MSZ: One very distinctive quality about your film work is that it’s enormously tactile, textural, lyrical. There’s a sense that every moment, every image, is handmade, as if you’re sculpting every shot. Viewers can revisit your films over and over again.
GDT: Well, if they want to. I do put a lot in the audiovisual coding of a movie. Some is rational, but then another 50 percent is instinctive—the way you arrange things. I think a director is an arranger. Alien is the perfect example. It’s an absolutely mind-boggling feat of filmmaking. People can say, “Oh, well, it’s Giger.” No, it’s not Giger because Giger was a painter before Ridley Scott called him up to sculpt and design.
And lest we forget, Scott grouped him with Moebius [Jean Giraud], Ron Cobb, Chris Foss, and Roger Christian. Each of those men brought a syntax, but Scott created the context. I think that’s what directing is—saying, “I’m going to use this photographer, and I’m going to use this musician.” It’s a fantastic feat. Directing is the orchestration and the arrangement of images and sounds and also of people and talents.
Del Toro on the set of Hellboy II with Hellboy’s gun, The Good Samaritan.
MSZ: When you see films that come out well, behind them is a process in which ideas have become better and better, whereas with bad films it’s the exact opposite—they just get worse and worse, progressively.
GDT: Well, but you never know. You never know. You have no idea. If we knew what our destiny is, we would be great. Everybody would be great. What I do think is that there is a myth—the myth of the director as this inflexible creature that has it all figured out from the get-go, as if they are a mechanical master who arranges everything perfectly.
Some people can point to Stanley Kubrick, and I’ll tell you this: The more I read about him and the more I talk to people who worked with him, it’s only mostly true. He had 80 percent of it figured out. But the 20 percent that he didn’t have figured out, he found—through the same process that every director uses, which is finding perfection in compromise. Because you compromise with the weather, you compromise with the schedule, you compromise with the budget, you compromise with the fact that an actor is sick. You’re figuring it out. You are reorganizing. You don’t necessarily say, “I cannot take this out because the movie will be compromised.” At some point you might have to, but not always.
I remember very clearly an anecdote about Kirk Douglas having an accident during one of Kubrick’s movies. I think it was Paths of Glory, but it could have been Spartacus. The anecdote I read was that he was out of commission for over a week, and he got a letter from Kubrick, or a phone call, and Kubrick said, “Could you claim that you’re still not able to work so I can get a few more days? Because I’m just figuring the movie out.” Or take James Cameron, who is arguably one of the most precise filmmakers in the world and the smartest, most disciplined artist I have ever met. The myth is that he is an inhumanly precise filmmaking machine. But the beauty of Jim is that he is all too human. I’ve seen him toil and sweat and, in the middle of the night, ask himself, “What do I do here? What do I do there?” That’s the beauty and power of it: Jim is human but he demands more of himself than anyone else.
Why enthrone the myth of the perfect, infallible superhuman if it’s always more beautiful to know that the humanity that creates beauty is the same fallible species that can create horror or misery? Bach, when explaining his genius, used to modestly say that he just worked harder and that all you have to do is press the pedals on the keyboard and the notes play themselves. Here you have one of the greatest geniuses ever and yet this was a guy that had personal flaws of one kind or another and who created in the face of self-doubt and adversity.
I always say it’s more interesting to think that the pyramids were built not by aliens but by people. People go, “Oh, they’re extraordinary things. They were built by aliens.” No, the extraordinary thing is that they were built by people. Normal people.
When people say that cinema is life, I say, “Impossible.” Any cinema that strives to be realistic, in my opinion, is going to be confused with a theater play. But any cinema that attempts to be truthful is not afraid of assuming that it is not life. It’s an impossible endeavor.
For del Toro, the notebooks are a place where he can record and develop ideas to use in his filmmaking endeavors. Frequently, they change over time.
