Director Ang Lee
Ang Lee,
the director, has created and directed many award winning films such as the Life of PI, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,
Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, and Brokeback Mountain. He has
captured over 84 awards and had over 62 nominations.
He
grew up in Taiwan with a very traditional family with very traditional
Taiwanese culture. He had a father that did not accept him as the great
director that he was and is today. Ang Lee’s father believed that Ang should be
a teacher or a college professor. At one point, Ang Lee came home to show his
father his accomplishments however his father said, “good, now go be a
teacher.” He acted as if Ang’s passion for film was just a thing to get out of
his system before he started his career.
Little
did his father know that Ang, in his own right, was/is a teacher of cinematography. Ang’s films introduced high action packed
computer graphics, outdoor settings of splendor to display time, and an
underlining message regarding family dynamics in generational and cultural
environments. His films would reach the audience in emotion, action, and
reaction.
Ang
attended the National Taiwan College of Arts, the University of Illinois, and
University of New York. He specialized in Theater Direction and Film
production. He was accepted to be assistant director of student film, “Joe’s
Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.” (1983) He also was an actor when the need
arose but to his admission, it was better to be director than for himself to
act.
Computer
graphics added in films was one of his passions. He played with the
possibilities in Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon, Hulk, and The Life of PI. He recently won an Academy award for Life
of PI for 3D animation, score, and visual
effects in 2013. 
One
constant in all of his films is his sense of family dynamics. The family isn’t
always obvious but it is always a part of his films. Because of his traditional
family upbringing, he incorporates into his films. Mostly, he breaks tradition
with gender roles, sexuality, dysfunctional, and psychological attributes.
Ang Lee’s
film, Eat Drink Man Woman, he
captured the traditional family unit of a father raising three girls. He
maintains tradition in the Sunday dinner of the Chinese cuisine from the
beginning where the food is bought and grown to the preparation of the meal, up
to the presentation of the meal. There are only four people but the father
fixes plenty of food to feed an army or in his case a banquet hall full of
people. Mr. Lee shows how tradition is thrown out of the window when two of the
three daughters leave the home due to nontraditional means such as pregnancy
and Christian marriage. The third daughter so badly wants to follow in her
father’s footsteps but is not customary for a woman to be a Chef. As she
attends college, she breaks tradition by not marrying and becoming the youngest
executive for an airline company. Thus giving a shift in gender roles from a
traditional married stay home woman to a high executive.
Other
conflicts are the dysfunctional family ties, where a family friend is more than
a cousin or an uncle, which leads to disgrace and humiliation. But the eldest
daughter doesn’t deviate from loving her father and wanting to be like him. In
the end she cooks for him a Sunday meal just like he use to do for his
daughters.
Ang
Lee depicts stage settings to showcase change and time. This is a common theme
in many of his movies. Time is so hard
to capture on film, but here in Eat Drink
Man Woman, he utilizes various settings to show time going by. First in the
hospital, when Chef Chu is going in for an appointment he is in a robe and
slippers. Time lapses by just a look of a man in a hospital bed being pushed by
the eldest daughter as she waits for her father to come out of the room. The
next time you see the father, the lighting the hallway has changed to reflect
time has lapsed and he is in regular clothes heading to the elevator.
Then
stage setting focuses again in Chef Chu’s lush garden. In the beginning the
garden is well manicured, full of color, and well-tended but in the end when he
moves the garden is dark and dull. Nothing seems to be growing among the
foliage and flowerbeds in which it gives an idea of an ending of one’s former
life and tradition.
Ang
Lee loves being a director and loves to be challenged. He doesn’t have one
particular genre to follow. He captures the heart of each film with his ideas
of culture, traditions, and most importantly the structures of family dynamics.
Work Cited
Bower, Anne. Reel Food: Essays on
Food and Film. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
"Ang Lee." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014.
Web. 28 May 2014.
"Ang Lee: Full Biography." NY
Times. All Media Guide, 2010. Web. 26 May 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/166472/Ang-Lee/biography>.
"Ang Lee." IMDb.com.
Amazon.com, n.d. Web. 26 May 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000487/>.
Excited to watch this film tonight after reading this!
