Ang Lee is such a unique filmmaker. Despite winning 2 Best Director Oscars, there's not really an "Ang Lee style", or even really recurring themes that I can think of, except maybe his characters often struggling with hidden emotions that they keep from themselves and others. Regardless, he makes beautiful and emotional films, some of the best of the last few decades, and again despite winning two Best Director Oscars (and another for Best Foreign Language Film) I don't think he's often included in lists of the best filmmakers out there right now. I think he gets forgotten because of those lack of definable characteristics of his movies. His films are always technically impressive, usually expertly told, and even when he falls flat, he was at least ambitious about it.
Lee's take on the Hulk was one of the first big budget comic book movies, and Lee mimicked the actual pages of a comic book. Odd angles, jarring 180 degree edits, extreme close ups, he played with the visual language of what a movie could look like in a really fascinating way. The movie doesn't totally work narratively, it's too long, not engaging enough, too much silliness, etc. but it's a very interesting movie to look at and study. The care he brought to the emotional dramas within Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and especially The Ice Storm may be his calling card. He tried to bring the same thing to Hulk, but it's a movie that doesn't gel tonally into a whole. Regardless, he always makes movies worth seeing, both narratively and visually, and I say that without having seen his other movie that won him a Best Director Oscar, Life of Pi.
So, what do you think of Ang Lee and his films?
My ratings:
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 10/10
- Brokeback Mountain - 10/10
- The Ice Storm - 9/10
- Hulk - 7/10
- Sense and Sensibility - 7/10
- Taking Woodstock - 6/10
- Ride with the Devil - 4/10
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