Magnificent Obsessions at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image champions craftsmanship in film, an obsessive attention to detail across significant sound design, wardrobe and props. In partnership with Persol, the sunglasses synonymous with screen personalities such as Steve McQueen and Francis Ford Coppola, the exhibition runs until November. Over the next few days, we’re focusing on highlights from the show…

POETRY AND MOTION

“Ang [Lee] said to me he wanted to do Sense and Sensibility with martial arts; I was sold right away,” says Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actress Michelle Yeoh.

The film began with the “need to do a martial arts film,” director Ang Lee recalls, which he traces back to his childhood in Taiwan. His interest was less in action than fantasy storytelling; power, personal transcendence and romance.

“As I grew a little older, the Hong Kong choreographers took over the genre and made fantastic fight sequences. So that film language really fascinated me as a young film student… it fascinated me in both ways.”

The idea of a film combining the dynamism of action (Wuxiapian) and the grand narratives of his youth lived with Lee for a long time before he felt able to undertake such a demanding project. He would reference travel, something not associated with the martial arts genre, as well as eastern art – the scenery had to reflect the internal picture of the characters. “It felt as if it took six movies for me to even begin to earn the right to make this kind of movie.”

Writer/executive producer James Schamus and Lee called on the expertise of choreographer Yuen Wo Ping for the film’s spectacular movement, known for his pioneering use of wires that allow balletic movements. “I am more into the softer styles, rather than the hard, fast cut-cut-cut of a lot of movies, so I use the wire to bring that out,” Ping explains. “The actors have to wear a heavy canvas corset attached by metal cables to a wire which hoists then 75ft in the air. These are worked by a team of ‘puppeteers’ working in tandem with the opposing actor’s team to avoid mid-air collisions.”

“When you are on wire [then] off wires, your body and mind get a little out of sync,” Yeoh describes of the actor’s experience. “One minute you take a leap and you’re 30ft in the air, the next minute you leap and you’re one foot off the ground and you’re thinking ‘what happened there?'”

The only special effects used are when the wires are erased in post-production. The grace is real.

Images courtesy of Columbia pictures

Click here for our interview with Magnificent Obsessions curator Michael Connor and exhibition highlights: Creative Forgery, Capturing the Supersonic and Costume Without Limits