ReplyDeleteAudience question: You mention that in Lee's films, he always incorporates his traditional family upbringing, and that in "Eat Drink Man Woman", he "maintains tradition in the Sunday dinner of the Chinese cuisine from the beginning where the food is bought and grown to the preparation of the meal, up to the presentation of the meal". Do you think that the growing, preparing, and presentation of the food is symbolic of raising a family in his traditional way?
ReplyDeleteIt may have played a part in the process. The food preparation for the meal seems almost as ornate at the presentation of the meal.
DeleteI don't think so. I think his traditional cooking is to keep one tradition alive when all other traditions are no longer a part of that particular family.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a preponderance of Lee films that he's working out some of his issues with his own father on the screen. Would you agree with that, or do you think that there is enough variety in his work to dilute kind of frustration that seems painfully obvious in movies like Eat, Drink and Hulk?
ReplyDeleteI think that it may started out that way but in his current choices of movies it's no longer an issue. I think he thrives on family issues across the board. I believe he is interested in various types of issues with family. Yes it started with his father but then as he gets older and more worldly there are a ton of other issues that can be a story. It gives him a wide variety to choose from and continuously allows for him to do more movies.
DeleteZack, I think that is taking his other works without consideration. I believe that Lee has had a great variety in topics and themes that doesn't really connect him always to his father's disappointment. I think it is possible that, in looking at his entire collected works and THEN hearing about his problems with his father could be affecting my view point though. So. Who knows. But food for thought for my arguments would be Crouching Tiger, Life of Pi, Sense and Sensibility, and Brokeback Mountain.
DeleteOne thing I noticed is that twice in the film they played the Sex and the City theme music. I thought that was interesting! Does anyone know if they took it from this film or if it was the other way around?
ReplyDeleteI think so Brandi! I agree with Blue too, that he was trying to keep this specific tradition alive because it seemed that everything else in his life was falling apart. But I think that he was trying to do everything in his life the traditional way, but it just didn't work out that way.
ReplyDeleteI think the ritual torture meals and accompanying preparation does suggest Chu is a traditionalist, and that does hold in some ways, but unlike most other traditionalist characters, he seems open to change. For instance, he doesn't prevent or even object to his oldest daughter's interest in Christianity, a sure sign of modernization and Westernization in Taiwan. It does make us assume, though, that he'll want to stay with past ways.
ReplyDeleteAs for the soundtrack, it would have to be Sex and the City, which followed the film by several years, which borrowed from the film. Mader, the composer for the film, did have a band in NYC for awhile, so that may have been where the interchange occurred.
I do not think it was torture as much as it was the tradition for the family. It reminded myself of how my mother was the same way on Sunday meals as we moved out and started our own lives. She went through the riggers of prepared an elaborate meal for the family and our mates.
DeleteIn this way Chu was doing the same thing. He just was loosing his faculties that kept him cooking for so long. His sense of taste. My question is was this brought on by his age or the problems of keeping such a secret from everyone?
Yes I agree he was open to change, which is unusual for a typical "traditionist". I think he knew that sometimes in life happiness is more important than traditions.
DeleteI agree with Paul and Blue I think that it is not torture and to be honest I love the variety. I think it makes the movie and shows the traditions well like Paul said. I feel like having that variety it also gives the movie a "tasteful feel"! Also I really loved that last scene of the movie because it really tied everything together in that last shot and I think you posted the picture of it!
ReplyDeleteI would say that the problem with associating the term "torture" to their family meals implies, inaccurately, intentionality. The ill-at-ease looks and uncomfortable glances and brief and bitter conversation shows that this is an event that they are generally not desiring. Also, If I remember correctly, they use the term in the film.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to defer to the character's description. It was Jia Chien who termed it a torture ritual. And I wouldn't say all of Lee's films are focused on father-son issues (though the first three are). Hulk was just painful.
ReplyDeleteI think that the meals were not torture. It was torture for the family to communicate. The whole family had a difficult time communicating and expressing themselves with one another. Instead of communicating the family would just eat together. However, at the end of the movie, once the father opened up, everyone seemed to be happier.
ReplyDelete