Audio transcription
For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.
John Quackenbush 0:00
October 25, 2013. The Harvard Film Archive screened Lust, Caution. This is the audio recording of the introduction and the Q&A that followed. Participating are HFA Director Haden Guest and filmmaker Ang Lee.
Haden Guest 0:15
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Haden Guest. I'm Director of the Harvard Film Archive. And it's really a great honor to be here tonight to introduce Lust, Caution. Director Ang Lee will be joining us for a Q&A and a discussion about this underrated and overlooked film from a quite remarkable oeuvre and career. This packed auditorium is a testament to the incredible popularity and influence of Ang Lee, who, of course, has won many, many important awards, and won the hearts of so many around the world. This retrospective, which begins tonight and continues throughout this weekend, highlights some of Lee's more popular films, as well as a number of lesser-known and still relatively obscure films. This includes his student film, which garnered him his very first awards when he was a senior at NYU. It's called Fine Line. I highly recommend that film which is difficult to see. And it's screening on Sunday, together with Pushing Hands, Ang Lee's first feature film.
Tonight's film from 2007, Lust, Caution, is a really brave film, in so many ways, because it took Ang Lee's work into a different direction. It's one of his, I think, riskier projects. It's based on a novella by the celebrated Chinese writer Eileen Chang, and it's also an adaptation, and another partnership with James Schamus, who co-wrote this screenplay and this adaptation. It's a lush evocation of the lost world of 1940s Shanghai, and it's also a meditation on performance as the most dangerous game. The film puzzled critics and audiences because of its pacing. It's a film that seems to move quite slowly, certainly compared to the sort of brisk, action-driven narratives which, I think, are among Lee's most celebrated works. And yet, this slowness, this pace, is really quintessential to the film, the way it offers us this sort of texture of everyday life. And so I'd ask you to keep that in mind as we watch tonight's film.
This series, and tonight's screening, is in partnership with the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office. And I want to thank them for all their support. I also want to thank the Fairbanks Center, who hosted a really great symposium this afternoon on Ang Lee as a transnational artist. A lot of interesting and thought-provoking comments and commentaries were made about Ang Lee's work. The symposium was also presented, as well as this whole series, together with the Harvard's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. So I want to thank them all for making this event possible.
I'd like to ask everybody to please turn off any cell phones, electronic devices that you have on you, and please keep them off for the duration of this screening. This is a long film, and so we're gonna get started right away. I just want to give a quick plug, in case I forget afterwards, that there'll be another event with Ang Lee at Wellesley, 10:30 tomorrow morning. It's going to be a conversation, free and open to the public, with Ang Lee and James Schamus at Wellesley College. You can look at their website if you're interested in attending that. Now, with no further ado, Lust, Caution.
[APPLAUSE]
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[APPLAUSE, CHEERS]
Haden Guest 4:08
Please join me in welcoming Ang Lee!
[APPLAUSE, CHEERS]
Ang Lee 4:16
Thank you. Ah, thank you. You seem to be very happy. I thought it's a heavy movie. Heavy, long movie. [LAUGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
Haden Guest 4:38
I think they liked the film.
Ang Lee 4:40
[LAUGHING] Thank you.
Haden Guest 4:41
So I thought we'd start with a few questions before we open it up to the audience. And I mean, this is, I think, quite an extraordinary film for so many reasons. But I wonder if you could first... Earlier this afternoon, during the symposium, you said that you resisted this project for three years. It was a project that you were attracted to, but at the same time, there was something in it that troubled you. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about what attracted you to this adaptation of this wonderful novella. And also, what was this fear? What was this resistance?
Ang Lee 5:14
Oh, I guess I can spend an hour talking about that. [LAUGHS] It's a short story, thirty-pages long. It's obscure Eileen Chang. She's one of the most beloved writers in modern Chinese history. I think few people read this piece. It's an obscure, hidden, troublesome kind of little piece of work, thirty pages long. When I read it, two reactions I had... The girl, remember, in the movie, she had a stage experience? And she's just falling in love with that, and she began to play that part. She's basically going deeper and deeper into the performance and [her true self] is actually the part she's pretending. That really got to me, 'cause I had a similar experience when I was eighteen, the first time I stood on stage. So I staged exactly how I experienced my first stage experience. So that girl was me.
