Q:Brokeback Mountain combines two themes that you have dealt with in earlier films – same sex relationships in The Wedding Banquet and the West in Ride with the Devil. What made you want to revisit them in Brokeback Mountain?
Ang Lee: Well, Annie Proulx’s writing…it’s a great story. Purely, I was moved by it. I was introduced to the material by James Schamus, and he said to take a look. I got choked up when I read the short story, and I then I read the script; it sounded
reasonable. Of course, the realistic western was still not quite familiar to me. The idea of the illusion of
love that is Brokeback Mountain was very evoking for me, it felt existential. When the emotion lands, when they take off their shirts. So to me, it’s a great story, a great piece of American West writing. And it haunted me. I went ahead and did The Hulk and didn’t even do ( Brokeback Mountain ), and it just stuck with me and refused to leave.