Ang Lee: 'We make movies together, we celebrate together. What a life!'

Back in January 2006, Ang Lee's peers in the Directors Guild selected Brokeback Mountain as its film of 2005. And, graciously, Ang said of his competitors: 'We're winners because we're blessed. We're filmmakers. We make movies together, we celebrate together. What a life!' Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were on hand to see Ang collect his award and now, with great thanks to Xenia for her detective work, here is the video of the three men posing for the cameras.





A month before, in an interview with the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Jake said: '"I've learned to expect very little from directors," says Gyllenhaal, leaning his lanky frame into an uncomfortable chair and asking if it's OK to light up the last cigarette in a banged-up pack of American Spirits. "What I say now is, `Trust yourself,' because you can't count on your relationship with a director. Ang was great, though, because he would set up situations and then let me and Heath decide what to do within the space Ang created. He put the camera wherever he wanted, but then he gave us a lot of power to create something, so we didn't leave with any regrets."'



And when filming began on Brokeback, away from the cameras, hockey fanatic Ang made sure he dragged Jake along: 'Gyllenhaal has spent most of the month in Calgary so he was caught up in Flames fever. “I’ve been to two games in the Saddledome. “I saw Calgary lose, but I also saw them win in overtime. I never believed I could get so excited over a hockey game.” Gyllenhaal says he owes his new-found fanaticism to Lee. “Ang was the one who persuaded me to go to my first game. I was actually opposed to the idea, but now I’m hooked. Maybe not as hooked as Ang, but hooked nonetheless.”'


In this interview, one of my Brokeback favourites, Jake and Heath discuss what it was like to work with Ang (both the rewards and the challenges) and how the two of them, with Ang, infused the film with chemistry. Jake described the relationship in this way: 'There was a scene where I was herding 500 sheep on my own, it's not in the movie, down this hill at sunset with, like, a horse. I felt so proud of myself, one, that I was actually riding a horse, two, that I was herding 500 sheep. And there were four or five cameras picking it up, and I remember coming down the very end and Ang - I was so excited, and Ang said, "Kind of sexy." That was what he said to me. And I said, "Let's do it again!" He was like, "Let's move on." So my performance, really, I'd describe as 'kind of sexy,' just kind of. And then the next scene we moved onto, I was eager to please. And I think he likes to keep that type of relationship with his actors.'



Jake sums up: 'When you know you have someone who's made movies that deal with pretty, I think, challenging themes, and has tackled them with a kind of universality and a compassion that Ang has, I think that you throw yourself into the arms of that person, and you trust them, and you feel safe, and you gotta just go for it.'


Elsewhere, Jake discussed the cleansing function of Ang's movies: 'If I learned anything it was working with Ang Lee's there's a real benevolence in everything he does. I remember when I saw Sense and Sensibility, my Mom always says that I walked out saying, 'I feel so clean'. I think you walk out of this film feeling devastated in a lot of ways but also feeling a real sense of benevolence, and I think the process of making the film produced that too. I mean, yes, he manipulated us. Yes, in a way he very gently abused us, but I walked out of this experience going there's a real benevolence to this. Like if Heath and I could do this, then it should be okay for the real people who are really doing this to do it.'

And as for the actors, so for the audience.


Includes pictures from IHJ.