Like René Magritte used to say, “The vocation of art is mystery.” That’s why one of the quintessential beauties of cinema is the spilled cup coming back to the hand by running film in reverse. I don’t care how many years go by, that’s pure magic. Why? Why is it so great?
MSZ: Because it’s impossible.
GDT: Because it’s impossible. In the same way, what the eye of the camera can see is so much more powerful than what the human eye can see. Think about this: We have such a fascination with slow motion. It’s primal. It doesn’t matter—it never goes out of style if you use it right. There are programs on the Discovery Channel that are dedicated to making you drool at a balloon being perforated by a bullet. Because you’re trying to stop time; you are trying to stop life.
I think cinema resonates with a piece of our brain that is way, way in the back. Because the way you watch a movie is not the way we watch life. When you go to a mall, yes, you’re absorbing, subliminally, Drink Coke, and Buy this, and Buy that. But cinema is different because when you go to a theater, it’s like you are going to church. You sit in a pew, and you look at an altar, and the reception is completely different.
Here, an image of a man shaving with a straight razor first drafted for the unmade Meat Market was realized in different ways in both Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II.
MSZ: You often present screenings of movies and give talks on the nature of film. Does participating in these events help nurture you as an artist?
GDT: Oh, yes. If you dedicate yourself only to the business of film, your soul dies. I have come to the tragic conclusion that you have to be a mediocre businessman in order to be a good artist. I’d rather not make as much money and be at peace with my decisions and be free and not dependent on a big apparatus.
I think it’s really important to do things that make you no money, that give you no apparent benefit except they renew your little love affair with cinema. Seeing those movies with an audience is great. I mean, I introduced one of the movies I produced at the LA Film Festival, and I said, “This is as close as it gets to me taking you out for cookies and milk like Andy Kaufman.”
MSZ: What about producing? I’ve noticed you’ve taken a lot of young filmmakers under your wing. What do you look for?
GDT: When I look at short films, and I look at a lot of them, I don’t bother with the originality. Originality is one virtue that, without context, means nothing to me. Originality in context is valuable, but I think that, when you’re learning to write, you always follow an example. Like learning to write cursive. All the short films by kids, or young adults, whatever, I think they are like cursive. They need to imitate somebody.
Alfonso Cuarón and I, until we were in our twenties, every time we shot a piece of fiction, we would say, “I’m going to try this.” Like, I remember we were doing a TV series, and I had seen Scorcese’s Life Lessons with Nick Nolte [in the film New York Stories]. And it’s not that I had any rhyme or reason, but I said, “I’m going do a sequence with those chain dissolves he does so beautifully. I want to learn them!” That became the sole reason why I did that TV episode.
IN THE LATE EIGHTIES, I had just directed my first gig for a television show called La Hora Marcada, a Mexican anthology series of horror stories modeled on The Twilight Zone.
I was waiting in the production office to have a meeting with the producer. I had just finished making a very loose adaptation of a Stephen King short story. Everybody had praised it, and I felt proud. I had painstakingly storyboarded it, and even though I was aware of its shortcomings, I felt it was better than the norm.
Across the waiting room there was this guy sitting on a sofa looking at me with a mix of curiosity and mischief. I immediately knew who he was, since I had heard so much about him. He was the special effects makeup artist from Guadalajara who had studied with Dick Smith; he had worked on designing corpses, mutilated hands, and bullet wounds for a couple of people I knew working in film. He loved his work and was always ready to lend a hand to a production in need. Everybody described him as smart, funny, and very, very strange.
Now he was smiling at me from across the waiting room.
“You’re Alfonso, right?”
“Yeah . . . ? You’re Guillermo?”
“Yup. You directed that episode based on the Stephen King short story.”
“Yeah, you know it?”
“It’s a great story.”
And so we went on to praise King and embarked on one of the first of many lengthy conversations we were to have about literature, film, and art. We became excited—it was immediately clear that we shared the same eclectic taste, that we spoke the same language. Suddenly, out of the blue, he asked: “If the Stephen King story is so great, why did your episode suck so much?”
