Director Ang Lee is not one who easily lets out a good laugh. Even in front of more than 40 cameras at the world premiere of his experimental piece “Billy Lynn’s Long Half-time Walk” in his native Taiwan, the curve of Lee’s mouth rarely inclined above a 45-degree angle.
After winning two Academy Awards for Best Director for film adaptations of “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi,” Lee’s expertise in visualizing the written word brought him to his latest task – adapting novelist Ben Fountain’s “Long Half-Time Walk” to the silver screen.
The film follows fictional character Billy Lynn’s journey as a 19 year-old soldier sent to the frontlines of the Iraq War. He is thrown into the limelight after a journalist captures images of his efforts to save fellow soldiers in combat. In order to soothe domestic anti-war sentiment, Lynn is later recruited to tour the country in an effort to promote patriotism.
Shooting the film at an unprecedented 120 frames per second in 3D at 4K HD resolution, only five theaters worldwide were adequately equipped to show the film. One of those theaters was Taipei Q-Square’s Vieshow Cinemas, where a single ticket for the film was priced at NT$800.
Early in November 2016, Global Views Monthly magazine and DaAi Television conducted a joint interview with Lee. Observing the footage of the interview, one can sense Lee’s fatigue and his deliberate tempo of speaking – as he puts every effort to finish each sentence uttered.
“What do you want audiences to take away from this film?” the interview asks to start their conversation. Ang Lee blinks a few times as emotions seem to rise within. “Compassion. Whether it be the soldiers fighting in war or the Iraqi civilians – we need empathy to be able to understand,” he replies.
Assessing the complexity of the subject matter before shooting
In his 26 years in film, Ang Lee says he never planned out what themes he would shoot at a certain age in life. What he ends up selecting is borne out of curiosity. Before the impulse comes to actually start filming, Lee runs as self-assessment on how challenging the material could be. If it can be clarified within a week, he’ll have no further interest in the subject. But something that takes ten years of fitful pondering without an easy answer – that’s the material that inspires director to move on the initial impulse.
Ang Lee’s cinematic breadth is hard to define due to the diverse subject matters explored – gay cowboys, voluptuous spies, a shipwrecked youngster, veterans suffering from post traumatic stress – have all been the main characters in his films.
His life has not been without a few bumps along the way – for example, he failed to test into university, and only became a director at 36. On the other hand, he has not encountered anything amounting to personal catastrophe. How then has he been able to engrave suffering into the hearts of audiences?
“My sympathy, at least when it relates to drama, tends to be more pronounced,” he says smiling. Compassion makes up for experience – allowing him to apply the pain that other’s experience as his own which he portrays in his film direction.
After directing “Life of Pi” in 2012, Lee became trapped in an existential confusion over fate and karma. As it happened, someone gave him a copy of Fountain’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” He found himself deeply attracted to the novel’s narration of the juxtaposition of the real and superficial – wartime combat and the football halftime show - as well as the normal and the absurd. So he took what remained unresolved for him regarding the story of karma after “Pi” and used it in directing his latest film.
Never having fought in a war himself but growing up in an age where patriotic slogans were commonplace in everyday language allowed him to notice how soldiers were torn between the role of “hero” and mere mortal. “Those celebrations and displays of patriotism are empty to those who really possess them from within.”
During a scene in the film, Billy (the main character) questions why he is fighting the war and starts talking with his platoon leader Shroom who doubles as a father figure who later dies in combat. Their dialogue leads to a discussion on the Hindu idea of karma, with Shroom telling Billy that he needs to believe in something bigger than himself. Toward the end of the film, the camera sweeps past a stuffed toy elephant in a jeep – perhaps representing the Hindu deity Ganesh, or the fallen Shroom.
These parts were not part of the original novel, but were created entirely by Lee himself in order to make viewers emphasize with the solitude faced by soldiers on the battleground, who are later misunderstood and unaided by their countries.
A new manipulation of the viewing experience
In recent years, Ang Lee continues to research new ways of showing movies. He believes new viewing formats can be made to manipulate the feelings of the audience. With the original novel focusing intimately at the main character’s inner emotions, such new technologies offer a perfect opportunity to guide the viewer to these new depths.
Therefore, Lee decided to employ the newest technology to film delve the deepest he could into human nature. Filming at 120 frames per second in 3D at 4K HD resolution immerses the audience into exploring and empathizing…putting gruesome realities that normally could be avoided at the turn of one’s head directly in one’s line of vision in the theater.