[LAUGHTER]
And also, [LAUGHS] right after the play, like in the movie, and also in the short story, she goes out [to eat] with her friends, and it was drizzling rain. That night changed my life, and she had the same experience. So that really got to me. I felt Eileen Chang was selecting me. She went through me to meet you, somehow. I'm kind of a medium, which I really resent. I said, “Get away, I'm not even your fan! Don't find me, find somebody else! [LAUGHING] I don't want to do this!” Because when the girl let Mr. Yee go, I really hated her. You know, how can she do that? But it was like a ghost for me for about three years. I keep resisting, and I made other movies. But once I got the Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, I know it's time. Next week, I will start the pre- production of this movie, looking for my Wong Chia Chi. And now I was in a position to do that. Nobody else can do this movie. I'm the only one. You, the young people, you never know what old Shanghai is. But for the contemporary people, we’re not really empowered to do it. I just got a Oscar, I have to do it. I have to abuse that power. [LAUGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
So that's kind of a missionary, somehow, I don't know. Throughout the whole process, I don't believe I invested my emotions so deeply in any other movie I did. I was, like, wracked. And I never went so deep with actors. They're like the best actors. One innocent, the other does everything best. Tony Leung's as good as any, you know, as it comes. And they're there naked; they look at me, and: “What do we do?”
[LAUGHTER]
“What do you want us to do? What's in your mind?” That was really tough for me. I think what made me resist and seduced me the most is I have to give Eileen Chang the credit. I think China is a patriotic society. We have a history on that. When a little woman refused to cooperate, when she says no, when she says go, that's like a crucial moment. It's like the one element, that screw got unscrewed, and the whole structure of our history just collapses in front of our eyes. It's really powerful. It's very feminine. But it's very powerful. The scariest part is, of course, the Chinese patriotism towards Japanese. You come from that with the female sexuality. That's ten times more scary than portraying American gay cowboys.
[LAUGHTER]
It's fucking scary! [CHUCKLES]
[LAUGHTER]
Haden Guest 9:20
Now, I mean, the film was something that was controversial for a number of reasons. And, of course, the sex scenes which earned it a NC-17 rating in this country. To me, this is really the heart and soul of the film. You know, this is a film in many ways about performance. And here, at this point, it's like, this is performance pushed to an absolute limit. The sort of roles that they're playing, they're quite literally stripped bare. There's also something different; these scenes are so artfully presented. They're both erotic, but at the same time, they're deeply psychological. We're reading the characters. We're trying to understand their motivations. So they're both psychological, they're also sculptural, because I think that the way the bodies are is different than we're used to seeing on screen. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about these scenes. And I know this is something you've said you've been reluctant to speak about. But I was just wondering if maybe you might want to open up a little bit about these really crucial scenes in the film.
Ang Lee 10:27
I don't even know how to start this. My editor says a funny thing. It’s like, that girl's me. I have the heart of Wong Chia Chi and I have the balls of Mr. Yee.
[LAUGHTER]
And I carry the head of Kuang Yu Min, the young student leader. So I don't know what [to] do in those sex scenes. And Tim Squyres—this is Harvard, but I have to say this—he says, “So when your actor doesn't want to cooperate with you, they can tell you to go fuck yourself.”
[LAUGHTER]
It's very confusing, to be honest with you. [LAUGHS] Yeah, I was thinking of the things you're talking about. Absolutely. I try to bring artistic value to something that's raw and dirty and twisted. So you actually see the war through the twisted bodies. The human nature and the relationship, it's the energy of the war, the ugly war. But it's also a very truthful human relationship. They're killing each other. So [that is] heavy acting stuff. It's just like with two naked people in front of you, how do you tell them all those things? That was really killing me. Yes, I try to be more artistically so it can sort of levitate the whole thing to a more artistic level, to dilute what it really is. But at the same time, you have to deliver what it really is. You have to be honest with them, to yourself, to your audience. So that was a tough job for somebody like me. I'm basically a shy nice guy, so...
