We went to a screening of Brokeback Mountain on Sunday, followed by a Q&A with Ang Lee.
Here’s a brief summary of the Q&A, with the caveat that it is repeated from memory, and all quotes are rough paraphrases…
The moderator started off by asking Lee if he minded that the film seems to be commonly described as a “gay western,” since that’s not entirely accurate. Lee didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed pleased that the film has been widely discussed, and he quoted an entry from a David Letterman Top 10 list of Things To Call A Gay Western: “The Magnificent Seven Inches.”
The moderator mentioned that he had done a similar Q&A with Jake Gyllenhaal, who said that Lee had spent a huge amount of time working with the actors before shooting, but that once the shooting started, nothing. “It was like you’ve been having great sex, and then you get married, and the sex suddenly stops.” Lee thought that was pretty funny. He said that he is “a control freak” during production, and he has too much to focus on in order to pay much attention to the cast at that point in the process. He does like to have a rehearsal process, although “Unlike in rehearsing for theater, you don’t actually want to bring out the best performances during rehearsal; you want to leave something for filming, so that the performances will be fresh.” To that end, Lee likes doing exercises with the actors, and discussing their characters with them, but tries not to over-rehearse the actual scenes.
A question from the audience asked why so many of Lee’s films deal with repressed emotions. “When I made Pride & Prejudice, a lot of people wanted to know how this foreign guy expected to make a film about English culture. Well, for a Chinese director, repressed English people aren’t much of a stretch.”
In response to another audience question, Lee said he had no idea how well this film about gay cowboys would play in small town America. “The meeting with the marketing people was a bit of a reversal. They were very excited about the film and wanted to show it everywhere. I was nervous and asked if we could maybe just release it in the blue states.”
I’m not sure the primarily British audience at the screening knew what a “blue state” was, but it was an interesting session.