With commercial cinema increasingly dominated by spectacle, the films of Ang Lee (b. 1954) remain engagingly human-scaled, plunging into the emotional turmoil among sets of intimately detailed characters. This emphasis on intimacy is the unifying element that links films set in 18th-century China, Georgian England, 1970s Connecticut and contemporary Wyoming. Lee is a protean director: although he recently won an Oscar for a 3D feature that relies on cutting-edge visual technologies, he built his reputation by re-introducing American audiences to melodrama as a vehicle for exploring the relation between society and the individual.

The itinerary of his career is a zigzag. His parents left mainland China for Taiwan in 1949; thirty years later, Lee departed Taiwan to study theater and film in the US. Despite the success of his 1985 NYU thesis film, it would be another six years before he made his first full-length work, Pushing Hands, thanks to Taiwanese producer Hsu Li-kong, who also produced the first two features by Tsai Ming-liang. The success of this film in Taiwan and on the festival circuit begat two more Taiwanese films, whose mix of “social satire and family drama” – as Lee put it – led to his being hired to direct the 1995 film of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which in turn brought him to Hollywood. Lee’s strength has remained his ability to place audiences in close proximity to his protagonists’ inner lives.

The Harvard Film Archive is pleased to welcome Mr. Lee for the opening night of a weekend of films highlighting his early work and two overlooked films: Ride With the Devil and Lust, Caution. – Jason Michelitch and David Pendleton

Ang Lee will appear in person at the screening of The Wedding Banquet for the opening night of the Boston Asian American Film Festival at the Brattle Theatre on Thursday, October 24 at 6:45.