Ang Lee
Monday 17 December 2007 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Matthew Sweet talks to Ang Lee - director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain - about his new film. Lust, Caution is set in Shanghai under the Japanese occupation during the Second World War.
Plus the first in a week of reflections on the artistic and intellectual legacy of cultural icons who died in 2007, focusing on Ingmar Bergman.
Playlist
Ang Lee
Matthew Sweet will be talking to the director Ang Lee about his new film 'Lust, Caution' which tells the story of a group of students who form a small resistance unit in Japanese occupied Shanghai during the Second World War. Based on a short story by acclaimed Chinese author Eileen Chang it explores the extreme personal lengths that the students go to achieve their goal.
Matthew talks to film critic Ian Christie and Chinese literature specialist Chloe Starr about this film.
Lust, Caution, Certificate 18 is released on 8 January
Fanny Burney
Fanny Burney was the most successful woman writer of her day with novels like 'Evelina' and 'Cecilia'. Her diaries, first published soon after her death in 1840, chronicle her life as the friend of Dr Johnson, David Garrick and Sheridan and lady in waiting to George III, and have never been out of print. Now, the first production of one of her plays, 'The Woman Hater', is about to open at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London and Matthew is joined by the director, Sam Walters and Fanny Burney's biographer, Claire Harman.
The Woman Hater is playing at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond from 19 December to 2 February
Legacy: Ingmar Bergman
Night Waves takes a look at the lasting legacies of some of the major cultural figures who have died this year. night a discussion of the Swedish film maker Ingmar Bergman's influence around the world and the extent to which a new generation of Swedish film makers still maintain a connection with him.
E O Wilson
Matthew talks to EO Wilson - the Pulitzer prize winning entomologist - who tells us that paradise on Earth is possible. He joins the programme to talk about his book The Creation.
The Creation is published by Norton Books