[LAUGHTER]
In the past, when I did sex scenes, I just designed the most complicated shot. The actor would feel really obligated to the technical points and forget to be shy. The shot is so complicated. They worry about hitting the mark and doing the right thing. And once we get through the first one, the rest is technical. But it's very hard to do this. They're not about hitting the technical part. They have to hit the emotion part. There are times I drove the actors crazy. Like really hysterical. Because I went pretty deep with them. Personal experience, what it brought out. Because if sex is a performance, which this is, what else is not, and why do we exist? It gets to a pretty psychological screwy point. It's like in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's dangerous when somebody is fighting, counting the beats. And then you ask them to remember the motivation, and look genuinely at everything, the sword might poke you in the eye. It could be really dangerous. But here it’s not a sword, physical injury, they might get, but psychologically it can really damage somebody. So, you know, I have a lot of guilt, doing it. But I think I have to give those actors credit. I think they're very brave, actors are a very strange species. They're extremely brave. It was great for them to experience that. [LAUGHS] They would go through that space. It's hell, but it's also heavenly. Because you're being truthful. You're willing to reveal something. I think that's what drama is about. Only through pretense, actually, you reveal the truth. It's Wong Chia Chi, not her, that's going through this. It's another character. So actually, you're there to touch something that's untouchable. I feel it's very rewarding that I share that experience to the audience, particularly the Chinese audience, because we share a common history, particularly that place. But to the actors, I tip my hats to them; they're willing to do it. Nothing stops them. I love my actors. Like, we all get sick after the movie, shooting the movie, for about a month and a half. It's just psychologically really nerve-racking, so to speak.
Haden Guest 14:47
Another notable quality is the length of the film. And I think this is a notably and deliberately slow film. And I mean this as a compliment, because the film takes its time. And I was wondering if you could speak a bit about the length of the film and the attention to detail, because it seems to me one of the things that this film is really concerned with is the texture of everyday life, you know, the sound of the Mahjong tiles, the street scenes, and so this sort of evocation of this sort of lost world. And I was wondering if you could speak a bit about the length of the film, the decision to really to linger on the early flashback sequences, the Mahjong games, and just to give yourself a larger canvas.
Ang Lee 15:33
Yeah, I think it's necessary. This day's audience—not you!—a lot of audiences treat longer movies like cancers.
[LAUGHTER]
We're not really allowed to establish, once the action starts to take place, the things they carry along with you. With the characters, with you. I think it takes time. I think movies are not just flashes of something efficient, but you have to allow yourself to immerse yourself into that world, spend time with your characters, without plotting or anything, or something obviously useful dramatically. I think that's important. But we're given less and less time to do the establishments these days. But this is a part of a history. I see my parents in this. It's that generation. [It’s] a lot of my childhood memories, and fears, and doctrines, and all that. I want to spend that time. To me, it's precious. I want to recreate that and share with people. But we're not always given the allowance to use movie time like that. Like, really spending it like that. I'm glad of, you know, I have to mention James here. We had an argument about that. But at the end of the day–
[APPLAUSE]
Ang Lee 16:59
It's the writer.
Haden Guest 17:01
Mr. James Schamus.
[APPLAUSE]
Ang Lee 17:04
At the same time, NC-17, bring it on, we'll do it. Stretch of time, and the way you want to do it. You heard me, but if you want to do it, yeah. We're proud of it. So thank you, James, for supporting. It's tough for the American audience, but...
Haden Guest 17:25
I mean, maybe I could ask a question that would, in fact, involve Mr. Schamus, who's with us, which has to do with the actual adaptation itself. I mean, this is a novella, a story of thirty pages. And I was wondering if you could speak a bit, and I don't know, James, if it's something you wanted to also speak about, in terms of the adaptation, and what it was you decided to pull out or push back in this remarkable tale?
Ang Lee 17:52
Well, I’ll mention one thing. We have a masterpiece of a short story, and she hides a lot of things. She gives you a lot of hints of how to expand it. But there are some pure James inventions, because he probably does not revere Eileen Chang like the Chinese writer would. Like he will shake the audience up just because structurally, it’s needed, like the stabbing scene in the middle of the movie, like right in the center of the whole structure. I first asked him, “Why do you want to do that?” James is like, “I want to wake them up!”
