Director Ang Lee is lastly pointing the finger.
Lee informed IndieWire in a latest interview that his Brokeback Mountain shedding the Academy Awards Best Picture to Crash in 2006 was due to discrimination towards a homosexual love story.
“Back then, [‘Brokeback Mountain’] had a ceiling. We got a lot of support — up to that much,” he stated. “It has that feeling. I wasn’t holding a grudge or anything. It’s just how they were,” Lee stated of the Academy on the time.
Brokeback Mountain did win three different Oscars that 12 months for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay for Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, and Best Original Score for Gustavo Santaolalla.
Ang remembered coming off the stage after accepting his Best Director award.
“I got my award, which was [second to] last to the big one, and I was walking off the stage, they called me down, and said, stay here. That’s your mark. Everybody assumes you will win, so stay at that mark,” Lee stated. “Right next to the stage was the curtain. The next was Best Picture. Stay here, just stay here. I saw Jack Nicholson, his profile, he opened the envelope, and I go, ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’ It took like 10 seconds before he announced, and then he went, ‘Crash.’”
Lee spoke with IndieWire forward of receiving an honorary award from New York University, his alma mater, at an April 8 Tisch School of the Arts gala in NYC. The filmmaker has received Best Director twice (for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi ), and his 2000 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon received 4 Academy Awards, together with Best International Feature.
He is sanguine in regards to the 2006 Oscars expertise with Brokeback Mountain.
“In my upbringing, art wasn’t an option. Making movies was crazy,” stated Lee. “We were outsiders in Taiwan, then outsiders in America, then go back to China, we’re outsiders. I always feel like an outsider. Repressed characters, I suppose, those stories attract me. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is just so beautiful. You’ve read the short story. I have nothing in common with Wyoming gay cowboys. But why did I cry? It’s haunting. It’s just a beautiful story.”