That's what I'm seeing in those materials.

Question: In this particular short story by Chang, what were the specific elements that you felt you could amplify through film?
Ang Lee:Performance. Things about acting. Performance not only in a stage play and her parts but in general. A big part of life is about performance. Think about sex, how it's about performance. To me, that's very important and that's what I do too. So, the illusion and disillusion is something I know I can dig in a lot and then—even though it's short—it has enough indications of the story poem. It has the theater group. It has the Chinese resistance and the Japanese collaboration and the government. After she loses her virginity, how do they respond? There's nothing written there, just a little bit, but you can imagine that, you can elaborate on that. It's full of potentials. The party in Shanghai. How do they go about their relationship? It's minimally written [in the short story], but you can feel a wealth of possibilities. It's storytelling. It's not just like, "They say…."; it's storytelling. It indicates a lot of possibility. For Brokeback, it was a story of 20 years. Each one line could make you feel like you have to fill in five years each time you see them, so on and so forth. I think potential in our judgment or intuition, just react to the material, sometimes you can read a long book and think, "Okay, that's the story" and describe it in three sentences. Sometimes it could be poetry that can expand your imagination. So, I think I'm intrigued by the possibility of the short story. It's very lack of depiction—what's her character? Any of the characters?—and things underdeveloped. [Chang] avoided a lot of the details I really need to know. It was written very smartly. Actually, when you go into it, it is not easy.

Question: Were you tempted to include the omniscient narrator, which is so noticeable in the short story especially with regard to how Mr. Yee is feeling towards the end? Were you tempted to include that?
Ang Lee: I think I did. It's a very strange structure, I must say, from the short story. We take the girl's perspective and at the end, after she's killed, we switch narrative to Mr. Yee. I don't know if that's legal. [Laughs.] It's totally uncultured; but, it's totally effective. Not only by middle-aged men who think, "Ooooooh." It seems like the ghost of Wong Chia-chih has come to the heart of the man. It has that feeling to me. It's written in a very ghostly way. It's curious and haunting. I think I did inherit [the omniscient narration] but in a cinematic way, with Mr. Yee carrying the death scene of these six students to him opening up the curtain, carrying the weight of killing her. And the reflection of the shadow on the empty blanket. I think he does carry the ghost of her.

Question: You don't depict their deaths. And you don't depict any of his atrocities.
Ang Lee: That would be too real. That would be too objective instead of subjective. It has to be switched into more internal feelings that the man has to carry. You almost feel that living is painful and dying is a relief.

* * *

Random House first sent me a photocopy of Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang)'s short story "Lust, Caution" earlier this year, and then followed through with the Pantheon hard cover publication of Lust, Caution: The Story, the Screenplay, and the Making of the Film, which—along with Chang's short story and the screenplay by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus—includes a preface by Ang Lee, an introduction by Schamus, an essay by translator Julia Lowell, and production notes by Co-Producer David Lee, First Assistant Director Roseanna Ng, Line Producer Doris Tse, Director of Photography Rodrigo Prieto, Script Supervisor Sherrie Liu, Production Sound Mixer Drew Kunin, and Editor Tim Squyres. The volume provides a fascinating and well-rounded exploration of this project from root to fruit.

In his preface, Ang Lee writes: "Making our film, we didn't really 'adapt' Zhang's work, we simply kept returning to her theater of cruelty and love until we had enough to make a movie of it." (2007:vii)

Though he touched upon it in the interview above, Ang Lee provides some fascinating, insightful amplification to the character of Mr. Yee, played to ruthless perfection by Tony Leung: "Zhang is very specific in the traps her words set. For example, in Chinese we have the figure of the tiger who kills a person. Thereafter, the person's ghost willingly works for the tiger, helping to lure more prey into the jungle. The Chinese phrase for this is wei hu dzuo chung. It's a common phrase and was often used to refer to the Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese occupiers during the war. In the story Zhang has Yee allude to this phrase to describe the relationship between men and women. Alive, Chia-chih was his woman; dead, she is his ghost, his chung. But perhaps she already was one when they first met, and now, from beyond her grave, she is luring him closer to the tiger…." (2007:vii-viii)

