David on Formosa

The Taipei Times today features not just one, but three articles about Ang Lee (李安). Bradley Winterton reviews The Cinema of Ang Lee, a new book by Whitney Crothers Dilley. Winterton calls the book "superb" and goes on to say,

This new book's essential characteristics are clarity, perceptiveness, sympathy and thoroughness. This is no coterie text for cineasts or crabbed work for academics. Instead, it's eminently clear-headed and lucid, covering all his films in detail, but also containing a perceptive and even profound overview of the inner nature of Lee's achievement.

Ron Brownlow profiles of the author of the book. Whitney Dilley is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Shih Hsin University (世新大學) and she also studied Mandarin in Taiwan for three years. Apart from her Taiwan credentials, she has another very interesting connection with Ang Lee. She grew up in the town in Connecticut where Ang Lee's film The Ice Storm was set. 

There is also an interview with Ang Lee conducted by Geoffrey MacNab of The Guardian. It focuses on the making of Lust, Caution and has some interesting comments about the different way Chinese and Western audiences might perceive and understand the film. 

*purchase The Cinema of Ang Lee from Amazon.com.