Cardiff provides expert commentary for Bruce Lee documentary
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
I am Bruce Lee Director Pete McCormack and Dr Paul Bowman in New York
Dr Paul Bowman has returned from New York after providing expert commentary for a new theatrical documentary called I am Bruce Lee.
The documentary will explore the life of Bruce Lee, an artist universally recognized as the pioneer who elevated martial arts in film to an art form. It will be made by Network, a production company based in Vancouver Canada, with large portions of the interviews to be held in New York.
Having been flown to New York over the summer, Dr Bowman was interviewed for 3 hours by the feature’s director Pete McCormack, on a day when Mickey Rourke and Uma Thurman were also interviewed.
Dr Bowman said: “I’m always ready to talk about Bruce Lee and his influence on our culture, so when Pete called I was only too happy to help.
“For me, Bruce Lee became a major ‘event’ in both global film and global popular culture, a figure who played a central role in many intercultural, postcolonial, decolonising and postmodern encounters.
“Lee’s story shows him to be a complex and diversely consequential, multimedia, multidisciplinary and multicultural character with enduring transnational legacies in multiple realms.
“Now I just have to wait for the film to be released!”
Dr Bowman was chosen to appear in I am Bruce Lee having studied Bruce Lee’s life and the culture of the east for the last 20 years. His research over that period has resulted in conference papers, keynote lectures and book chapters as well as the 2010 book Theorizing Bruce Lee: Film–Fantasy–Fighting–Philosophy which explored the cinematic and cultural significance and consequences of ‘Bruce Lee’ and his various legacies.
While also teaching the BA lectures Popular Culture and The East in the West Paul is due to publish a new book titled Beyond Bruce Lee: Chasing the Dragon through Film, Philosophy and Popular Culture in 2012.
I am Bruce Lee’s cinematic release is scheduled to be December this year and will be distributed by FreemantleMedia. A TV Special is planned to be broadcast by Spike TV.