"Interestingly," Ang Lee adds, "the word for tiger's ghost sounds exactly like the word for prostitute. So, in the movie, in the Japanese tavern scene, Yee refers to himself with this word. It could refer to his relationship to the Japanese—he is both their whore and their chung. But it also means he knows he is already a dead man." (2007:viii)

In the interview above, where Ang claimed that "performance" was one of the elements that convinced him Eileen Chang's short story could be unpacked and transformed into a film, he emphasized the importance of "performance" in his own life. In his preface, he elaborates: "Zhang describes the feeling Chia-chih had after performing on stage as a young woman, the rush she felt afterward, that she could barely calm down even after a late-night meal with her friends from the theater and a ride on the upper deck of a tram. When I read that, my mind raced back to my own first experience on the stage, back in 1973 at the Academy of Art in Taipei: the same rush of energy at the end of the play, the same late-night camaraderie, the same wandering. I realized how that experience was central to Zhang's work, and how it could be transformed into film. She understood play acting and mimicry as something by nature cruel and brutal: animals, like her characters, use camouflage to evade their enemies and lure their prey. But mimicry and performance are also ways we open ourselves as human beings to greater experience, indefinable connections to others, higher meanings, art, and the truth." (2007:viii-ix)

James Schamus pursues the multivalency of performance in his introduction, distinguishing between 「acting」 and 「performing」 and suggestively implying that when we exercise free will through conscious decision and choice, we 「act」 on free will. Free will becomes, in essence, just another performance.

Schamus accepts the premise that masks reveal as much as they conceal when he writes: "One could say that Lust, Caution depicts a heroine who 'becomes herself' only when she takes on the identity of another, for only behind the mask of the character Mai Tai-tai can Chia-chih truly desire, and thus truly live—playacting allows her to discover her one real love. But this is too reductive. For the performer always, by definition, performs for someone. And that audience, no matter how entranced, is always complicit; it knows deep down that the performance isn't real, but it also knows the cathartic truth the performer strives for is attainable only when that truth is, indeed, performed. …[L]ust and caution are, in Zhang's work, functions of each other, not because we desire what is dangerous, but because our love is, no matter how earnest, an act, and therefore always an object of suspicion. If Chia-chih's act at the end of the story is indeed an expression of love, it paradoxically destroys the very theatrical contract that made the performance of that love possible—in killing off her fictional character, she effectively kills herself." (2007: xi-xii)

Schamus's description of this "theatrical contract" adds significant heft to the two words Chia-chih utters—"Go, now!"—upon which the moral complexity of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution pivots. It reminds me how heightened sexual dynamics and their power plays are configured as "scenes." And it sheds enlightened relief upon Chia-chih's anguished monologue in her encounter with Old Wu; a monologue that chilled me to the bone as it unfolded on the screen. Old Wu praises Chia-chih and tells her to keep Mr. Yee in her trap. She responds: "You think I have him in a trap? Between my legs, maybe? You think he can't smell the spy in me when he opens up my legs? Who do you think he is?" Old Wu listens but becomes increasingly nervous. Chia-chih continues: "He knows better than you how to act the part. He not only gets inside me, but he worms his way into my heart. I take him in like a slave. I play my part loyally, so I too can get inside him. And every time he hurts me until I bleed and scream before he comes, before he feels alive. In the dark only he knows it's all true."

This is as sophisticated as anything I have ever read, heard or seen with regard to the power dynamics of impassioned sex, where "consensuality" is only a safe word. Perhaps it is as Roman Polanski once observed: "Sex is not a pastime. It's a force, it's a drive. It changes your way of thinking."

http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/2007-mvff30-lust-cautioninterview-with-ang-lee-tang-wei/