There was no malice in his statement, just an honest opinion. I burst out laughing. When I could finally speak again, I asked, “Why do you think that?” And he went on to explain, in a very eloquent and well-informed way, what he thought was wrong with my show. And he was right.
That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, one which has provided insights into my work and life that have become invaluable.
A drawing in the Blue Notebook, Page 141 of Sagrario–the Count’s friend from The Left Hand of Darkness, del Toro’s adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Guillermo went on to direct episodes for the same TV show, and he did the prosthetics for my episodes. We were certain that we were doing amazing stuff. One day he discussed an idea he had for an episode. It was the story of a little girl living with her abusive alcoholic father and the child-eating ogre that was haunting her. He said that he wanted to design the ogre and that he would be too busy working on the prosthetics to direct, so he asked me to do so instead. I agreed, and Guillermo cast himself as the ogre, enduring his own prosthetics. We were very self-congratulatory about the end result, which everybody else also praised. We thought we’d achieved greatness.
Several years ago, Guillermo re-watched the episodes we directed for La Horn Marcada and later told me over dinner, in words that can’t be printed, how awful they all were—both his and mine. Once again, I’m sure he was right.
At that same dinner, he went on to tell me about an idea he’d had for his next film. It was a story very similar to the one he’d told me about many years before, with a little girl and a child-eating ogre. He went on to make that film, which he called Pan’s Labyrinth.
I think that when people ask me about the notebooks and why I use them, it’s because they are a record of those sorts of ideas. You can see where it started, but then it bounces to another idea, and then a third one comes up, and page by page you see an evolution.
MSZ: I came upon a note in the notebooks where you talk about the way you have to work with an actor to remove aspects of their initial performance in order to get it right. Comparatively, when you have an abundance of ideas, I imagine deciding which ones not to use is just as important as committing to some of them.
GDT: What you subtract is very important, as is what you leave in. For example, the mistake most people make when designing a monster is they literally put in everything they can think of that is scary. It’s like Homer Simpson designing a car in that Simpsons episode. “I want a giant cup holder, and I want a bubble where I can see 360!” And the car that comes out is horrible because it has everything he wants.
With an actor, it’s the same thing. You let the actor act first; you don’t give him much direction. I like the first or second take to be his. And you observe. A director is not dictating, he is observing. I think the best job you can do at directing can be achieved in ten words or less. You have to give the actor something to do—or something to not do—that’s very specific. “Don’t do that,” or “Do this.” That’s great direction.
But you always have to ask, “Why?” Always try to think about the opposite of your instinct. In between, you’ll find the direction for everything. Color, light, monsters, acting. The first instinct, and then the complete opposite instinct, and then you decide, “I’ll go with this.”
MSZ: At what point does one develop the courage to speak with one’s own voice?
GDT: Well, I think you need to be blind, a little bit. I mean, I think you need to be willfully ignorant.
For example, I had the opportunity to direct many times before Cronos. They would offer me—because they knew I shot TV—little exploitation movies to do, in the horror genre and all that. Alfonso Cuarón and I always had each other to persuade the other not to do that. Alfonso used to say, “Don’t do that. Wait. Do your own thing.” And vice versa, because Alfonso was a very famous first AD [assistant director] in Mexico and a very good director of TV. They offered him a lot of crap, and we were very good friends with an exploitation producer who was adored in Mexico.
I think it’s important that, when you make your choices, you always make them by instinct at the end of the day, and that you fuck up sometimes. I recently made a mistake, but I’ve got to go with it. Whatever happens, that’s my decision, you know?
MSZ: You don’t always succeed, but the goal is to find your truth.
GDT: That’s right; you don’t always succeed. But very often you find people that guide you. You’ve got to recognize that they are wiser in certain ways than you. They become teachers, or partners, or whatever. There are very smart people that are fiercely alone, and I admire them. But I don’t want to be them.
