ANG LEE Biography - Theater, Opera and Movie personalities

 
 

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ANG LEE

Name: Ang Lee                                                                     
Born: 23 October 1954 Pingtung, Taiwan                                           
                                                                                 
Ang Lee (born October 23, 1954) is an Academy Award-winning                       
film director from Taiwan.                                                       
                                                                                 
In the 2007 book The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen, Whitney     
Crothers Dilley has analyzed in detail the striking diversity of Ang Lee's films, 
as well as Lee's recurring themes of alienation, marginalization, and repression. 
Many of Lee's films, particularly his early Chinese trilogy, have also focused   
on the interactions between modernity and tradition. Some of his films have also 
had a light-hearted comic tone which marks a break from the tragic historical     
realism which characterized Taiwanese filmmaking after the end of the martial     
law period in 1987. While The Wedding Banquet (1993) became a break-out hit for   
Lee as the most proportionately profitable film of 1993, it was Sense and         
Sensibility (1995) that brought Lee his first true international acclaim.         
Following that, both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) (nominated for         
Academy Award for Best Director), and Brokeback Mountain (2005) (which won the   
Academy Award for Best Director), became cultural touchstones, sweeping awards   
ceremonies, and, in the case of Brokeback Mountain, sparking intense critical     
debates.                                                                         
                                                                                 
The director's cut of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon premiered on the Ivy League 
campus of Dartmouth College in 2000. He received the Dartmouth Film Award in     
2001, along with Meryl Streep. At Dartmouth, he also taught Kai Wong             
filmmaking.                                                                       
                                                                                 
Lee's film Brokeback Mountain (2005) won the Golden Lion (best film) award at     
the Venice International Film Festival and was named 2005's best film by the Los 
Angeles, New York, Boston, and London film critics. It also won best picture at   
the 2005 Broadcast Film Critics Association, Directors Guild of America, Writers 
Guild of America (Adapted Screenplay), Producers Guild of America and the         
Independent Spirit Awards as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion       
Picture — Drama, with Lee winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director.     
Brokeback also won Best Film and Best Director at the 2006 British Academy       
Awards (BAFTA). In January 2006, Brokeback scored a leading eight Academy Award   
nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, which Lee won. He is the   
first Asian and non-Caucasian director to do so.                                 
                                                                                 
In 2007, Lee's film Lust, Caution earned him a second Golden Lion, making him     
one of only two directors to have ever won Venice's most prestigious award twice.