Acclaimed filmmaker Ang Lee will be a Montgomery fellow in residence Oct. 19-23 as part of the endowment's year-long popular culture guest lecturer series "Making Music, Making Movies."
Lee is the director of many award-winning films including "Sense and Sensibility," "Ride with the Devil," "The Ice Storm," "Eat Drink Man Woman" and "The Wedding Banquet."
During his four-day visit, Lee will attend film studies and government classes, meet with Asian and Asian-American students and be the guest of honor at the Dartmouth Film Society tribute.
The tribute will include a screening of Lee's latest film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," a compilation of film clips spanning his career and the award presentation.
"We are fortunate to have the opportunity to have such an interesting person on campus," Barbara Gerstner, the assistant provost of the College and executive director of the Montgomery Endowment, said.
"Lee's new film has created quite a stir at the Telluride and Cannes film festivals," she said. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" features Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeow in a martial arts fable set during the Ching Dynasty and has garnered critical acclaim.
Born in Taiwan in 1954, Lee moved to the U.S. in 1978. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater from the University of Illinois and his Master of Fine Arts in film production from New York University.
Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" -- an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel starring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet -- was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation.
The film won Golden Globes for Best Screenplay and Best Film and also received awards from the Berlin Film Festival, New York Film Critics, the Boston Film Critics and the National Board of Review.
"The Ice Storm," starring Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver and Joan Allen, won the award for Best Screenplay Adaptation at in the 50th International Film Festival in Cannes in 1997.
"The Wedding Banquet," a film which explored generational differences through the adventures of a gay New Yorker who stages a marriage of convenience to please his visiting Taiwanese parents, won the top award, The Golden Bear, at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival.
"Eat Drink Man Woman," a sequel to "The Wedding Banquet," was voted Best Foreign Language Film by The National Board of Review. The film is being shown tonight in Brewster International House.
The screening, sponsored by the International Students Association and the Film Society, is part of a four-week movie series featuring works by Lee.
Established in 1977 by the late Chicago attorney Kenneth F. Montgomery '25 and his wife, Harle, the Montgomery Endowment aims to "provide for the advancement of the academic realm of the college ... making possible new dimensions for, as well as extraordinary enrichments to, the educational experience."
Past Montgomery Fellows in the popular culture series include singer and songwriter Sheryl Crow, internationally renowned composer Steve Reich, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez of the Buena Vista Social Club band and the Afro-Cuban All Stars and video art pioneer Beryl Korot.