[LAUGHTER]
But when I think about it, when I [make] a movie, there's a reason. I think, to me, that's the Bar Mitzvah scene. It’s the coming-of-age scene. They have a taste of blood and the war; it’s not heroic as they think. So it's like a coming of age, a loss of innocence, kind of right in the middle of the structure. Of course, I think James is right, just in terms of making movies. James, you want to elaborate more?
James Schamus 19:04
I'm just glad the story was thirty pages instead of fifteen pages. Because if it was fifteen pages, the movie would be about seven or eight hours.
[LAUGHTER]
Haden Guest 19:18
We'll take a few questions from the audience. And so there are microphones on either side. So the gentleman who's standing up. You can actually take your seat. That's fine. Thanks. And if we can keep the questions short, that would be great.
Audience 1 19:33
Well, I feel the lust–
Haden Guest 19:36
If you speak into the mic, too, so we can hear.
Audience 1 19:37
Yeah, the lust, or some of the other feelings are deep in our genes, right? We are after all, all human beings. So I understand the movie just, I say, after all, we are all human beings. Even between enemies, we have more in common than differences. I just feel like living like a peaceful monkey. Don't peddle in hatred and fighting humans. That's my comment. Thank you.
Haden Guest 20:02
Thank you. Alright, let's take this gentleman down here in the sweater right there. And then we'll,... Actually, questions would be good.
Audience 2 20:11
Yeah, I just wanted to go back to the stabbing scene. It was so drawn out, it reminded me a lot of the murder scene in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain. And I don't know if that was an inspiration for either of you. Or if there were any other inspirations you could talk about?
Haden Guest 20:28
James is nodding his head.
Ang Lee 20:29
You know, they're Harvard. They're smart.
James Schamus 20:33
The way I described it, originally, I think, to Ang, was that, let's say you're having a dinner party, and pork tenderloin is on the menu. And after the hors d'oeuvres, a pig comes into the dining room, and everybody is given a knife and they have to kill the pig.
[LAUGHTER]
Haden Guest 20:52
Let's, there are two hands right there, the woman in black, right there in the back. Steven, do you want to? It's fine. No, the mic is on its way.
Audience 3 21:06
Thank you. My question is actually related to the adaptation of the novel. I'm quite impressed about the way you visualize things. As you said, the original novel described things in a more obscure way. For example, when they talk about the relationship of Mr. Yee and Wong Chia Chi, they talked about, like, their relationship makes Wong Chia Chi, like, feel like taking a hot bath. And when I was reading the novel, I thought, “What does the word ‘taking a hot bath’ mean?”
Haden Guest 21:36
Actually, if you slow down a little bit, we can...
Audience 3 21:37
I'm sorry.
Ang Lee 21:37
“Taking a hot bath.”
Audience 3 21:38
I mean, the original novel, when they talk about the relationship of Wong Chia Chi and Yi Xiānsheng, it talks about the relationship, like, make Wong Chia Chi, feel like takes a hot bath after meeting.
Ang Lee 21:51
Takes a hot bath.
Haden Guest 21:51
Takes a hot bath. Takes a hot bath.
Ang Lee 21:57
Take a hot bath.
Audience 3 21:58
[?rè shuǐ zǎo?], I’m sorry! [LAUGHS]
Ang Lee 21:58
Okay... [CHUCKLES]
Audience 3 21:59
I'm sorry. And there seems to be countless ways of expressing this concept. However, your vivid way of, and sometimes probably extreme, the sex scenes, just let us fully understand the struggle of the hearts of the characters. And I just wonder, what was in your mind when you were deciding, this is the way we should tell the story? And this is the way we want to present it to the audience? Because there was nothing said in the novel that the fiction should be presented in this way.
