Ang Lee Loves Calgary Area

Louis B. Hobson with The Calgary Sun talked to Director Ang Lee about his experience shooting Brokeback Mountain in the Calgary area last year.

Lee was recently at the Toronto Film Festival with stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal to promote the film. Brokeback Mountain has already received the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for Best Picture, which is sure to be the first of many accolades.

“I had the best time of my life in Calgary. I have never been so happy in my career as when I was shooting in Calgary,” said Lee, pointing out he “has filmed nine movies all over the world and, without question, my Calgary crew was the best I’ve worked with.”

It was not Lee’s idea to shoot Brokeback in Alberta.

“I have always insisted on shooting my films where they are set and Brokeback Mountain is set in Wyoming and Texas so that’s where I wanted to shoot.”

It was Lee’s producer Jim Shamus and the film’s screenwriter Diana Ossana who asked Lee to look at Alberta.

Ossana, who writes with Larry McMurtry, had seen their Johnson County Wars filmed in Alberta.

“They told me I couldn’t find landscapes anywhere in the world better than Alberta offers, so I went to check it out for myself.”

It was love at first sight.

“Not only were the landscapes in Alberta more grand than I’d imagined but there were all these little western towns that looked straight out of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.”

The best was yet to come.

“People at the Alberta Film Commission went out of their way to accommodate us."

“We got tax breaks. They worked to get us every location we asked for and they gave us access to their best film crews even though ours was a small budget film.”

After working with the local film crew, Lee says “these were the best people for the movie I was making."

“They know everything about the western down to the smallest detail and they were eager to share their knowledge with me. They treated me like one of their own.”

Check out this link for the rest of Lee's comments on the film's story.

Photo from Calgary Sun article.