Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky, David Cronenberg. Those are just some of the names that have come to the Provincetown International Film Festival over the last 17 years to be honored as a Filmmaker on the Edge.

Now comes Ang Lee. Yes, Ang Lee.

The Oscar-winning director of “Life of Pi’’ and “Brokeback Mountain,’’ who uses words like “docile’’ and “reserved’’ to describe himself, is about to join a select group known for being anything but docile and reserved. The very first Filmmaker on the Edge honoree in 1999 was John Waters, who outwardly has about as much in common with Lee as absinthe and apple sauce.

But Lee, 61, isn’t shy when it comes to his craft. He considers himself an outsider, having long ago moved from his native Taiwan to the United States, where his directing career took off in the 1990s with the so-called “Father Knows Best’’ trilogy. Those films — “Pushing Hands,’’ “The Wedding Banquet,’’ the exquisite “Eat Drink Man Woman’’ — broke new ground in their layered exploration of Asian family dynamics, repression, sexuality, and the importance of mad wok skills.

Lee then impressed with a seemingly incongruous adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility’’ that won a best screenplay Oscar for Emma Thompson in 1996. He ventured even further out with a meditation on dysfunctional suburbia, “The Ice Storm’’ (1997), and a grim Civil War drama, “Ride With the Devil’’ (1999), before kicking off the 21st century with a little wire-fu smash called “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.’’ He endeavored to make a thoughtful superhero movie (2003’s “Hulk’’), a Chinese spy thriller laced with kinky sex (2007’s “Lust, Caution’’), and a music movie without much music (2009’s “Taking Woodstock’’) — none of which thrilled American audiences but all of which confirmed his commitment to taking creative risks.

That courage probably paid off most profoundly in 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain,’’ when Lee showed that a straight man from southern Taiwan had as much business making a movie about gay ranch hands in Wyoming as anyone. In 2012, “Pi’’ shocked awards prognosticators who weren’t betting on its director, but Lee himself was more surprised by the technical frustrations he encountered during the movie’s production.

Deficiencies in the visual presentation of “Pi’’ (he noticed its shortcomings, even if you didn’t) propelled him to seek higher resolution for his next film, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,’’ due out this fall. Adapted from Ben Fountain’s novel about an Iraq war hero brought home for a victory lap, the film will showcase unrivaled clarity (3-D, 4K, 120 frames per second) that has reportedly dazzled some early audiences.

Lee is so in love with the groundbreaking technology that he plans to employ it in another film he has in the works, the well-timed “Thrilla in Manila,’’ a dramatization of Muhammad Ali’s epic 1975 slugfest with archrival Joe Frazier. Speaking by phone from New York, where he lives with his wife of more than three decades, Lee pondered his career, his continued quest to innovate, and his first visit to Provincetown, where he’ll be interviewed by Waters himself on June 18.

Q. Looking back on your career, do you see an arc or a theme to the choices you’ve made?

A. In making films, usually whatever inspires me the most, I’ll jump into it. Because the way I make movies is I become the movie I’m making. So when I choose a movie I’m choosing a way of life for the next two, three, four years sometimes. . . . Looking back, I think they all have something in common — there’s a through line, which is me, my life. There’s always some subject matter that I care about most, but it changes. Or it’s the same thing and I find a different way to say it.

Q. You started off making small-scale family dramas. Now you’re making big-budget Hollywood fare.

A. In real life I’m still a very docile person — a very timid, kind of shy person; I was afraid to offend anybody. But I kept going to places that were kind of scary, pushing boundaries. And then, starting from “Pi,’’ I sort of realized that’s what I’m good at, versus what I’d like to be. I started examining man’s connection with the unknown. If you want me to narrow it down to something simple, I always want to believe in something but the world keeps changing on me. I guess I just keep finding different material to challenge my beliefs.

Q. In a Guardian interview around the time of “Life of Pi,’’ you compared yourself to your homeland of Taiwan — an island, adrift and floating, with no recognized identity. Do you still feel that way?

A. Yeah. That floating feeling actually keeps growing as I grow older. Maybe I’m growing to be more sophisticated looking at the world, because I know how it functions these days so I feel even more [detached from it].

Q. There is a very common Taiwanese story that includes your family – it’s the history of people leaving the Chinese mainland either during or directly after the civil war and resettling in Taiwan. I wonder if you’ve thought about making that story on film?

