Friday, March 08, 2013

Jeff Lin posts a very thoughtful essay on the six years in Ang Lee's life where he was an unemployed film school graduate working on scripts and hoping someone would let him direct one. 

From age 30 to 36, he’s living in an apartment in White Plains, NY trying to get something — anything — going, while his wife Jane supports the family of four (they also had two young children) on her modest salary as a microbiologist. He spends every day at home, working on scripts, raising the kids, doing the cooking. That’s a six-year span — six years! — filled with dashed hopes and disappointments. ... 

Put yourself in his shoes. Imagine starting something now, this year, that you felt you were pretty good at, having won some student awards, devoting yourself to it full time…and then getting rejected over and over until 2019.

Check it out.

2:03 PM

3 Comments:

Put myself in his shoes? I'll frakking takes his shoes and run off in them.

While I'm sure this was intended as a keep-your-head-down-working-and-success-will-come story, it comes off as an observation by someone whose success has been not so elusive as it is for so many more.

Six years...? That's nothing.

"Imagine starting something now..."

I don't have to. And neither do the majority of the people I know in LA, actors, writers and directors. A lot of us are never going to get there. Some for lack of talent sure, but not all.

By  m, at 7:09 PM  

Agree with above comment, yet without the hint of cynicism. I am not in the screenwriting industry yet many dreams are the same.
Kudos to the six years of anguish and torture before he made it. Sounds like an average Joe doing his best with great support around him.
Congratulations on making it and it is inspiring yet spare the dramatics a touch.

By  Unknown, at 10:17 PM  

It's inspiring to see someone accomplish so much later in life after they have paid their dues. So many people get too much too soon this day and age. www.bestcomedyshows.net

By  Ty, at 3:34 PM  

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