MSZ: There is also that interesting tension between a filmmaker and his or her audience where, to a certain extent, you have to give them what they want, but to really be an artist, you have to go beyond that in service of your vision.
GDT: I believe very much in screening for friends, really harsh friends, or screening for an audience but not asking them anything. Because you see how they react, you see what they like, you see what they don’t like. But I don’t believe in asking about their opinions afterward. You don’t have that relationship with any other art. You don’t say to Robert Louis Stevenson, “I don’t like Dr. Jekyll dying at the end. I think you should kill Hyde and go into the sunset with the girl.” I think it’s a very corrupt exercise.
But I also think that critics are a genuine part of the art. As long as there has been art, there have been critics in some form or another. What I think is not genuine is to make the creation of art an open process.
MSZ: There’s a great line you wrote in the notebooks: “A critic is a man of whom you ask guidance, who instead offers you an opinion.”
GDT: In the process of creation, the one thing you’ve got to remember always is that if you ask for an opinion, no matter from whom, you’ll get one. So you’ve got to be very careful to be inclusive, but not to be so inclusive that you start listening to seventy-five versions of the same story. There’s always a different way of telling a story.
Del Toro with his life-size sculpture of Sammael from Hellboy at Bleak House. For del Toro, the secret to designing a good movie monster is knowing what to leave out.
So, as a storyteller, one thing you want to say is, “I’m locking into this track until I’m proven wrong.” Or, “Life is a labyrinth and death is the only way out: the solution.” A labyrinth is a transit. You turn, and turn, and turn, and turn, but you will reach the center. In a maze, you get lost. A labyrinth is an instrument of meditation, and it is supposed to be a spiritual journey.
MSZ: And then you also write, “Criticism gives one the illusion of participating in the act of creation by way of an autopsy. The act is there and it exists and moves and challenges you while criticism fights to approve and validate.”
GDT: I feel that way. I was a critic for many years in Mexico and Guadalajara. Amateur, but I was on TV and radio. I think that the only times I felt really useful were when I was helping people understand a work of art.
It’s very easy to feel oneself smarter than the work you’re analyzing, as if that made you better than the work. But the moments where you’re really, really helping are so much more rewarding. The way we were raised in film school, they said, “A critic needs to show you where the work is, what the work’s intentions are, how the work fails to deliver on those intentions; to put it in context.” It’s not an opinion; it’s a construction. And when you read, really, the pillars of criticism, you see real analysis.
I mean, I think some critics are very happy to be critics. And blogs should, in theory, give people the freedom to review only stuff they like or that they want to talk about. So, ideally, today critics could claim a smaller stake and say, “We want to talk only about movies we feel passionate about, one way or the other, and take the time to analyze them.”
BLUE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 84
Reflections on the nature of ancient Greek drama in one of del Toro’s early notebooks. Del Toro often writes in his notebooks using a mixture of Spanish and English. Translations of the Spanish-language text and transpositions of the English-language text have been rendered in the margins of the notebook pages reproduced throughout this book.
* A monster that kills with a hull’s horn.
* S/M when they manifest their powers, use effect with wind tunnel MERCEDES.
* We shut ourselves down, we face the best & the worst alone, how to react? Our needs are emotional not social. The Greeks were the opposite. The Greeks thought passion to he a dangerous thing.
Agamemnon returns to Argos (from Troy)
he sacrificed his daughter
Clytemnestra will kill him because of it
“In every FAMILY there is a struggle.”
Need to liberate—Need to belong. (to identify)
Greek drama: “It wasn’t personal or artistic, it was ethical, religious.”
Tragedy shows the conditions necessary for catastrophe.
Clash of differing systems of thought: the raw material of tragedy.
The actors didn’t matter—MASKS.
It provides the rational response to drama.
Tragedy is tolerated only by a cohesive society.
This not just as a genre hut as an event. With the Greeks, the state didn’t guarantee citizenship hut rather one’s status as a human being.
SHOCK doesn’t matter, only its consequences.