A. It’s a very good question and you’re not the only person who has asked me — not even asked, demanded. Some say you have to do it and you should do it, like I’m avoiding it. That’s their right. It’s a demand I face a lot, particularly by Taiwanese people. But I consider that every movie I make is that kind of movie — “Pi,’’ even this new movie — so I don’t know if I have to make a literal Taiwan movie because Taiwan doesn’t look the same [as when I lived there]. When you have a distance, when you have unfamiliar material, it’s easier to make art, make it pure, make it more abstract and close to your heart.

Q. You’ve weighed in on Hollywood diversity and the controversy over Oscar jokes about Asians. Did you feel a responsibility to speak up?

A. It’s just something I could not avoid. I didn’t even watch the show, but there was a big uproar in the community and I felt obligated to do it. Usually I don’t like to be political; I just want to do my movies. But this was an easy one.

Q. Do you believe that Hollywood has a diversity problem? Because it’s not just what happened at the Oscars — there are complaints about the slighting of Asian actors in casting and the lack of Asian superheroes. . .

A. That’s very true. This is what I say to the Asian younger generation: You’ve got to create material. We need more writers. You’ve got to create not just material to portray your own life, you have to think about giving — how can you inspire people? That creative part is more important than crying out loud.

Q. The award you’re picking up in Provincetown has previously been won by people like Cronenberg, Tarantino, Jarmusch, Van Sant. . . . When you hear Filmmaker on the Edge, what does it mean to you?

A. The people you mentioned have a very distinguished style, they’re really auteur filmmakers. I’m not quite that way. I’m hard to pin down, but I have my thing. I started out trying to make a mainstream movie for Taiwanese audiences. I was living in New York, so that certainly influenced me, but my point of view of the world was built in Taiwan. That East meets West [sensibility] put me on the edge, whether I like it or not. That’s who I am.

Q. Well, making a movie about a gay Asian man in New York [“The Wedding Banquet’’] wasn’t exactly mainstream in 1993. And neither was casting Liev Schreiber as a transvestite ex-Marine in “Taking Woodstock,’’ or Jewel as a Civil War widow in “Ride With the Devil.’’

A. [Laughs.] I think it’s because I’m an outsider anywhere, so I bring freshness. I sort of avoid cultural habits. Sometimes I had to suffer because of that, and sometimes I really took advantage of it. Like gay cowboys [in “Brokeback Mountain’’] — it took a woman writer and a foreign filmmaker to make that movie. It’s like when you’re in space you can see that the Earth is round. Being an outsider provides clarity and an easier chance to cut through textures and subtext. In that way I think I’m quicker than someone who is inside the culture.

Q. “Billy Lin’’ is certainly groundbreaking. . .

A. [Laughs.] I think they really do know what they are doing in giving me this award! This film is really pushing boundaries. When I see it I actually realize we never see a movie clearly. When you see clearly your eyes can still dream. You can invest your emotion. Literally you feel like you are in the movie.

Q. Is this the most important thing that filmmakers are dealing with right now — catching up with technology?

A. We’re digital whether you like it or not, but we’re still imitating film. I don’t think that makes sense. Film’s great; it’s a sophisticated form of art. But now we’re in a digital world; we need new standards. I think what I am doing here [with “Billy Lin’’] is the new standard. But we haven’t scratched the surface yet; we haven’t even started.

Q. You already plan to continue the exploration in your next movie, “Thrilla in Manila.’’ But are the theaters ready to receive this kind of technology?

A. No. I want to push them, little by little. So I’ll shoot it that way and theaters have the choice. Even if you downgrade it, you still see a version of it.

Q. It does seem like they pegged you right in P-town as a Filmmaker on the Edge.

A. They just seduced me. They said, “We’ve got great beaches. You can have friends here. You can have lovers here. We’re going to give you a tour. We’re really relaxed people. We’re not like all the other film festivals.’’

Q. That’s true, they’re very relaxed. And moviemaking takes a lot out of you, doesn’t it?

A. It takes a lot. But some of us live for that. After “Crouching Tiger’’ I thought I wanted to retire. I had had enough. But then I’m still here making, groundbreaking, whatever. On the edge. [Laughs.]

Interview was edited and condensed. Janice Page can be reached at jpage@globe.com.