Ang Lee 22:33
She gave you a lot of hints. From the title, Lust, Caution. From how to describe how you get to the man's heart through– [LAUGHS] through the stomach, and you go to the woman's heart through the vagina. That tells you a lot. And she complains some scholars were saying something about women, can't really say it here. She says, “I'm not gonna believe that.” She's giving you a hint that that's what she believes. I think she's being very tricky about this piece of work. I think it's filmable. I think in a lot of Eileen Chang's movies, the charm is in the language. It's not really a good idea to—especially if you revere her literature—it's very hard to make into a movie. But I think this particular piece, she was writing it like a movie. She was imitating a movie. You know, she's a screenplay writer. She's a movie buff, a film critic as well. So I do believe she tried to imitate the movies, particularly film noir. There are a few hints that she might be taking inspiration from this movie or that movie. So to me, for Eileen Chang's work, this is very filmable. The hardest part [putting] into a screenplay or making into a movie, is the idea of a theater group play assassination. If you actually see it, it's actually like a rhapsody. It's not very believable. So to make the first part, the student part, the part where they have passions, and from that, transition into the real assassination, I think that part is particularly hard. Not so much in writing, of course, writing's part of the filmmaking. But to make it believable, trustworthy, to the audience, I think it's extremely hard. Actually, you're doing a big tragedy, a serious tragedy, something controversial, based on a rhapsody, almost like a fantasy. You can do that in short novels, short stories. But to draw it out into a movie, I found that is the hardest part. The sex, I think, is suggested. I think it's war. It's actually a war movie. It needs to be carried out, something... sex needs to use its power. And I think it's a matter of performance; it's existential. If Eileen Chang were alive, I hope she would agree with me. [LAUGHS] She would say, “That's what I mean.” I hope. I can never prove that.
Haden Guest 25:31
Let's take that question in the very far back, the woman in the white shirt.
Audience 4 25:38
Thank you. So something that I found rather interesting in the film was this divide, or this dialectic between two spheres. The sort of private sphere, where they're sort of engaged in these leisurely activities. They're playing Mahjong–
Haden Guest 25:58
Actually, it's hard to understand you. If you could speak up a little bit.
Audience 4 26:02
So I would like to get your thoughts on this dialectic between two spheres.
Ang Lee 26:08
The styles of what?
Haden Guest 26:10
Dialectic between two?
Audience 4 26:12
Two different spheres.
Haden Guest 26:13
“Two different spheres.”
Audience 4 26:14
So, the sort of private sphere, where they engage in leisurely activities. Like they play Mahjong, they go to the restaurants, they go to the cinema. And the sort of more public sphere, where they engage in labor. They fight wars, they interrogate people. And so I'm interested in how these two things intersect, in interesting ways, throughout the film, and also in professional practice.
Ang Lee 26:43
So what they do is quite corrupt: playing Mahjong, and talking about hoardings during the wartime. That's a particular phenomena in the seemingly peaceful Shanghai, the center city of Shanghai. It's actually on an island. It even developed its own fashion. You know, qipao inside and a trench coat outside. How is a girl supposed to walk? One’s supposed to do small steps, the other, you're supposed to do strides. So like, how do you do that? So it's a very particular time, a very twisted time. So by corruption, and the way they live under pressure—because they're afraid of assassins—they actually have a taste of war. Their distorted relationship ideas and [people]. I think this is a war story. To me, it's like a war story without actually seeing the war. I think that that particular time and period, and the story we're told, particularly the Shanghai part, is kind of a cinematic gold mine. You don't see the war, but you see the war’s effect on people. That's how I would like to approach it. I think that's [what] the short story provides.
Haden Guest 28:06
We're just gonna take a couple more questions. Let's take one from right down here. Steven, right here on this side.
Audience 5 28:13
I am just curious about this character of Kuang Yu Min. I want to ask you, why did you pick Leehom Wang to [play] him? Thank you.
Ang Lee 28:23
Are you a fan of his?
[LAUGHTER]
Ang Lee 28:29
For those of you who don't know, Leehom Wang is a big Asian pop star. Like top five. And he was brought not far from here, in Rochester, went to college. And his specialty is music. He's a very talented young man. Lots of fans.
