Lee and Schamus Talk "Lust, Caution

[summertime]

Lee and Schamus Talk "Lust, Caution

by Charlie Olsky (November 15, 2007)

This was an auteur-filled week in New York. Director Ang Lee was humble and Focus chief James Schamus was hilarious on Friday night in their conversation with the Museum of the Moving Image about "Lust, Caution." Noah Baumbach, meanwhile was a bit sheepish and a bit prickly at the Museum of Modern Art's screening of "Margot at the Wedding." And Tim Burton was brief and blunt during his evening with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, possibly in the belief that the audience was really there for a sneak peak at his much-awaited adaptation of "Sweeney Todd."


Ang Lee and James Schamus Tout "Lust, Caution"

On Friday night, the Museum of the Moving Image hosted an evening with director Ang Lee and screenwriter, producer James Schamus, who heads the film's and distribution outfit, Focus Features. Lee has often been described as unclassifiable as a director owing to the diversity of his films (from "Sense and Sensibility" to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to "Brokeback Mountain"), but actress Joan Allen, who introduced the pair, identified the key feature of Lee's films by calling "The Ice Storm" "the most perfect film I've ever worked on, in terms of the entire concept, from the way it was filmed, to the set decoration, to the music, to the performances."

That perfection is more than evident on Lee's latest feature, the Mandarin-language "Lust, Caution", an astoundingly good epic that drew bafflingly little praise from U.S. critics, despite being one of the best films of the year. Regarding the film's ballyhooed sex scenes, Lee sheepishly called them "my new way of torturing actors," before pointing out the film's star Tang Wei in the audience, who carries the entire film despite never having acted in a film before.

Despite the tepid reaction of Stateside critics, the film has gone on to break box office records in China. "It's a blockbuster," said Schamus. "'Pirates of the Caribbean' is just a footnote next to this, it's crazy."

Lee did his best on Friday to appear a humble slacker, not at all like the perfectionist described by his collaborators. "I flunked my college examination, and I had to go to drama school instead... When I came to the States, I became director because I couldn't speak English and I couldn't get into the acting program."

Lee's collaboration with Schamus began after he was awarded $300,000 in a Taiwanese screenwriting competition for his first feature, "Pushing Hands. He also submitted his original script for "The Wedding Banquet," which came in second. "He came to us, out of the blue, and he said... 'somebody told me you make movies for $300,000, although somebody else told me you'll probably steal the money.' That was the first thing he said to me."

http://www.indiewire.com/ots/2007/11/ny_ny_lee_and_s.html