How does 120 frames per second in 3D at 4K HD resolution translate into in terms of viewers’ experience? When the film begins, the viewer sees a magnified Nokia cellphone vibrating – waking Billy Lynn from his slumber as he reaches out to grab the phone. The image seems to pop out of the screen, making the audience feel like they are sitting next to Billy on his bed, and not in the theater as they witness the absurdities of the patriotism tour’s opening.
In another scene, American troops barge into an Iraqi home in the middle of the night. A woman’s scream, children crying, men shouting in protest as homeowners are dragged away surround the audience. The camera closes in on a child’s black eyes streaked with tears– too frightened to know whether or not to cry.
During the climactic halftime show scene, Ang Lee juxtaposes the stadium’s fireworks and the memories within Billy’s mind of gunfire in the combat zone…emphasizing the stress and strain these shows have on the psyche of veterans. His face encapsulates the entire screen, with vein filled eyes glistening and mouth quivering – agonizing audience members.
Lead actor Joe Alwyn says that when the scene was filmed, the camera lens was almost touching his face. “I couldn’t see the rest of the camera, nor any of the actors in the scene.”
While some say that 3D should be used for science fiction and action films, Ang Lee says that “3D’s most optimal use is its close reading of the human face.” Therefore most of the actors in the movie are filmed without makeup as a purposeful means of immersing viewers into each of their emotions written on their faces.
Examining human nature, touching hearts
“Films are like dreams. In the past it was like observing a flower within the fog. Now everything has become clear and images can be used to survey and inspect,” says Lee. Using films to explore humanity requires not only a razor sharp precision of rationality, but also the narrative medium necessary to genuinely touch people’s hearts.
At the November movie premiere event in Taipei, Ang Lee said self-effacingly that “watching a film of such a scale, all emotions are left out in the open. And in this moment I’m quite vulnerable.” What has allowed this director to captivate his audience is exactly that: the exploration of one’s own vulnerabilities.
But hidden within Ang Lee’s vulnerabilities is a streak of rebelliousness. He has often experimented after major box office hits, such as “Hulk” after “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Lust, Caution” after “Brokeback Mountain.” Though innovation can sometimes be stunning, it does not always translate into box office success.
Something similar happened after Lee won the best director Oscar for “Life of Pi”, with “Billy Lynn” subsequently scored mixed reviews. Some blamed the high definition resolution for making it difficult to get into the story, while others think that Lee deserves his third Oscar for best director.
After premiering on November 11 in the United States, the movie managed only to reap $12 million at the box office, quickly falling behind the smash hit “Doctor Strange” which opened a week later.
Compassion in the arts presents greatest challenge
Having secured awards from the Golden Globes, BAFTA and two Academy Awards for best director, Ang Lee is at the pinnacle of his career.
On the set, with one verbal command, hundreds of ground crew are ready to make his vision a reality. While the crew and actors work to meet his requests and are often left fatigued in the process, Ang Lee blames himself for “not knowing the people’s suffering.”
“Sometimes I’m divided between insisting on something or to cut people some slack. It might be good artistically, but it is often torturous for the people involved,” he said with a sigh.
He admits that the biggest challenge is no longer technique alone, but rather how to maintain high artistic standards while maintaining compassion.
Life has become more transparent after he gained famed. Many have preconceptions of him, the government calls him “a light of Taiwan”, others have thanked him for giving them the courage to come out of the closet. These words of praise while well intentioned have become a burden with each instance of repetition.
“Sometimes I feel like its not genuine and want to rebel against it,” he admits, but after contemplation he realizes that most people mean well and realizes that this too is a blessing.
Therefore when people ask to take a photo with him or confer their praises onto him, he happily cooperates to become a “cardboard cutout.” When I see them excited and happy taking a photo with me it brings me a kind of joy,” Lee says.
He attributes the contradictory feelings to fate. People move toward enlightenment differently, some by taking to religion, others have to struggle, while he took the road to Hollywood and chose the road of filmmaking. There he condenses the sorrows and joys, the climaxes and eventual plateaus of life into 120 minutes for the audience.
“Whether it’s a comedy, tragedy, it has to have compassion and empathy. At the end I want to see love and peace,” he says. The 62-year-old Lee admits that he is no longer struggling with his fate. “In this life, there seem to have been unbearable burdens. Because I couldn’t bear them, I’ve had to open my mind a bit…thinking about it like that brings more peace.”
Perhaps whenever his mouth curves downward in angle it is the weight of his honesty and compassion.
[By Chen Fang-yu /Translated by Russ Chiao ]