Behind every great man there's a...
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-10 09:53

If you love your husband, leave him alone. And if you think you are attractive, don't say it.

Director Ang Lee (R) hugs his wife Jane Lin after winning the Oscar for best director for "Brokeback Mountain" at the 78th annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, California March 5, 2006.  [Reuters]

This is what Jane Lin did for her husband Ang Lee, who last week became the first Asian to have won the best director Oscar award for his love movie "Brokeback Mountain."

Ang Lee was jobless upon graduation with a master's degree in film production from New York University in 1984. He had to stay at home as a house husband until 1990.

Jane did not for once think of leaving him, as would many modern girls who are eager to flirt with rich directors and abandon them once they're down on their luck.

Although despair engulfed her now and then, Jane trusted Ang and believed he was cut out to be a genius director - only his time had not yet come.

For six years, Ang was supported financially by Jane, who earned a meager salary as a microbiologist in the United States.

At one time, Ang wanted to learn computer science so as to find a job quickly, but Jane disagreed. She simply would not let her poor but genius husband go out and find just any old job.

In those six years, Ang wrote many screenplays and at the same time became a great cook.

Ang has said time and again that he would never have succeeded without Jane's love and trust.

But in an Associated Press story released on Wednesday, Jane said humorously: "I did not support him, I just left him alone."

The Associated Press quoted Taiwanese producer Huang Yi-kung, who produced Ang's famed Chinese-language movies - "The Wedding Banquet" in 1993 and "Eat Drink Man Woman" in 1994 - as saying that Ang's thanks to Jane and memories of past hardships were never superficial.

According to the Associate Press, Huang Yi-kung recalled that Ang once excused himself from a banquet of shark-fin soup and other delicacies in Taiwan and returned only after wiping away his tears, explaining that the big feast reminded him of the meager food once served at his family's table.

Jane loved and trusted Ang but never worshiped him the way a young girl worships an idol.

A Xinhua news agency story says that she is so independent that she gave birth to their first son without even notifying Ang Lee.

True feelings

When Ang called her from Berlin in 1993 to tell her that he had won the Golden Bear Award for his film "The Wedding Banquet," Jane was annoyed because she had been wakened by him over something she deemed trivial.

Love him but don't spoil him, and you are a great wife.

Jane is lucky, of course, because Ang Lee has finally made it.

But she would still be as great a wife even if he had not got that Oscar award.

At the minimum, she has an honest, loving and enterprising husband.

If you watch his films, you will see profound love issuing from his heart.

The success of "Brokeback Mountain," I would say, is not just because of the sensitivity of a gay cowboy romance.

It's fundamentally about the true passions of human beings.

Ang is a good man, so he has become a good artist. He never flirts with women, nor does he brag about his films shamelessly like many other Chinese directors do.

The more I admire Ang Lee the man and the artist, the more I appreciate Jane who has silently and patiently carved Ang as such.

When love becomes a matter to show off, it's no longer true love. Actress Chen Hong is notorious for boasting that she is more attractive to her husband, director Chen Kaige, than one of his former girlfriends.

She was eager to deride that former girlfriend as "an old woman."

I would not blame Chen Kaige's failure to get an Oscar award last week directly on his wife's vanity and poor character.

Chen Kaige has only himself to blame for his lack of Oscar. His candidate film "The Promise" has an abysmal love plot.

One thing is for sure - Chen Hong will never be a role model for true love.

True love does not need many words, nor does it need to be compared with others.