Ang Lee Talks ‘Life of Pi’ Blu-Rayby Max Evry
March 11, 2013
After earning $600,000-million at the worldwide box office, massive acclaim, and a Best Director trophy at this year’s Academy Awards, “Life of Pi” is coming to Blu-ray/DVD this week, and its honored director Ang Lee (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Brokeback Mountain”) came to New York for a special event in SoHo to speak on behalf of the film. He showed clips from the Blu-ray’s many special features, including deleted scenes, and discussed his long history with the project.
“About 10 or 11 years ago I read the book when it first came out,” said Lee of Yann Martel’s bestseller. “Like everybody I thought it was unfilmmable, for obvious reasons: boy and a tiger on the ocean, small compound, big backdrop. Very little in the book is an actualized image. Secondly, it’s a philosophical book, and that’s even more difficult. It’s very hard to actualize philosophical essays so the emotion flows and storytelling, and then go to a theater to watch it.
“It’s very expensive, and technical challenges, but five-years ago when I was asked I was possessed,” lee continued. “After a year I thought of a framing device, then thought maybe I could do it with Pi telling it to a writer. We did 400 drafts over 3 and ½ years. It was tough work but worth it, not just for the Oscar but the whole journey.”
He then showed a time-lapse behind-the-scenes sequence showing the construction of the specially modified wave pool built in Taiwan for the production, along with clips of a pre-visualisation animation of the entire film that Lee spent a year preparing.
Next we were shown a visual effects process reel of the sequence at the beginning where Pi steps out onto the ship’s deck into the massive storm, only to realize the ship is doomed. The reel is brilliantly edited to show a seamless flow of the scene by fading in-and-out from raw blue screen footage to rough CG elements to the final polished image complete with rain effects, backgrounds, computer generated animals, all in beautiful 3-D.
They then presented a few cut scenes that nearly made it into the theatrical cut of “Life of Pi,” hence their near-completeness. One features Pi confronting the tiger Richard Parker, mirroring his movements. The other is a critical scene from the book where Pi hallucinates a back-and-forth conversation with the horrible, brutish Cook, played by Gérard Depardieu. Those who have seen the picture know that there’s a major revelation revolving around that character, which is why they got a world-class actor like Depardieu to play him.
At this juncture of the scene Pi and Richard Parker are in the throes of starvation and blindness, with Parker unable to see the fish Pi has thrown in front of his face.
Cook: Are you alone?
Pi: I’m dreaming of food.
Cook: Oh, I’m so hungry! If you could have any food you wanted right now, what would it be?
Pi: A banquet.
They then discuss their preferred foods in detail, until Pi realizes who the Cook is, and becomes violently angry at him. Lee insists this scene was deleted because it tipped the audience off too much to the big revelation at the end, as did the scene of Pi mirroring Richard Parker. He also wanted their to be a distinct contrast between the fantastical aspects of the film and the harsh realities of Pi’s ordeal at sea.
“It’s not a survival story,” said Lee. “You’re presenting a story which is a good story, and then a bad story at the end. If the first story is as heavy as this, then in the mainstream you really don’t see the contrast. I feel I’m obliged to make those scenes because they’re a crucial part of the book that push the boundaries of belief. But a book is a book, you can put it down, sleep, then come back to read it.”
“Life of Pi” hits Blu-ray/DVD shelves on Tuesday, March 12th
