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What Do You Know of My Heart?: The Role of Sense and Sensibility in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- The University Press of Kentucky
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41 What do you KnoW of My heart? The Role of Sense and Sensibility in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Renée Köhler-Ryan and Sydney Palmer When it comes to emotions, even great heroes can be idiots. —Sir Te, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon A Spectrum of Possible Dynamics When Ang Lee asked Michelle Yeoh to play one of the lead roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), he described it to her as “Sense and Sensibility with martial arts.” However, this too glibly states the relationship between the two films. Comparisons and contrasts between them reveal that each complements the other, rendering a dynamic conceptual framework for Lee’s understanding of sense and of sensibility. Lee has a rich appreciation of human subjectivity, in which the person’s role within a society defined by codes and norms can, but need not completely, conflict with his or her emotionally defined relationships with others. In effect, for Lee, sense and sensibility form a spectrum that can either destroy or heal those involved, depending on whether they can, individually or with others, integrate the seeming restrictions of sense with the ostensible freedom of sensibility.1 Lee explores the spectrum formed by the possible dynamics between sense and sensibility through sisterhood—of blood in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and spirit in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon—and one finds that, for him, feminine discourse can enable or thwart genuine dialogue and also the very lives of those involved. In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor would give up 42 Renée Köhler-Ryan and Sydney Palmer her personal desire to be with the man she loves (the idea of marrying and being happy with him is to her “bewitching” but unattainable without asking him to act dishonorably, by breaking off an engagement with someone he clearly no longer loves), whereas Marianne would, and very nearly does, sacrifice her physical existence for the idea of love (having declared early to her mother, “To die for love? What could be more glorious?!”). Marianne and Elinor together only really start moving toward a balance when all else seems shattered and utterly unfulfilled in their lives. Allowing themselves to be vulnerable and humble enables a reversal of their—and their family ’s—lives in the worlds of sense and sensibility. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, we see Lee’s view of what happens when sense and sensibility are unable to reach one another in time. Shu Lien and Jen end in a personal and emotional defeat that literally destroys Li Mu Bai, who only too late admits that he has lived sense and sensibility as two separate spheres—as if they could never be united. We begin by defining the words sense and sensibility to see how Lee’s philosophy as a director renders them as elements of a balanced whole. Along with these definitions, we will outline some of the most pertinent points of Confucian philosophy, of British romanticism, and of Daoism. The main body of this chapter will then illustrate this equilibrium, or lack thereof, between sense and sensibility, in the visual and symbolic language between the sisters in each film. Lee provides a way for the viewer to engage the range of possible interactions between sense and sensibility through imagery. In Sense and Sensibility, sense is associated with the door frames in which we so often see Elinor, and sensibility with Marianne’s open windows, musical instruments, and outdoor settings. Lee uses these images through both their presence and absence at key moments, creating a space for something more in each of the characters. There is no simple correlate in imagery in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Instead, associative fields symbolize each character and what she represents. Lee explores Jen’s overriding sensibility in terms of ancient Chinese customs of hair, ornaments, and a hair-combing ritual, all of which pertain to marriage rituals. Reading these codes, we find that Jen is effectively married to the Green Destiny, committed to all that she feels it represents. Jen’s abduction of the deadly weapon points to her inner drive to break into the world of Giang Hu by stealth and force. Shu Lien, on the other hand, is in a world of sense that is wary of the romantic associations of the Green Destiny, as well as of its well-known destructive power. Shu Lien’s unobtrusive way of intersecting with Jen’s code of hair [44.193.29.184] Project...