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| Scene from Life of Pi |
Welcome to The Birthday Take, a column dedicated to celebrating Oscar nominees and winners' birthdays by paying tribute to the work that got them noticed. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive retrospective, but more of a highlight of one nominated work that makes them noteworthy. The column will run whenever there is a birthday and will hopefully give a dense exploration of the finest performances and techniques applied to film. So please join me as we blow out the candles and dig into the delicious substance.
The Facts
Recipient: Ang Lee
Born: October 23, 1954 (63 years old)
Nomination: Best Director (win) for Life of Pi
Nomination: Best Director (win) for Life of Pi
The Take
In 2013, director Ang Lee achieved the impressive feat as the first Asian filmmaker to win two Best Director statues. While this is an honor unto itself, it's incredible to think of the massive differences between the two films. He had won a few years prior for Brokeback Mountain, which was an intimate gay drama. The film sparred controversy at the time despite being critically acclaimed. Then he would win for a radically different movie, Life of Pi, which seemed less controversial but was nevertheless plagued with various conflicts that included special effects company Rhythm & Hues going bankrupt. While it wasn't part of the marketing, the choice to cast newbie Suraj Sharma in the lead contradicted the box office potential that a regular studio would want to strive for.
Life of Pi is an incredible feat for a variety of reasons, in part symbolized by its Best Cinematography win. Whereas traditional dramas had been winning the category in years prior, special effects driven movies would take this category for most of the upcoming years. To a large extent, the movie was Sharma in a boat interacting with CG characters, all added later with dazzling detail that somehow managed to be meditative in spite of its knowingly artificial birth. The film was gorgeous and reflected a balance between nature and self-discovery, again contradicted by its big budgeted approach. Beyond all this, it reflected Lee's versatility and his ability to try things that hadn't been done before.
While his following film, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, was a failure in exploring technology, Lee's Best Director win was a major achievement because it managed to convey a lot of cinematic potential. Part of it was just the nature of movies regarding animated animals (of which The Jungle Book would get too much credit for a few years later). However, its most impressive element was that Lee was making a knowingly spiritual movie that didn't shy from discussion of religions, multi-ethnic cultures, and a sense of faith that would guide Sharma's Pi on a journey to safety. The film is so good that it's easy to overlook obvious things like this despite the "religious movie" genre being full of pandering fodder. Movies like God's Not Dead, Heaven is For Real, and Soul Surfer paint faith in more limiting ways, yet somehow Life of Pi breaks away by being a film about ideas more than a religion, which is Lee's smartest move as a filmmaker.
The film is bold because there's a large chance that it wouldn't have worked. The budget was high and the untested use of special effects meant that things could've gone horribly wrong. Instead, Lee's direction paves the way for every scene to be flawlessly integrated with CG that not only emphasized geography and realism, but also created one of the few times 3D filming techniques were used in effective manners. Even if audiences didn't choose to see the film in 3D, scenes such as the flying fish scene had an approach that made it feel immersive, as if it was jumping off of the screen. Everything about the film feels supernatural in exciting ways that its use of faith feels secondary to the world it's established. Those with deeply rooted faiths will get plenty out of the story. Those who are more secular will get a fun adventure story otherwise.
When all is said and done, Lee is probably going to be judged as one of the most interesting mainstream directors of the 21st century. Whether it's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or something more recent like Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, he captures a diversity in genres that are, for an average filmmaker, a bit dangerous if one doesn't approach it with earnestness. His work will stand for itself, reflecting the potential of cinema when someone is allowed to explore every facet in a meaningful and honest way. Lee's two Best Director wins are for two of his most successful achievements in this manner, and one can only hope that he has a couple more nominations left in his bag somewhere in the near future.
Life of Pi is an incredible feat for a variety of reasons, in part symbolized by its Best Cinematography win. Whereas traditional dramas had been winning the category in years prior, special effects driven movies would take this category for most of the upcoming years. To a large extent, the movie was Sharma in a boat interacting with CG characters, all added later with dazzling detail that somehow managed to be meditative in spite of its knowingly artificial birth. The film was gorgeous and reflected a balance between nature and self-discovery, again contradicted by its big budgeted approach. Beyond all this, it reflected Lee's versatility and his ability to try things that hadn't been done before.
While his following film, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, was a failure in exploring technology, Lee's Best Director win was a major achievement because it managed to convey a lot of cinematic potential. Part of it was just the nature of movies regarding animated animals (of which The Jungle Book would get too much credit for a few years later). However, its most impressive element was that Lee was making a knowingly spiritual movie that didn't shy from discussion of religions, multi-ethnic cultures, and a sense of faith that would guide Sharma's Pi on a journey to safety. The film is so good that it's easy to overlook obvious things like this despite the "religious movie" genre being full of pandering fodder. Movies like God's Not Dead, Heaven is For Real, and Soul Surfer paint faith in more limiting ways, yet somehow Life of Pi breaks away by being a film about ideas more than a religion, which is Lee's smartest move as a filmmaker.
The film is bold because there's a large chance that it wouldn't have worked. The budget was high and the untested use of special effects meant that things could've gone horribly wrong. Instead, Lee's direction paves the way for every scene to be flawlessly integrated with CG that not only emphasized geography and realism, but also created one of the few times 3D filming techniques were used in effective manners. Even if audiences didn't choose to see the film in 3D, scenes such as the flying fish scene had an approach that made it feel immersive, as if it was jumping off of the screen. Everything about the film feels supernatural in exciting ways that its use of faith feels secondary to the world it's established. Those with deeply rooted faiths will get plenty out of the story. Those who are more secular will get a fun adventure story otherwise.
When all is said and done, Lee is probably going to be judged as one of the most interesting mainstream directors of the 21st century. Whether it's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or something more recent like Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, he captures a diversity in genres that are, for an average filmmaker, a bit dangerous if one doesn't approach it with earnestness. His work will stand for itself, reflecting the potential of cinema when someone is allowed to explore every facet in a meaningful and honest way. Lee's two Best Director wins are for two of his most successful achievements in this manner, and one can only hope that he has a couple more nominations left in his bag somewhere in the near future.
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