[LAUGHTER]
His concert in Shanghai had 100,000 fans. Every day we were shooting, there were fans, teenage girls, just out there. If they don't see him there, they went into a group hysteria, howling, laughter. Mouths like this big, just howling, howling, and real tears. [LAUGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
Why I chose him, I think he looked the part. Even though his language is a little– Actually he's an English speaker. His Chinese is a lot better now, but back then, it was quite an effort. [LAUGHS] But strangely enough, I think because he's more isolated, brought up as a Chinese here in America in a place like Rochester, actually he looked more period than most of the kids I see in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. They don't look like when my parents were young. Or the movies I saw when I was a little boy. When I saw those Guotai, the Pacific, before Shaw Brothers, those movies. Those are the Shanghainese who just freshly came to Hong Kong, and started making Mandarin-speaking movies. Those are the models I'm looking [for]. Actors like Zhang Yang. You're too young to know who he is, most of you. So he looked like the thing to me, his disposition, if I can make the language work. Sometimes it's worse if you get 95 percent right instead of 70, people notice the imperfections. And he's a very hard worker. His first time acting. But I like him, and I felt like I kind of cracked him halfway. [LAUGHS] And he has a breakthrough. His pop star status doesn't translate into movie powers, so I chose him basically because he looked like the part, and his disposition is very similar to those leading men when I was a little boy. That's all there is. I think he did a really good job for a pop star.
Haden Guest 31:14
Let's take one more question. This gentleman here in the front with the glasses right there. Let’s do that.
Audience 6 31:22
So, I once read your book. You said you tend to give more experienced actors more general directions. And you give very specific directions to young actors without much experience. So I'm wondering if this is the approach you took for that film, because we have two very different actors.
Ang Lee 31:45
This movie is a little exceptional. Usually, [with] younger actors, you don't want to talk [to them] too much. Actually, [it’s] more confusing. You make it impossible for them. For younger actors, because of their innocence, their effort, they’re trying to do what you want them to do, and their fear of screwing things up. Actually, that's quite compelling. That's equal to good acting, actually.
[LAUGHTER]
If you have an experienced actor, they're very convincing, they can display many layers of textures and subtext at ease. But it's very hard to move people. Like, when was the last time you were moved by Meryl Streep? You don’t worry for her. That's great acting, you sit back and you appreciate it. But at a simple moment that you know better than the character themselves, you sort of work up for them, you're moved. Young actors are actually at an advantage. So you don't really want to kill that. Their innocence is a treasure. The difficulty is sometimes when, if they're carrying the movie, sometimes they do have to put up layers, perform layers of subtext, and then you have to work hard.
Tang Wei was a trained actor. But this is her first movie. So she both has the innocence as an actress, but she's not untrained. So I talked to her a lot more than I would usually talk to the young actors. Tony, I talked to him a lot, because he's great, and like, a director's dream. We like to talk. Sometimes you talk too much. But he can digest it, and he can translate that into a performance, into his look. So he's a director's dream. Tang Wei, I talked to her, unusually, a lot. She’s just kind of a moody kind of actress. Everybody's a different case. Like Wang Leehom, you just tell him one thing, and every take he'll do better, consistently improving. But Tang Wei, her first take might be the best, and she drifts away. She's very moody, she's like a piece of cloud. You know, come and go.
[LAUGHTER]
I was chasing her all the time. Each time I want to keep it fresh, so I had to give it... Like the moment when she looks at the pill, decides whether to, you know, when she has the diamond ring at the end, when she's about to be captured, whether she wanted suicide or not. I went through thirteen takes. Each take I gave her long, elaborate reasons why she doesn't take the pill. I have to constantly give different directions so she can feel fresh and be inspired. It's a tough job. I'm glad I finally used the thirteenth take.
[LAUGHTER]
Whatever they need, you have to supply, as a director.
Haden Guest 35:01
Well, I want to thank you, Ang Lee, for being with us.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERS]
And I want to tell everybody, Ang Lee and James Schamus will be at Wellesley College tomorrow morning at 10:30. That's a free conversation. It's open to the public. And so I encourage you to be there. Director Lee has had a long day. So we're actually going to exit the theater. And I'd like to ask people please no photographs or anything like that, because he doesn't have the time. So please, thank Ang Lee once again, and we'll say good night!
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERS]
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