These Amazing Shadows Page #2

They tell us what we looked like,

what we wore, what we aspired to,

our dreams,

the lies we told to one another...

Because in those movies

are those little gestures

and those little images

and the styles and the...

ways of speaking to each other,

the way men spoke to women...

and women to women

and men to men and...

and the way they projected their

own dreams and desires...

into narratives and fantasies.

That is what the movies does,

and it does it better than

anything else.

American film really tells us

so much about this country.

When it starts with

storytelling about individuals,

underdogs,

immigrants,

people who don't have something.

I saw that film

when I was still in Hong Kong

when I was a teenager.

I think it gave me

a sense of America.

Life can be bright in America

if you can fight in America

Life is all right in America

if you're all white in America...

The lyrics to that song,

they're really quite sarcastic

about being an immigrant in America.

That movie was a huge influence on me

when I was a teenager.

I mean, I probably saw it

five or six times in a row.

I was also in love with Natalie Wood.

That helped.

You never really understand a person

until you consider things

from his point of view.

Sir?

Till you climb inside of his skin

and walk around in it.

Gregory Peck was kind of...

what I thought America was

in many kind of respects.

In this country,

our courts

are the great levelers.

In our courts...

All men are...

created equal.

That's the America that my father

respected most...

in that kind of man that Gregory Peck

was always meant to play.

We identified so strongly

with those kids somehow.

Oh, it's just, like, instant tears.

It still gets me, still makes me cry now.

He really portrayed

a father who was just...

so understanding and had such a close

relationship with his kids.

A lot of people...

would love to have a father like that.

I mean, who wouldn't?

I would love to have a father like that.

Many of the characteristics that my dad

portrayed in that film are really him.

Of all the films that he did,

it was a film

that was closest to his true character,

certainly the character he...

he would want to be.

It's a different form of honor than

getting an academy award.

It's a more cumulative

or retrospective kind of honor.

It's saying your film

has stood the test of time.

There's never been a day so sunny

it could not happen twice...

The Academy Awards preserve...

the consensus within

the industry at the time.

Sometimes history proves them right,

but very often,

history proves them wrong.

Most lists exist nowadays

for pop culture reasons.

It's an excuse for a TV special.

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